Zhang Huan's "Three Legged Buddha" at Storm King Art Center

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

New York’s bucolic Storm King Art Center’s newest resident is a twelve-ton, 28-foot tall steel and copper sculpture by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. The artist, along with Pace Gallery, donated the 2007 Three Legged Buddha in honor of the sculpture park’s fiftieth anniversary.

The work resembles a Buddha, eyes closed, mid-back bend. The piece was installed on a grassy field alongside Magdalena Abakanowicz’ Sarcophagi in Glass Houses.

Zhang is a well-known Chinese artist initially known for his endurance performance pieces and photography, recently dabbling in large-scale sculpture. Most of the new sculpture relates to Buddhist culture, inspired by a Tibetan trip.

His 2008 large-scale outdoor work Three Heads Six Arms, on display in a San Francisco park until 2011, also portrays a contorted Buddha.

At the June Art Basel a 32-foot cowhide sculpture sold to Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for $1.8 million, according to reports.

Storm King is located an hour north of Manhattan, in New York’s Hudson Valley.  The park’s collection dates from 1945.

The 500-acre museum contains works by American and European modernist and contemporary sculptors such as David Smith, Alexander Calder, Richard Serra, Alice Aycock and Robert Grosvenor.

Zhang’s Buddha joins a roster of international artists, which includes Tomio Miki, Nam June Paik, and Tomonori Toyofuku.