Migration in Dialogue: Yang Jiechang
Yang Jiechang in his studio at the Guangzhou Fine Arts Academy 1986. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Yang Jiechang (b. 1956, China) is a Paris-based visual artist. Trained in calligraphy and painting, he was chosen to participate in Magiciens de la Terre, shown at the Centre Pompidou in 1989, where he presented 100 Layers of Ink, the result of applying ink to Xuan paper, day after day, until the paper was completely saturated. Since then, he has explored a variety of media, including ceramics, installations, sculpture, and video. As a part of the Migration in Dialogue series, Yang looks back on how he moved from Foshan in south China to France in the 1980s and speaks about his concept of home, identity, and belonging.
Lavender Au: Can you tell me about where you grew up?
Yang Jiechang: I was born in Foshan in winter. I remember, when I was very little, what disturbed me already then was that things everywhere around me were being demolished. Because my father was a Communist Party cadre, he was allocated a beautifully decorated house in the center of Foshan, which once belonged to Li Wentian, a Qing dynasty official. We lived there, along with several other households. My first memory is that of the crashing sounds made by people taking down the wooden figures of gods and buddhas decorating the entranceway.
Someone gave me a gold Ruyi scepter (a decorative instrument often held in the hand of Buddhas) to play with. After that, I was entranced by black lacquer and gold. My grandfather came from the countryside to take care of me. When I turned three, he had me take up a writing brush. He told me that as a person, if I could learn how to handle three sticks of bamboo, I could travel the world. The writing brush was one. The other two were chopsticks.
Yang Jiechang, Massacre, 1982. Ink and mineral colors on paper, 330 x 320 cm. Photo by Marc Domage.
LA: How did you end up studying painting?
YJ: I graduated from high school in 1973. At that time, high school graduates were either sent to the mountains or the countryside. Many people were unemployed, and I waited for a long time before I was assigned a job. I was supposed to go to a small factory that made chalkboard erasers, but my father thought it wouldn’t be good for me. He pulled some connections to get me into the Foshan Folk Art Research Institute, given its name by the writer Guo Moruo. I became an apprentice, learning traditional culture. This unit had the best artists in the entire Foshan area, in calligraphy, painting, mounting, jade carving, and paper cutting. I was assigned to the Chinese painting group.
LA: So was it at that time that you decided to become an artist?
YJ: I hadn't decided at that point. When I took the college entrance exam in 1978, I was admitted to the Chinese Painting Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. I began to learn Western painting methods. They actually used the Soviet method to teach us, and we drew a lot of sketches. After I graduated from college, the school kept me as an assistant teacher.
In the 1980s, many Western philosophies and ideas entered China. We were hungry at that time, not in the stomach but in the mind. Yet, I felt I needed some quiet and looked for religious masters to guide me. From 1984 on, my painting began to change; I discarded realism and began to experiment freely with ink and brush.
LA: How did you end up moving to France?
YJ: In 1987, the former director of the Centre Pompidou, Jean-Hubert Martin, was preparing the exhibition Magiciens de la Terre, which was to open in 1989. He met the curator Fei Dawei in 1986, who brought him slides about the so-called '85 New Wave in China, with information about the artists and their works. Martin decided to visit China. He didn’t plan to come to Guangzhou at first—he visited Beijing, Hangzhou, and Xiamen. But then Martin met Hou Hanru, who showed him some of my work, and he decided to visit me in Guangzhou. In the end, he chose three artists: Gu Dexin, Huang Yongping, and me. Later, he told me that after visiting over a hundred studios, I was the only one working in a contemporary direction on the basis of tradition.
LA: Was it difficult to get a passport at that time?
YJ: I had an invitation letter from the French Ministry of Culture, and another from the French embassy in Beijing. I applied for a passport approved by the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Yet, they turned me down, as according to policy, I did not fit into an official cultural exchange program. Since I was a teacher, I also needed approval from the Higher Education Bureau of Guangdong Province and China’s Ministry of Culture. However, the government was also encouraging people to study abroad. My girlfriend, Martina [curator Martina Köppel-Yang], helped me apply to study German in Heidelberg, Germany.
Yang Jiechang, Hundred Layers of Ink, 1989. Ink on Xuan paper, set of 4, each ca. 400 x 250 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist. Exhibited at Magiciens de la terre, Centre Georges Pompidou.
LA: So you got a student visa?
YJ: Yes. I went to Germany first, then applied for a visa to France from there. I left through Shenzhen and flew from Hong Kong. My works, selected by the director, were confiscated at the border. Even when I showed the officers the exhibition invitation, they said I needed approval from China’s Ministry of Culture and told me I could collect my works upon my return.
I arrived in Europe only with several brushes. My girlfriend was studying at the University of Heidelberg, so I often went to the library. I read many books that I hadn’t seen in China, from Japan and Taiwan. I began to make some sketches. I didn’t have any ink, so I used different types of soy sauce. Many of my later works were created on the basis of these earlier sketches, like the Hundred Layers of Ink (1989–99) series.
LA: Weren’t your works seized? What did you end up showing in France?
YJC: I went to Paris to create on-site in April 1989. I asked for a lot of ink and rice paper. I painted every day for five or six weeks. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have to worry about material costs because the Centre Pompidou arranged whatever I wanted.
When I was setting up the exhibition, someone walked in and said, “The Chinese are finally coming.” It was Nam June Paik. Later, he told us that he had spent nine years translating Sima Qian’s Shiji written into German. He supported my application for a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant—he was one of my three referees. I received the grant in 1990, which helped me to continue focusing solely on my painting.
LA: How did you manage to stay in Europe?
YJ: My girlfriend and I decided to marry, and I received a German residence permit. Further, as a result of the Centre Pompidou exhibition, the Parisian gallery Jeanne Bucher Jaeger was interested in working with me. The gallery helped me obtain a French residence permit and found a studio in Paris for me. Therefore, on January 1st, 1990, I came back to Paris on a one-year work visa.
Yang Jiechang, My teachers, 1994. Ink on Xuan paper, each ca. 80 x 100 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.
LA: How would you define your identity?
YJ: I’ve moved between three places: Foshan, Heidelberg, and Paris. My impression of Foshan is still from 55 or 60 years ago. When I go back there, I don’t know which way is north. When I was born, there were only 50,000 people, and today there are 9 million.
I bought an old water mill near Heidelberg. When I saw this house for the first time, it reminded me of many things, childhood memories of going out to play in the yard when it rained, but also of the time I spent with Taoist priests in Mount Luofu. The house was old and needed a lot of restoration. My family was against it. But then my wife said, if you have a dream, I’ll help you realize it. I’ve restored the house over the last thirty years. It is still not finished, but it’s already very comfortable. I’ve formed a relationship and shared memories with this house, which is centuries old; we restore it, and in return, it nourishes us with its history.
My passport is German, but I’d still say I’m Cantonese. If you say you’re Chinese, it’s a very broad concept. I grew up with Cantonese language and culture, which is very specific. Every Chinese region is very distinct. I like something I heard Michael Lin say: “I’m Chinese, but always flying overseas.”
LA: You’ve spoken about this state of being mobile. Do you think this comes out through your work?
YJ: Most of my works are composed as if viewed from above, looking down; it’s a form of nomadism. But when you observe from the ground, you’re immersed in it. It’s like the Chinese saying, “drawing a prison on the ground to confine oneself” (画地为牢).
LA: Why do you think you paint from that angle?
YJ: I don't know why. Maybe I was a crow or a bird in the past? I believe people have a past and a future. I like animals, I like crows. What I mean is you can look at these things in a more open way. What I learned in four years at the academy, I spent the next forty years washing away.
As a painter using ink, I have greater freedom. Take up a brush, and you have no choice but to be free. Unlike with oil painting, the first brush stroke you put on the paper cannot be modified. The first stroke is final, it can’t be scratched away and laid down again. A second stroke, a third, a ten-thousandth have to follow, and within that, I found a rhythm that shaped the way I live.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
