Haegue Yang

Haegue Yang (b. 1971, Seoul, South Korea, based in Berlin, Germany and Seoul, South Korea) creates works that map connections among disparate places, times and cultures to reveal how individual realities are nested in the lives and contexts of others. Born to political dissidents in the time of a nationwide struggle for democracy, her upbringing and delocalisation from constantly living between cities have shaped her interest in migration, displacement and alienation.

Among diverse domestic and industrial items that comprise her primary materials, venetian blinds have featured prominently in Yang’s work. They are configured into large-scale, site-specific installations that filter light and divide space in precise manners. Often embellishing them with artificially created sensations of heat, light, smell and humidity, Yang employs their sculptural and affective possibilities to explore themes such as art history, home and consumerism. In her Sonic Sculptures (2013–ongoing) series, metallic bells cover surfaces of abstract totemic forms, frequently placed on casters to be activated in elaborate choreographies. Informed by cross-cultural ritual uses of bells to intercede between the human and spiritual realms, these works invite viewers to encounter the primordial power of aural qualities that characterise often marginalised traditions.

Yang obtained her BFA from Seoul National University in 1994 and her MFA from Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main in 1999. Her work is held in major collections including Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; M+, Hong Kong; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Collection, London; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Notable solo exhibitions include Flat Works (2024), The Arts Club of Chicago; Continuous Reenactments (2023), Helsinki Art Museum; Changing From From to From (2023), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Double Soul (2022), National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen; Strange Attractors (2020), Tate St Ives; The Cone of Concern (2020), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Emergence (2020), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; In the Cone of Uncertainty (2019), The Bass Museum of Art, Miami; and Handles (2019), The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including more recently the 10th Performa Biennial (2023), New York; The Open World (2023), 3rd Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai; In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire (2022), 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi; Natasha (2022), 7th Singapore Biennale; and The Seventh Continent (2019), 16th Istanbul Biennial. Yang represented South Korea at Making Worlds (2001), 53rd Venice Biennale.

Yang has had three residencies at the STPI Workshop in 2012, 2016 and 2019, with the first resulting in the exhibition Honesty Printed on Modesty (2013).