Untitled

Zhang Kaitong (b. 1991, Cangzhou, China) received his formal training at the Kunsthochschule Kassel in Germany. Currently, he divides his time between Berlin, Athens, and Beijing. His practice often involves appropriating imagery from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, particularly scenes of psychological intensity, such as war, destruction, and punishment, as the basis for his painting experiments. Zhang employs a set of visual strategies intended to drain these once-powerful imageries of their emotional charge. His goal is to “reach a state of zero,” where strong emotions are muted and neutralized.

When viewer walk around in front of the painting, they can also see different effect of the reflective silver colour flag and metallic weapons. The information for this image comes from the “The Counterattack of Michelotto da Cotignola at the Battle of San Romano (c. 1455), wood panel, 182 × 317 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris”. All the characters have been removed, leaving only the objects in people's hands. Thus shifting to a state of emotional processing of oneself, personal memories and historical records are derived from the passage of time. The formation of history and the formation of the individual are equivalent, both recording the events in the passage of time and thus deducing a state of constant renewal. The frozen state of an object in mid-air may dissolve the passage of time to find the eternal end after the surface emotion.