Approaching the subject of Shanghai’s rapid urban development with a political lampoon Zhang Huan’s Donkey is a kinetic sculpture featuring a farm animal humping the famous Jin Mao tower, which until recently was the tallest building in China. Emblematic of the monotonous impersonal high-rises that dominate the city’s skyline, Zhang’s shrunken landmark pokes fun at the masculine connotations of skyscrapers: as monumental phallic symbols, visual symbols of power and wealth. Mounted by and bending under the force of a stuffed donkey, Zhang’s icon of modernisation gets a literal shafting from the beast of burden ‘proletariat’; in China, the word “donkey” is used to call someone an “ass”.
For more donkey photos visit Zhang Huan.