Coinciding with Taipei Biennial 2023, Kiang Malingue is pleased to present “Tuning into Autumn” at WUTZ, Taipei, an exhibition of Yang Chi-Chuan’s new installations and sculptures made in 2023. Through handmade ceramic pieces and tranquil sound elements, the titular curtain piece Tuning into Autumn, wind chimes The mumbling tree and two reliefs come together in an atmospheric composition that contrasts the pathos embedded in Yang’s Taipei Biennial presentation: no longer tasked with painstakingly exploring fear and anxieties, “Tuning into Autumn” shows the way in which one can peacefully reconcile with life and one’s experience of it.

In recent years, Yang has been investigating the material and affective potentials of ceramics, suspending in elaborate or slender tree structures miniature ceramic pieces. These installations that slowly rotate and gently tinkle are known as Yang’s wind chimes, encompassing different themes and subjects the artist has dealt with in the past decade: personal experiences; natural environments; architectural spaces; memories; voices; ruins; performativity; organic forms and non-readymades. The wind chimes also sublimate the gesture of suspension the artist is interested in: earlier projects such as “Specimen” (2014), “What a Wonderful World” (2016) and the major installation Nine Lines (2018) all employ suspension as an intricate process through which dynamics and stillness are woven.

Yang’s participation in the Taipei Biennial 2023 includes a commissioned installation embedded with sound elements, attempting to confront the painful experience of anxieties and fear. “Tuning into Autumn” on the other hand, operates as a counterbalance by “disseminating in the space the experience of appreciating montane forests and fallen leaves.” The titular piece Tuning into Autumn makes use of strung ceramic pieces as wind chimes pieces do, yet is uncoiled into the shape of a curtain, effectively becoming a penetrable screen in the exhibition. The mumbling tree is a classic wind chimes piece that rotates and tinkles as ceramic components graze one another, guiding the viewer through the stories told in ceramic forms. The two reliefs, Lost and found on the mountain wall and Take a walk along the stream, are two individual scenes one may stumble upon in mountains or alleys. In a gentle, caring fashion, “Tuning into Autumn” paces in mountainous landscapes, retrieving a stimulating dynamic that is associated with nature, encouraging the viewer to face inner motions, warmth, and the everyday reality as peacefully as fallen leaves and seeds do when the seasons change. Taking branches, foliage, fruits and nuts as her point of departure, Yang crystallises changes in nature and the personal experience of it into scenes and narratives: “The whole exhibition is like going through sights as you explore a mountain: a tree that rustles its leaves as wind passes; some scatterings by the cliffs; a waterfall that eventually appears after crossing a creek—this Autumn journey delivers fallen leaves onto your shoulders, revealing different colours of the foliage as you continue hiking.”