Watch the artist Yahon Chang, curator Manu Park and multi-media artist Yu Jung Chen unpack the process and performance of A Thousand Moons on A Thousand Rivers
Yahon Chang Studio brings you closer to the practice and process of A Thousand Moons on A Thousand Rivers, a two-part live painting performance by Taiwanese artist Yahon Chang – filmed at the performances in October 2023 in London and Paris, curated by Manu Park, former Director of Nam June Paik Art Center.
A Thousands Moons on A Thousands Rivers is a collaborative project with emerging Taiwanese multi-media artist Yu-Jung Chen and is the latest in a new series of Chang’s live painting performances that have taken place in Asia (Taipei and Seoul) and Europe (Berlin, London and Paris) in 2023. The London performance took place at A.I. Gallery in collaboration with Outset Contemporary Art Fund in London’s Spitalfields at Tracey Emin’s former studio, in celebration of 20 years of Outset; Chang’s Paris performance took place at Asia NOW at La Monnaie as part of their special VIP and performance programme.
Named after the omnipresent nature of the symbolic Bodhisattva of compassion, known as the Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara (meaning: ‘the moon reflected in the water’), A Thousand Moons on A Thousand Rivers invites the audience to observe Chang paint a large-scale figurative artwork in Chinese ink, and is a rare opportunity to see the artist paint with stretch canvas in a vertical position as opposed to his usual horizonal large-scale canvas works on the floor. Using traditional Chinese brushes which he dips into buckets filled with dark, pigmented ink, Chang paints with gestural, physical movements that invite a sense of transcendence in the fluidity of space.
The two twenty-minute performances were accompanied by percussion played in deep water and the scraping of strings inside a piano, performed and recorded by Chen in direct response to the painting, and commissioned specifically for the event.
In his paintings, Yahon Chang brings together traditional Chinese ink-wash painting and Western forms of artistic expression to produce a synthesis of East and West. Typically standing on large sheets of linen cloth or xuan paper and wielding a brush almost as long as he is tall, Chang creates works imbued with performative energy characterized by large, sweeping brushstrokes. Drawing on Chinese literati, Zen (Chan) Buddhist traditions and Christian faith, the artist understands painting as an activity that connects body, mind and soul through the exploration of the relationship between calligraphy, Chinese literati, Zen philosophy, martial art, and spirituality. His entire body functions as an axis for these expressive paintings and is influenced by his training in calligraphy.
