Some of Zhang Dali (张大力)'s work

Zhang Dali is probably the most famous Chinese street artist. He is based in Beijing, and a significative part of his art can be seen in Beijing art zones.

His art mixes graffiti and photography. These pictures show samples of recurrent signs in his work: the profile and the AK47 tag. The undisputable success of Zhang Dali is definitely a symptom of the disquiet of most Chinese in front of the progressive demolition of old cities. Despite of that, I am not convinced that Zhang Dali's work is that unique and original. But it is a fact that China still hosts very few real graffiti artists and that resistance against the systematic "chai" of old cities is legitimate.