Artwork Description

Title: Plaza 2
Artist: Zhang Dali (Chinese, b. 1963)
Date: 2013
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 60.2 x 58.7 in (153 x 149 cm)

Artwork Identification
Plaza 2 is a large-scale oil on canvas work by Zhang Dali, an internationally acclaimed artist and social commentator. With a square-leaning format and monumental presence, this piece belongs to his Plaza series—one of the key painterly bodies of work Zhang produced in the 2000s and early 2010s. This series marked a significant evolution in his visual language, moving from street art and conceptual performance into large-format, contemplative canvases, while still addressing themes of urban space, public life, and the individual's role within it.

Artistic Style and Influences
Executed in oil with a subdued, meditative palette, Plaza 2 likely embodies Zhang’s continued investigation into collective memory, urbanization, and post-socialist visual culture. The Plaza paintings often present ambiguously populated or depopulated architectural environments, rendered with a near-surreal stillness. While he began as a provocateur in graffiti, Zhang’s painterly works demonstrate an increasing sensitivity to form and light, recalling the spatial metaphysics of Giorgio de Chirico as much as the documentary eye of Chinese realist painting.

Historical Context
By the time Plaza 2 was created, Zhang Dali had already established a global reputation as a pioneering voice in Chinese contemporary art. Works in this series reflect his deepening engagement with the aesthetics of silence, structure, and observation in a rapidly transforming society. The plaza—a site of gathering, protest, authority, and surveillance—becomes a metaphorical arena. In Plaza 2, this dynamic may be subtly encoded in its composition and tonal choices, which evoke both stillness and latent social tension.

Provenance and Authenticity
Provenance documentation can be provided upon contact.

Condition and Conservation
This work is in excellent overall condition. The oil surface appears stable and well-preserved, with no visible signs of damage, restoration, or discoloration.

Artistic Significance
Plaza 2 exemplifies the maturity of Zhang Dali’s studio practice and his transition from activist urban interventions to more introspective, formally resolved visual statements. As a painter, Zhang successfully merges conceptual urgency with visual subtlety, and this canvas speaks to his capacity to embed political reflection within quiet, psychologically charged spaces. The Plaza works remain among his most refined and sought-after, offering collectors a compelling glimpse into the metaphysical and political dimensions of public space in contemporary China.