Zhang Dali
Chinese graffiti artist (born 1963)
Zhang Dali (Chinese: 张大力, born 1963, in Harbin, China) is an artist based in Beijing.
Zhang trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Design, where he graduated in 1987. After his studies, he moved to Yuanmingyuan as a freelance artist (1987–1989) and started to show his works in independent exhibitions. He spent the years 1990–1995 in Italy, where he came into contact with graffiti art. He was the only graffiti artist in Beijing throughout the 1990s. His works cross a multitude of techniques including painting, sculpture, photography, and installations. In the four decades of his career his works were shown in more than 300 exhibitions all over the world.
Biography
From 1995 to 1998 he spray-painted over 2000 giant profiles of his own bald head on buildings throughout Beijing, placing the images alongside chāi (拆) characters painted by the city authorities to indicate that a building is scheduled for demolition. The appearance of these images became the subject of media debate in Beijing in 1998.
He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, International Center for Photography in New York City, Les Rencontres d'Arles festival in France (2010), 18Gallery in Shanghai, Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris, Courtyard Gallery in Beijing, Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, the 2006 Gwangju Biennale in Korea and Pékin Fine Arts in Beijing.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Zhang Dali” as chinese graffiti artist (born 1963). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as chinese graffiti artist (born 1963). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q978114. VIAF identifies the subject as 14323829. The Library of Congress control number is no00099481. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1987, 1989 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zhang Dali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.