Portrait of Tong Yang-Tze, 2021 © At Ease Studio Limited; Photo by Te-Fan Wang
The Great Hall Commission: Tong Yang-Tze, Dialogue
November 21, 2024 – April 8, 2025
Artist Talk: An Evening with Artist Tong Yang-Tze
Thursday, November 21, 6:30-7:30pm
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (entrance at Fifth Avenue and 83rd Street)
Free with advance registration
For the 2024 Great Hall Commission, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is thrilled to invite Taiwanese artist Tong Yang-Tze (born 1942, Shanghai; based in Taipei) to create two monumental Chinese calligraphy works for the Museum’s historic space. Opening on November 21 with an evening talk, this project will be the third in the series of commissions for The Met’s Great Hall and marks the artist’s first major project in the United States.
Taipei-based Tong is one of the most celebrated artists working exclusively in Chinese calligraphy today. Best known for making calligraphy in monumental scale, Tong brings Chinese characters into dialogue with three-dimensional space and pushes the conceptual and compositional boundaries of the art form, while remaining dedicated to calligraphy’s raison d’être as the art of writing. Her commitment to the written characters is rooted in her belief in its centrality in Chinese cultural identity and calligraphy’s capacity for visual, emotional, and social impact beyond linguistic barriers. Working on the floor, she manipulates the movement and tension in the brushstrokes, the foremost quality in calligraphy. The oversized characters pose physical, formal, and conceptual challenges while offering new compositional possibilities and a unique viewing experience.
Celebrate the opening by joining the artist for a conversation about the commission, her decades-long career, and her commitment to expand calligraphy’s capacity for visual, emotional, and social impact beyond linguistic barriers. Please note that this program includes interpretation from Mandarin Chinese into English.
To learn more and reserve your free tickets, click here.