LOT DETAILS

Materials:

Mixed media and paper mounted on gauze

Measurements:

87.01 in. (221.00 cm.) (height) by 47.05 in. (119.50 cm.) (width)

Markings:

Signed in Chinese and English, dated on bottom left

Provenance:

PROVENANCEPrivate collection, EuropeHundreds Layers of InkYang Jiechang was enrolled in the Chinese Painting Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1978. After the in-depth learning of Chinese art history and art theory, he incorporated conceptual techniques into his contemporary art creation. For him, the greatness of calligraphy is that it is really a form of daily art. He thinks that ink paintings and calligraphy should be innovated to adapt to the contemporary world. He started the creation of abstract ink, and abandoned images to express the inherent quality of ink, early before his departure to France in 1989. In the 1989 exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Yang took on “site specific creation” for the first time by creating the work “Hundreds Layers of Ink”. He applied ink on the paper repeatedly, to form an indescribable black relief. Layers of ink produce natural creases as the time passes and water vaporizes, until the fibrous surface hardened into the dense texture. Yang returned the work to the most basic elements： xuan paper, water, ink and his actions. The deconstruction by refocusing on originality fully shows the artist’s deep understanding and expression of the relation between the old and the novel, heritage and innovation, tradition and contemporary.The work Hundreds Layers of Ink included in the auction sale is among the artist’s early creation, presenting two kinds of paradoxical textures of ink. In the dark background, the middle of the painting has been applied dozens of times with ink, which produces a solid rectangular with the metallic sheen. Apart from the dark geometric shape spanning across the painting, the hook shaped strokes intersecting in the middle of the ink block, similar as the calligraphy strokes of vertical line and flick-up. Layers of ink overlap, supplemented with cross-shaped lines, render the three dimensional effect as a relief, produce a potential quality of a statue. With its magnificence, the work embodies the artist’s classic interpretation of his own work.