I Often Do Bad Things : Yang Jiechang, Texts and Works 1982-2016

Yang Jiechang was born in 1956. He belongs to the so-called second generation of contemporary artists in China, growing up during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The beginning of his artistic career coincided with China's political opening in the late 1970s and 1980s. His first appearance in Europe - and the trigger for his emigration to the West - was his participation in the seminal exhibition Les magiciens de la terre at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1989. Yang's journey from the cultural periphery to the cultural centre of Western Europe is reflected in his artistic career. For him personally, Yang describes this period as one of retreat into introspection and reinvention of identity. His series Hundred Layers of Ink, large monochrome black ink paintings, reveal this position. In the late 1990s, figurative paintings and videos superseded Yang's monochrome meditative inks. His works now refers to critical subjects and actual events. With rare and unpublished photographs, reproductions and texts, this is the new essential Yang Jiechang overview, published on the occasion of the artist's 60th birthday. Printed on textured paper that resembles the artist's ink paintings, and complete with a separate fan-folded booklet with details of his large-sized works, the publication is a unique and visually appealing artist's book.