Recognized for his mastery of traditional Chinese arts, Yang Jiechang shines in a multitude of media: paintings, graphic arts, installations, videos, performances or sculptures. His art is steeped in traditional Chinese calligraphy, aesthetics and thought, which are embedded in a contemporary context.
Presented in the rotunda on the 4th floor, the work Tale of the 11th Day (2011) is an 18-metre-long silk painting mounted on canvas, accompanied by a set of eleven porcelain vases, the result of a collaboration between four years with the Manufacture de Sèvres. Tale of the 11th Day is a reference to Boccaccio's Decameron (1348-1353). Imagining the 11th day, the artist represents a primordial landscape drawn according to the classic models of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368).
Yang Jiechang's style is austere, pure and universal. It shows an allegorical vision of the masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance where animals and humans discover and mate: a Paradise where all divisions – religious, ethnic, ideological or political – are erased. Tale of the 11th Day is the utopia of a globalized world naturally based on equality, respect, love and compassion. However, Yang Jiechang's sensual paradise is painted at a time marked by armed conflicts and contemporary crises.
The installation reminds us that the harmony of relations remains based on power relations, an unstable balance that is constantly redefined.
A tour made up of other works by the artist, selected by Martina Köppel-Yang, is offered in the Chinese galleries on the 1st floor, around the theme of the contemporary scholar.
Yang Jiechang (born in 1956 in Foshan, China), graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Guangzhou (Canton), where he in turn taught for a few years before leaving for Europe in 1988. Since then, the he artist lives and works between Paris and Heidelberg, and has participated in numerous exhibitions and biennials around the world. He has been represented by the Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger in Paris since 1989.
Curators:
Sophie Makariou, president of the MNAAG, general curator
Martina Köppel-Yang, art historian, associate curator
Claire Bettinelli, production manager for contemporary exhibitions and collections