Zhang Xiaogang (b. 1958, Kunming, Yunnan) enrolled in 1978 in the Department of Oil Painting at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, from which he graduated in 1982. Zhang was an active experimental artist in the Southwest region of China in the 1980s, along with Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehai and Ye Yongqing. He has lived and worked in Beijing since 1999.

Since 2007, AAA and Zhang Xiaogang have been working together to organize and digitize Zhang’s personal collection of documentary materials. These materials include images of artworks, correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, exhibition material and published texts. These records, a selection of which is presented here, offer a comprehensive view of Zhang’s artistic development, starting in the 1970s.