Ink Studio
CIGE

Yang Jiechang, These are still Nude Paintings

The series These are still Nude Paintings is the third part of a project related to the process of copying. The models Yang Jiechang copies this time are nude paintings by Adolf Hitler. While the other two parts of this project, namely These are still Flowers and These are still Landscapes, combine authentic copies with reinterpretations in the traditional Chinese style of meticulous colour painting as developed by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, These are still Nude Paintings juxtaposes original copies with bold expressive interpretations in ink. Yang Jiechang further refers to his former series Double View (1990s) by superimposing different images.

For Yang the process of copying is a kind of visual communication, here the communication with something highly stigmatised: Hitler, who generally is considered the personification of evil; and nude painting that, as practised in China, is generally highly obscene. In the field of contemporary art the model and the genre seem an impossible match. Yet, Yang Jiechang's "double view" sheds a new light on both. Which one is more obscene?

Martina Köppel-Yang Paris, September 2015