Family Tree

2001

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

With Family Tree, made less than two years after his move to New York, Zhang offered his face as a surface on which words, names, and stories connected to his cultural heritage are, literally, written. This performance piece is documented in nine photographs that record the gradual obscuring of Zhang’s face with inked words until it is completely blackened. Most words derive from the ancient Chinese art of physiognomy, which seeks to map personality traits and divine the future based on one’s facial features. But rather than elucidating Zhang’s character and fate, these traditional divinatory marks ultimately obscure his identity beneath a dense layer of culturally conditioned references.