Brush And Heart: Interview With Yang Jiechang
By Clara Tang
As one of the first contemporary Chinese artists exhibiting in Europe, Guangdong-born Yang Jiechang made his debut at the Paris exhibition “Magiciens de la Terre” in 1989 alongside the esteemed Chinese sculptor Huang Yong Ping and the late video artist Nam June Paik (1932–2006). It was in “Magiciens” where Yang gained recognition for his “100 Layers of Ink” series (1991–98), where he applied black ink every day onto xuan paper to ultimately create a textured field of saturated black color. Yang has since moved on to other media, including video and sculpture, and has also become an itinerant artist who moves between Paris and Heidelberg, Germany. On the occasion of his recent major solo shows—“Yang Jiechang: Good Morning Hong Kong” and “Early Works By Yang Jiechang: 100 Layers of Ink,” at Hong Kong Central Library Exhibition Gallery and Alisan Fine Arts, respectively, which collectively surveyed his last three decades of work—the artist sat down with ArtAsiaPacific to reminisce about the early years of his artistic career, his academic education and his outlook on what “contemporary” means today.
