On May 20, Emmanuel Lenain, the Consul General of France in Shanghai, awarded the Chévalier de la Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honor) to the Chinese artist Zhang Huan. This recognizes his outstanding contributions in Chinese culture and in promoting the cultural exchange between China and France.

Furthermore, his 2009 production of Handel’s opera Semele, in which he incorporated a large number of Chinese “traditional elements”, is currently touring the globe (the Chinese début was held at the Poly Theatre in 2010). In spring 2015, it will be performed at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Zhang Huan was once an avant-garde artist who resisted the official system of art in China through bodily means; at the same time, he is also one of the most prominent contemporary artists who has been most successful in cooperating with the establishment in both China and abroad. Zhang Huan does not merely represent a shift on an individual level, but signifies how the “avant-garde” of the day has re-adjusted its calculus along with the tumultuous changes of the times. The tale of Zhang Huan tells us that a wise man submits to circumstances: when one steps into the high-end theaters or else see Zhang Huan’s great works about “traditional culture” in extravagant museums, one can scarcely imagine that Zhang Huan was also once the radical artist who crawled on ice (“New York Fengshui”, 1998), hung himself from a cross beam (“65 kg”, 1994), and soaked himself in a pond (“To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond”, 1997).

Emmanuel Lenain, the Consul General of France in Shanghai, awarded the Chévalier de la Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honor) to the Chinese artist Zhang Huan
张洹接受由法国政府颁发的“法国荣誉勋位勋章”

Zhang Huan, “Semele”, 2009
张洹，《塞魅丽》，2009

Zhang Huan, “65 kg”, 1994
张洹，《65KG》，1994年6月，表演，中国北京

Zhang Huan, “To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond”, 1997
张洹，《为鱼塘增高水位》，1997年，中国北京

Zhang Huan, “New York Fengshui”, 1998
张洹，《朝拜—纽约风水》，1998年，表演，纽约P.S.1美术馆，美国