S.O.C. #1
2014
Etching
76.5 x 91cm
Yang Chihung (Chinese: 楊識宏; pinyin: Yang Chihung; born 1947) Taiwanese-American artist.
Yang Chi-hung was born on 25 October 1947, in Chungli, Taiwan. He developed an interest in art in early childhood, and found inspirations to pursue an artist career after reading Lust for Life – The Life of Vincent van Gogh, translated by poet Yu Kuang-chung, in junior high school. Between 1965 and 1968, he attended the National Taiwan College of Art, developing a sound foundation in oil painting under the tutelage of famous Taiwanese artists of the Japanese Colonial period, such as Liao Chi-chun, Li Mei-shu and Yang San-lang. Meanwhile, he actively attended events organized by the modern art groups of Taiwan, namely the Fifth Moon Group and Ton Fan Group, only to find himself both intimidated and dissatisfied with the then relatively conservative art environment in Taiwan. In 1979, he emigrated to the United States of America with his wife, Jane, and their son, Daniel. His pioneering works soon landed him the “Outstanding Asian-American Artist” award. The concept and style of abstract expressionism as represented by the works of Jackson Pollock in the 1950s had great impact on Yang’s work. With the sense of nihilism that gave rise to abstract expressionism in the post-war period, artists no longer clamored to depict the external environment, but rather chose to focus on their own inner experience. Yang Chihung embraced this spirit about the early 1990s when his style turned abstract. In 1984–85 and again in 1985–86, he was twice awarded a year's residency at The Clocktower Studio in New York City by MoMA P.S.1.
In 2013, Yang, along with Xu Bing, Zhang Huan, and Li Chen, were the four artists featured in the Discovery Channel Asia documentary series, Chineseness, a multi-series production that focused on postwar Chinese contemporary artists.
He is of the generation of artists such as Chen Tingshi, Liang Yifeng, Yang Yuyu, Pang Jiun, Yinhui Chen, Jui-Ling Hung, De-Jinn Shiy, Yong-ik Cho, Wan Chuan Chang, Kuosung Liu, Sanlang Yang, Chetsai Shen, Fu-sheng Ku, Chunxiang Zhao, Ming Ju, Ming-Che Huang, Jiutong Liu, In-Ting Ran, George Chann, Yi Hong, Tzu-Chi Yeh, Max Liu, Yi-Hsiung Chang, Che Chuang
Awards and recognition
1989, Outstanding Asian American Artist Award, by Governor of New York
1984–1986, MoMA P.S.1 National Studio Program, Residency at Clocktower Studio, New York
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1969 Contemporary Young Artists Exhibition, U. S. I. S. Lincoln Center, Taipei, Taiwan
1974 Asian Contemporary Art Exhibition, Ueno Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
1977 10 Chinese Leading Artists, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
1978 Contemporary Chinese Art from Taiwan, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong
1978 International Exhibition of Prints, National Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, South Korea
1979 6th British International Print Biennial, Bradford Art Galleries and Museum, England
1980 4th Miami International Print Biennial, Metropolitan Museum Coral Gables, Florida
1982 Summer Invitational, Susan Caldwell Inc, New York City
1982 Four Artists, SoHo Center for Visual Artists, New York City
1983 New Acquisitions and Trustee's Choice, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,
1983 Cleveland (UK) 6th International Drawing Biennale, Middlesbrough Art Gallery, England
1983 Dreams Demons Madness, Alternative Museum, New York City
1984 Rambunctious, Siegel Contemporary Art, New York City
1984 Invitational Painting Exhibition, Part II: Eight Imagist Painters, Siegel Contemporary Art, NYC
1984 Salvo, Ruth Siegel Ltd, New York
1984 Modern Art, Ted Greenwald Gallery, New York City
1985 Exotica, Paintings and Works on Paper, Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York City
1985 The Art of the 1970s and 1980s, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
1985 Large Figurative Drawings, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
1985 Studio Programs, 1984 -1985, The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, Inc,
The Clocktower, New York City
1985 Surplus, Exit Art, New York City
1985 Four Painters From New York, Janet Steinberg Gallery, San Francisco, California
1985 Harvest, Ruth Siegel Ltd, New York City
1986 The Object Revitalized, The Paine Art Center and Arboretum, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
1986 Annual Juried Exhibition '86, The Queens Museum, New York City
1986 Summer Group Show, Galleri Mustad, Sweden
1987 New Work - New York, Helander Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida
1988 The Shell: Design Spirit, Bergen Museum of Art and Science, Paramus, New Jersey
1988 Works on Paper, Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York
1988 The Flower Show, Betsy Rosenfield Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
1988 Classical Myth and Imagery in Contemporary Art, The Queens Museum, Flushing, NY
1988 Continuity and Change; Five Contemporary Chinese Artists, Yale University Art Gallery
1988 First Anniversary Exhibition, Michael Walls Gallery, New York City
1989 Second Anniversary Exhibition, Michael Walls Gallery, New York City
1990 The Matter At Hand; Contemporary Drawings, UWM Art Museum, University of Wisconsin,
1991 Entr'acte, Michael Walls Gallery, New York City
1991 Taipei - New York: Confrontation of Modernism, The Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Taiwan
1991 Past Becoming Future, The Contemporary Art Gallery, Seibu, Tokyo, Japan
1992 Intimate Universe; Small-Scale Paintings By Twenty-five American Artists, Michael Walls
1993 Paper Trails; The Eidetic Image, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign,
1993 Intimate Universe, Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, New York
1994 Isn't It Romantic? On Crosby Street, New York City
1994 To enchant (blue), Cynthia McCallister Gallery/Bixler Gallery, New York City
1994 Singapore International Art Fair, Sarina Tang Fine Art, Singapore
1994 Taipei Modem Art Exhibition, The National Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand
1995 A Romantic Impulse: Seventeen American Artists, O'Hara Gallery, New York City
1995 Chinese Artists in the United States, Hong Kong Land Limited, The Rotunda, Hong Kong
1996 Taipei Modern Art Exhibition, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China
1996 In Full Bloom: Flower and Garden Paintings, Lizan-Tops Gallery, East Hampton, New York
1997 Intimate Universe [Revisited], Robert Steele Gallery, New York City
1997 A Thought Intercepted, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, California
1997 Forces of Nature, Taipei Gallery, New York City,
1997 Lizan-Tops Gallery, East Hampton, New York
1998 Asian Aesthetic, Takara/Yukiko Lunday Gallery, Houston, Texas
1998 Contemporary Art from the Overseas Chinese, Galerie Pierre, Taichung, Taiwan
1999 Looking for the Light, The Gallery on the Hudson, Irvington, New York
1999 Visions of Pluralism, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; Mountain Art Museum, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
2001 Fifteen Asian American Artists, Staller Center For the Arts, University at Stony Brook,
Stony Brook, New York (Artists: Arai, Tomie; Byun, Chong Gon; Huang, Wennie; Jo, Sook Jin; Kawata, Tamiko; Le, Dinh; Lee, Bing; Li, lan; Ng, Chee Wang; Rahman, Ram; Shin, Jean; Snyder, Kit-Yin; Wong, Paul; Yamaoka, Carrie; Yang, Chihung)
2001 Rain Forest/Contemporary Paintings Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan
2001 Taipei Contemporary Art Exhibition, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2001 Rain Forest, Taipei Gallery, Chinese Information and Culture Center, New York
2002 Rain Forest, Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas
2002 Contemporary Chinese Abstraction, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
2002 Contemporary Chinese Abstraction, SenJuing Museum of Art , Guangdong, China
2003 Vision, 456 Gallery and Cork Gallery / Lincoln Center, New York
2003 World Artist's Calligraphy Biennale, Son Arts Center of Jeollabuk-do, Korea
2003 Fifty Years of Post War Taiwanese Art, Chan Liu Art Museum, Taoyuan, Taiwan
2004 Salon Comparaisons, Espace Auteuil, Paris, France
2005 Kuandu Extravaganza, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan
2005 China-
Korea Modern...