Biography
Conceptual and performance artist Michael Zheng was born and grew up in China. He studied computer science at Tsinghua University in China and worked in Silicon Valley for ten years as a software designer. Later he left his job to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied with Paul Kos, Tony Labat and John Roloff. He also studied with Nari Ward and Patty Chang at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
His work shows traces of interventionist thinking studying cultural, social and personal dependency on institutional and existential levels. Using a conceptual approach infused with sincerity, absurdity and humor, he creates situations, questioning the established positions so that new perspectives can be experienced. His works are characterized by a performative nature and are often shown in the form of photographs, video and sculptural installations.
Michael has exhibited his work worldwide. His main exhibitions include:
- Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver, Canada
- The Profession, Marina Abramovic Institute, San Francisco
- The 9th Baltic Triennial of International Art, the ICA in London
- 55 Days of Chinese Art in Valencia, The Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Spain
- Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Maine, USA
- We Remember the Sun, Walter and McBean Galleries of San Francisco Art Institute
- imPOSSIBLE! San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, USA
- Southern Exposure, San Francisco
- Chirstmas Palm, Freies Museum, Berlin, Germany
- Broken Lines, Anna Klinkhammer Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Künstfilmtag, Künstlerverein Malkasten, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Vierwände Kunst, Düsseldorf, Germany
- ERNST Museum in Budapest, Hungary
- Multiple Realities, F2 Gallery in Beijing, China
- Reincarnation, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada
- Emerge 2006, GenArt, San Francisco
- As the Butterfly Said to Chuang Tzu, MISSION 17, San Francisco
- Close Calls, Headland Center for the Arts, San Francisco
- CREAM from the Top, Arts Benicia, USA
- Berkeley Art Center, USA
- MAGMA, Tenerife, Spain
- INPORT: International Video-Performance Festival, Tallinn, Estonia.
He received artist residencies from the prestigious MacDowell Colony in
New Hampshire in 2005 and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
in Maine in 2003. In 2005 and 2007 he was nominated for the SECA Award from
the San Francisco MOMA. He was acknowledged by the Artadia award in 2007. In 2008, he was nominated for the Bay Area Now 5 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He was nominated for the Eureka Fellowship by Fleishhacker Foundation in 2010. His intervention project with the Baltic Triennial
was selected as No.2 of the best art shows by the Pravda magazine in Lithuania,
2006.
His work have been reviewed in Sculpture Magazine, Yishu, Artweek, Shotgun Review,
San Francisco Chronicle, SF Weekly, The BayCitizen, Portland Phoenix, Neue Rheinische Zeitung and Rheinische
Post in Germany, Lietuvos Zinios and Lietuvos Rytas in Lithuania, and the
Artists Magazine in Taiwan, among others. His debut solo in San
Francisco, As the Butterfly Said to Chuang Tzu, won critical acclaim.