Buddhism provides a link. In his previous works Zhang emulated the mental fortitude that monks seek by enduring extreme physical tests. The art, to many, seemed perplexing and subversive. He says his parents thought it “dangerous and that I was mad” and that for a long time they had no idea what he did. In 2014 a program about him that aired on the Discovery Channel in Asia was banned in China “because some people cannot accept it”.
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Zhang only rediscovered Buddhism as a full way of life when he moved back to Shanghai from New York in 2006 after eight years living in the US. Now it informs everything: from the tools he uses, including ash, to the subjects he sculpts. He sees his task to help promote president Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream”. Zhang insists: “We have to revive all our traditional ancestors’ culture and art.”
Savvy, and commercially viable, Zhang has ridden the wave of the Chinese art boom. (It has no signs of slowing down: he is designing a flagship store-cum-art gallery for a Chinese diamond company.) Embracing this side of things has inevitably led to a dulling of his edge. Zhang recently packed his teenage son off to a London boarding school with the advice: help others, study hard and “avoid traffic, sex, girlfriends and drugs”.
Back in Carriageworks, the disintegrating ash Buddha, surrounded by swirls of incense, is a reminder of Zhang’s own fluidity and fortune. “I always believed in the traditional Chinese doctrine: that you keep changing and this is the rule of the universe,” asserts the artist. “I feel I am so lucky to change from a mad man to a man with good food and a family man, to have my children. I feel that Buddhism has blessed me.”
Zhang is carefully weighing up how to spend his next 30 years – and how to stretch them out to feel like 300. One idea is to abandon art to become a monk; another is to spend 10 years doing 10 exhibitions in 10 of the world’s most important museums. Another is to become mayor. Because, as Zhang notes, there is a lot to do. While New York snoozes, “China never sleeps.”
• Sydney Buddha is at Carriageworks until 15 March. Sydney festival 2015 runs from 8 to 26 January at venues citywide. Find all Guardian Australia’s coverage here