Haegue Yang
[2]: 7 She is particularly well known for her installations incorporating venetian blinds that transform galleries through their filtering of light, segmentation of space, and large scale that requires audiences to find multiple viewpoints in order to see the work.
Yang draws from a wide array of references, including her own biography, historical events, film, and literature, to create installations like Sadong 30 (2006) and performances like The Malady of Death (2010-ongoing).
A number of her works consider movement both within the exhibition space with moving sculptures such as Dress Vehicles (2012), and on a global scale with outdoor commissions like Migratory DMZ Birds on Asymmetric Lens (2020).
[5]: 17 Hansoo Yang worked for an international construction company[5]: 18 after he was dismissed from his job at the Dong-A Ilbo along with 160 colleagues for protesting censorship under Park Chung-hee's regime.
Curator and art critic Nicholas Bourriaud argues that in spite of the diversity of techniques and mediums, Yang's work is ultimately sculptural in its dealing with the fundamental question of the presence of the body in space.
[10]: 134 Yang sometimes pairs these objects with additional sensorial components, such as steam from a humidifier, temperature changes using a heater and air conditioner, and diffused smells in iterations of her "Series of Vulnerable Arrangements" (2006-8).
"[13] When responding to questions around the role of feminism in her work, Yang argues that while sculptures like Sallim (shown at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009) can engage with issues around gender in references to housework, they have multiple valences that can extend into religion, immigration, and class.
Light plays an integral role in Sadong 30 (2006), a work made at Yang's grandmother's former home in Incheon which the artist describes as her only site-specific piece.
[18]: 9 Particular works of Yang's invoke meetings of historical figures, such as the Venetian blinds in Red Broken Mountainous Labyrinth (2008) which refer to Korean independence fighter Kim San (1905-1938) and American journalist Nym Wales (Helen Foster Snow, 1907–1997),[16]: 97 and the blinds in Lethal Love (2008) that reference head of the German Green Party Petra Kelly (1947-1992) and former Bundeswehr General Gert Bastian (1923-presumably 1992).
[21]: 103 Beginning in 2010 during her residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in the United States,[22] Yang has staged a series of readings of the French writer Marguerite Duras' 1982 novella The Malady of Death.
The staging included a burning mosquito coil, moving lights, and intermittent background projections of an image of the French actress Jeanne Balibar.
Works referencing diasporic figures and multiple geographies, such as Coordinates of Speculative Solidarity (2019), also consider the movement of individuals across national borders and reflect on the divisions that these boundaries create.
[24]: 105 The title of Yang's solo exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum refers to ideas present in both Daoism and Western folklore of traveling large distances with each step.
[25]: 166 Inspired by Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadisches Ballet from 1922, "Sonic Figures" is a series of intricate sculptures made of numerous brass-plated bells affixed to wheeled steel stands.
[26] This outdoor commission for the twelfth Sharjah Biennial took shape partially due to Yang's personal interest in the United Arab Emirates and the historical implications of Korean workers in the country.
[27]: 9–10 For the outdoor portion of the work, Yang brought together vent sculptures on brick and concrete block pedestals with a sandalwood vestibule, satellite dish, and walls made of steel tubes and corrugated metal sheets.
Yang's commissioned work for the 2020-21 "Ground/work" exhibition at the Clark Art Institute imagines a meeting between birds of New England and Korea's Demilitarized Zone in order to draw parallels between the ecological diversity of the two regions.
[40]: 21 Also included in the exhibition were Double and Halves—Events with Nameless Neighbors (2009), a video essay filmed in Seoul and Venice, and Series of Vulnerable Arrangements—Voice and Wind (2009), another large-scale installation with venetian blinds ventilators, and scent emitters featured.
The first floor featured pieces including Fishing (1995), Unfolding Places (2004), Restrained Courage (2004), and Squandering Negative Spaces (2006), Gymnastics of the Foldables (2006), and Three Kinds in Transition (2008).
On the third floor, Yang installed a work titled Warrior Believer Lover (2011), which consisted of thirty-three light sculptures built on wheeled stands.
[11]: 63 Yang states that the title's multiple connotations include the end of a long journey, the divine, and a self-reflexive reference to her arrival as a globally-recognized artist.
