After Grief, Florence Peake and Yahon Chang
Wednesday 08 Jul 2026 from 7pm to 8pm
Free on booking
The paintings produced during the performance will then be exhibited in the Agora from 9 to 12 July, with free admission.
Lafayette Anticipations presents After Grief, a performance by Florence Peake and Yahon Chang, which places grief at the heart of its artistic practice.
In a delicate dialogue between painting and movement, the two artists create a four-handed composition in which the body, the material and the line interact. Through this exchange, After Grief explores the many dimensions of grief – personal, collective and global.
The artists move amidst semi-translucent veils of fabric, which serve both as a pictorial surface and a projection screen. Yahon Chang’s sweeping ink gestures meet Florence Peake’s somatic practice, in which the body acts as both a brush and a reservoir of memory. The drapery, resembling silk veils, accumulates traces – imprints, stains, breaths – and composes an image in constant transformation.
The performance is accompanied by a minimalist soundscape by Nicolas Becker, which highlights the silences between the gestures.
Conceived as a collective ritual, After Grief invites the audience to an experience of attentiveness and sharing. By making grief tangible, the work opens up the possibility of a form of healing, both individual and collective.
The paintings produced during the performance will then be exhibited in the Agora from 9 to 12 July, with free admission.
Credits:
Artists: Florence Peake and Yahon Chang
Soundscape: Nicolas Becker and Matthieu Gasnier
Curator: Francise Chang
Choreographic support: Eve Stainton
Producers: Caroline Smith and Eve Veglio-Huner
Production manager: Jim Tuck and Hung-Chun Hsieh
Her interdisciplinary work, made both independently and collaboratively, has been exhibited and performed nationally and internationally since 1995 in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Prague, Sweden and Latvia. Peake’s work has been commissioned by and shown at prestigious institutions such as National Gallery (2021) British Art Show 9 (2021-22), 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Palais de Tokyo (2018), De la Warr Pavilion (2018), Crac Occitanie (2018), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2013), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2012), National Review of Live Art (2009), and The National Portrait Gallery (2008). Peake’s artworks have been acquired into collections including Jupiter Art Land, Contemporary Art Society, Government Art Collection, UK; Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection; Saat Saath Arts Foundation; Norwich Castle Museum Collection, UK, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Fiorucci Arts Trust, Whitechapel Gallery Art Auction, MONA, Marcelle Joseph, Victor Bennedy, Sigrid Kirk, Roland Cowan and Jill Hackel.
His practice transforms the act of painting into a deeply personal manifestation of cultural and spiritual values. In his work, Chang masterfully melds traditional Chinese ink-wash techniques with Western artistic expressions, creating a compelling synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions.
Typically positioned on expansive sheets of linen cloth or xuan paper, Chang wields a brush nearly the length of his own height, infusing his creations with vibrant, performative energy defined by bold, sweeping brushstrokes. Drawing inspiration from Chinese literati traditions, Zen (Chan) Buddhism, and Christian faith, he perceives painting as a conduit that harmonizes body, mind, and soul. This exploration delves into the intricate relationships among calligraphy, Chinese literati culture, Zen philosophy, martial arts, and spirituality. The entirety of Chang’s physical being becomes an axis around which his expressive works revolve, significantly influenced by his extensive practice in ink painting and calligraphy.
He recently participated in various performances, including Running Lines at LACMA (2025), Galleria Franco Noero in Turin (2024), and MONA FORMA (2024) in Tasmania—the largest scale to date. He also took part in A Thousand Moons on A Thousand Rivers at London’s Outset Contemporary Art Fund (2023) in celebration of its 20th anniversary, as well as the Asia NOW art fair in Paris (2023), The Night Migrations at Platform-L Contemporary Art Center in Seoul (2023), and Floating Poetry, Meandering Mindscape during the Berlin Gallery Weekend (2023). Additionally, he was featured in the international group exhibition the Secret Wing at the Timișoara National Art Museum, part of the Art Encounters Biennial (2021) in Timișoara.
Chang held his first large-scale solo painting performance at Performa 19 in New York (2019) and was Outset’s artist-in-residence in London that same year, responding to a space designed by the spatial practitioners Cooking Sections. Major solo exhibitions include Poetry of the Flow at Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018), The Question of Beings at MACRO in Rome (2016) and at the 56th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia (2015). The artist’s work has been shown extensively across Asia and is included in the permanent collections of LACMA, the Shanghai Art Museum, and the Busan Museum of Art.
In April 2023, Berlin-based publisher Hatje Cantz Verlag published the artist's first major monograph in English, Yahon Chang: Painting as Performance. Edited by Dr Britta Erickson, this scholarly monograph comprehensively documents Chang's oeuvre through authoritative texts by international art historians, curators, and critics.