This folder contains photos and documents on Yang Zhichao’s major works during different stages, including ink paintings and sketches made during his school years in the early 1980s, documents of twenty-one performances realised between 1989 and 2011, and a small number of Yang’s illustration works.

Also included are selected photographs that document Yang’s family, travels, and art activities dating from the 1970s to 2012, and a small batch of magazine and newspaper clippings Yang preserved from the 1980s, which the artist said had inspired his art.

For textual descriptions of Yang’s performance in the 1990s, such as Love Stories (1996), Jiayu Pass (1999), and Within the Fourth Ring Road (1999), or Yang’s writings on performance art, please see Document 3 [REF.WWG], Yang Zhichao Works 1999-2008 [MON.YZC], Foam (No. 4, December 2001) [ZIN.FLS], and Li Xianting Archive at Asia Art Archive, as these materials are not included in this collection. The majority of Yang’s illustrations are also not included in this collection, but can be found in Yang’s monograph, The Northern Travels of Kongbu, Dingzi.

Yang Zhichao was born in 1963 in Yumen city, and grew up in Jiayuguan of Gansu Province. From 1982 to 1986, Yang studied at the Department of Fine Arts at Northwest Normal University. After graduation, Yang worked as an art teacher at a middle school, and actively experimented with various art forms. In 1987, he co-initiated Rolling on Canvas with Zhang Xiangming. He was a member of the Lanzhou Artist Army group and participated in Funeral (1992–93). In the 1990s, Yang carried out several durational performances in Gansu and Beijing, including Professional Nurse (Lanzhou, 1995–96), Walking Within the 4th Ring Road (Beijing, 1999), and Jiayu Pass (Jiayuguan, Gansu, 1999–2000). From 2000 to 2008, Yang carried out a series of extreme performances, including Iron (2000), Planting Grass (2000), Pub (2003), and the Revelation Series (2004–7), to name a few. Since 2009, his enduring project and installation Chinese Bible has been exhibited globally. Yang won the China Contemporary Art Awards prize in 2002.