Calligraphic Abstraction

There are artists who write, and then there’s Tang Chang – Bangkok-born, Sino-Thai, who dissolved the boundary altogether. For Chang, language wasn’t a tool so much as a presence, flickering somewhere between gesture and breath. At Calligraphic Abstraction, now at Bangkok Kunsthalle, his paintings refuse to be pinned down. Made between 1971 and 1972 – two blisteringly productive years – the works occupy a space where script becomes spirit, and symbols resist being named. Characters hover on the brink of recognition, echoing Chinese forms but never settling into clarity. Others mimic the cadence of poetry, stripped of words but still pulsing with rhythm. There’s a sort of devotion in it – though not to meaning. The line itself becomes the prayer, trembling between what can be read and what can only be felt. Until July 13. Free. Bangkok Kunsthalle, 6pm-8pm