Guanqaio ZHANG
Guanqiao Zhang is an artist born in Beijing, China, in 1995. He graduated from the École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges and lives and works in Paris. His practice spans sculpture, painting, and installation, exploring how structures, images, materials, and memory continue to transform after losing their original functions.
His work examines the tensions between urban order, natural processes, and bodily perception, as well as the forces that emerge from these interactions: processes of formation, disappearance, and sedimentation into traces. He approaches the degradation, rupture, and regeneration of structures as a process of ruination. Rather than treating ruins as images, he investigates how forms, after being fractured, disappearing, or losing their function, enter into new relationships, are reconfigured across different media, and generate new visual structures. Fragmented images, abandoned objects, natural materials, and other pre-existing elements are conceived in his work as residual structures. They retain traces of time, erosion, and environmental forces. They point to systems that have lost their original functions while remaining open to further growth, mutation, and recomposition.
Selected Exhibitions
2026
Le Repaire, Écho d’un lieu — Écho parallèle, end-of-residency presentation, Le Repaire, Brandonnet, France, 9 July – 12 September 2026.
Laissez Verdure, group exhibition, Galerie La Box, Bourges, France, 26 June – 15 November 2026.
Dédalismes, two-person exhibition with Noé Balthazard, L’Épicentre, Bourges, France, 24–30 June 2026.
Le vide entre nous, group exhibition, Château d’eau – Château d’art, Bourges, France, 6–29 March 2026.
CAPTCHA, as part of Exposer la peinture, Plateau 1, École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges, Bourges, France, 21–23 January 2026.
2025
Le Petit Truc, group exhibition, Espace Galerie Pianissimo, Bourges, France, 7–11 November 2025.
Maîtriser la lumière — L’Âme galopante, exhibition, Carré à la Farine, Versailles, France, 7–13 July 2025.
Échos, group exhibition, Château d’eau – Château d’art, Bourges, France, 8–30 March 2025.
2022
2nd China Digital Art Fair, Hall 11, Western China International Expo City, Chengdu, China, 17–25 December 2022.
The Land of the Living — Young Sculptors Invitational Exhibition, Lanjing Art Center, Langyuan VINTAGE, Beijing, China, 14–24 August 2022.
Online Graduation Exhibition, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, online, 13 June 2022.
Objects of an Era — 2020s: The Metaverse, Contemporary Art Exhibition, Art100, China, 6 July 2022.
Ode to the Tiger, Huaxia Auspicious Zodiac Art Invitational Exhibition, Year of the Water Tiger, 2022.
2021
New World: First Contemporary Art Invitational Exhibition, 11 September 2021, China.
Reconstruction · Transcendence — The 4th China Contemporary Abstract Sculpture Exhibition, Qingdao Sculpture Art Museum, Qingdao, China, 11 July – 8 August 2021.
2019
Bauhaus and the Art of Living, Bauhaus Caravan China Tour, Chaoyang Joy City, Beijing, China, 10 July–11 August 2019.
New Languages, New Territories — 6th National Biennial Exhibition of Outstanding Public Visual Works, China Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 20 December 2019.
Zeng Zhushao Sculpture Scholarship — Award-Winning and Shortlisted Works Exhibition, China Sculpture Museum, Datong, China, 21 September – 21 October 2019.
Undergraduate Graduation Exhibition, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China, 6–27 June 2019.
Special Projects
2026
Notre Feu, collective performance as part of Isabelle Ferreira’s exhibition, MAAT, Lisbon, Portugal, February 2026.
2024
Leap, sculpture, Public Art Project installed at Huawei Lianqiuhu R&D Center, Qingpu District, Shanghai, China, 2024.
2020
Participant, Art in Wilderness, public art project led by DONG Shubing, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, October–December 2020.
Military Dance in Flight, Public Art Project installed at Yuhetian Sports Park, Shihezi, Xinjiang, China, July 2020.
Participant, Huawei Art and Science Commemorative Sculpture Project, 2020.
2018
Exploration, installation created for the 10th anniversary of the Art Association, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 2018.
Editions
Guanqiao ZHANG, Critical State: The Landscape Shaped by Urban Ruins, Master’s thesis, ENSA Bourges, 2026.
Boat in the Sand Sea, included in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Art, China International Publishing House, 2023.
The Overlooked Sculptural Genius: Picasso, article published in Artist journal (CN 12-1035/J; ISSN 1004-1206), 2021.
Residencies & Awards
Residencie LE REPAIRE, Le Repaire, 22 route de la Garrigue, 12350 Brandonnet, France, 9 July - 12 September, 2026.
DS Global Digital Art Award, Cross-Strait Competition, 2022.
Finalist, 14th Wang Ziyun Art Prize, 2022.
Top 10 Award, 2nd China Digital Art Exhibition, Chengdu, China, 2022.
First Prize, 8th National Art and Design Competition, “Prix des Académies”, 2022.
“Prix des Académies”, Global Digital Sculpture Competition (GDSC), 2021.
Education & Degrees
Master’s Degree at École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges (ENSA Bourges), France.
Master’s Degree at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, China.
Bachelor’s Degree at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, China.