One of the foremost artists in China's new wave, Zhang Huan creates personal and politicised work that encompasses performance art, photography, painting, installation and sculpture. Zhang Huan (Phaidon, GBP24.95), is a monograph assessing the impact of his explorations of identity, transgression and spirituality. It takes in his early, often extreme, performance art in China and New York - My New York (pictured), for the 2002 Whitney Biennial, saw him donning a suit sewn from raw beef, imitating the bodybuilders he had seen who tried to adopt an appearance of strength to hide their real weakness and unease - and takes us up to his laboriously created, deeply affected ash paintings and sculptures, created with incense ash collected from Shanghai temples. Metro, 10 June, 2009