Tang Chang's solo exhibition "Calligraphic Abstraction" at Bangkok Kunsthalle is reviewed by Kamori Osthananda for Frieze Exhibition Reviews.
The Pali Buddhist word ekaggata (unified mind) refers to a meditative state that can be achieved by overcoming obstacles. It is also the ethos that Sino-Thai artist and poet Tang Chang brought to his canvases, as curator Orianna Cacchione noted in an essay accompanying his 2018 solo show at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art.
The ekaggata that characterizes Chang’s work takes on a new valence considering the political instability and assimilation pressures that the artist experienced for decades. In many ways, he held ‘outsider’ status throughout his life; he received neither formal art schooling nor anointment as a national artist by the culture industry and, though he exhibited with galleries in Bangkok during the 1960s and ’70s, in his later years he opted instead to show work out of a small museum he opened at his home.
Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
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Tang Chang Embraces the Unified Mind | Frieze