i saw these pieces advertised at the chinese contemporary art gallery in new york, and was absolutely terrified/riveted/awakened. the figures are so strong, the statement is so bold, and the aesthetic is all white (which always seems to appeal to me. dunno why).
according to the website,
"For the migrant worker uncertainty is one of the key elements of their existence. Zhang Dali wanted to bring these people and their hard, bitter lives to the attention of others, and did so by creating head and body casts of volunteers from among these people... who are shown hanging upside down from ropes tied around their ankles. The imagery is shocking: hanging like carcasses of meat, in mid-air, in limbo. The artist uses the Chinese "dao xuan" to express being upside down in limbo without any inner strength to turn their bodies. These works capture the spirit, or lack thereof, of these workers. For Zhang Dali his sculptures are living taxonomy, a human version of insect samples ("biao ben") except the specimens are live people. It is a documentation of the species at a specific moment in history. In another time the bodies would be different. The material used for the body casts has a ghost like quality. Its dull whiteness is lifeless."
