Yahon Chang: Cursive

National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA)

18 January - 15 March 2020

OUR Museum (also known as Yo-Chang Art Museum in Chinese) at National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA) in Taipei honoured Taiwanese artist Yahon Chang – who studied at NTUA more than four decades ago – with a solo exhibition entitled Cursive. Coinciding with Taipei Dangdai international art fair, the exhibition featured works created during Performa 19, New York (2019), alongside new works created in Taipei.

The exhibition opened with a live performance on 18 January. Eight large-scale vertical silk drapes painted in Performa 19 represented the geometric strength of Bauhaus architecture. Chang contrasted their linear simplicity with his fluid and spontaneous brushstrokes, dictated by tai-chi movements. The result was a deliberate, harmonic clash of East and West, echoing essential theories of Tai Chi, “overcoming hardness with softness” and “combining hardness with softness.”