Haegue Yang takes 30 years of art to London for first survey show

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Installation view of Haegue Yang’s solo survey exhibition ″Leap Year″ at the Hayward Gallery in London [SHIN MIN-HEE]

 
LONDON — Haegue Yang may not be the easiest contemporary artist to work with, admitting that she may be “too transparent.” In her words, she’s ugly, stubborn, pushy and greedy to the point that if you work with her, you won’t want to see her anymore.
 
But in her latest solo exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in Southbank Centre, titled “Leap Year,” the artist has made the leap into the unknown by letting her “hair grow very wildly.” The 52-year-old artist, who normally leads the curatorial process of every exhibition, was more hands off than usual.
 

Haegue Yang [KUKJE GALLERY]

 
“If I were to assess my level of maturity at this point, I’ve decided to share the ownership of my exhibition with not only myself, but also with the institution and curators,” she told reporters at the Hayward Gallery earlier this month.
 
“Am I happy with this survey show? It’s not bad,” she said. “But there is a level of satisfaction around how we worked together with the entire team.”
 
“Leap Year” at Hayward Gallery looks back at the past three decades of Yang’s career. The exhibition is Yang’s first major survey in London. The extensive archive presents artworks that reflect her interest in household appliances like kitchen sinks, venetian blinds and drying racks, as well as folk traditions like shamanism.  
 
They’re not in chronological order, and everything is mixed across different periods, mediums and means. This choice was made because of the difficulty to pinpoint a dominant work in her resume, with the exhibition’s curator Yung Ma describing Yang’s practice as “multilayered.”
 
“I’m a schizophrenic person, so you need many hours of this data to reconstruct,” Yang said.
 

Installation view of Haegue Yang’s solo survey exhibition ″Leap Year″ at the Hayward Gallery in London [KUKJE GALLERY]

 
She gives mass-produced products new purposes. Her drying racks, for example, tend to be adorned with light bulbs and are positioned acrobatically to relieve them of their usual burden of carrying the heavy weight of laundry.
 
As for her venetian blinds, she sometimes gives them splashes of color or uses them as projection screens. This time, they were used to show a video where the artist retraces her way back to the abandoned house that served as the venue for her first Korean solo exhibition in 2006.
 
This self-initiated show was called “Sadong 30,” referring to the address of her grandparents’ former residence in Incheon. It featured objects like a drying rack, origami pieces and light fixtures in concepts she would later further develop as recurring motifs. “Sadong 30” arguably energized her reputation in the contemporary art world.
 

Installation view of Haegue Yang’s solo survey exhibition ″Leap Year″ at the Hayward Gallery in London [KUKJE GALLERY]

 
Yang called the exhibition-making process a “holistic approach,” as it took place at a time when she struggled financially and existentially as an artist.
 
“Since there was no opportunity in Korea to stage that complex question, I just instinctively realized I had to do something on my own,” she said.
 
Yang admitted she was reluctant at first to recreate the experience of “Sadong 30,” but Ma eventually persuaded her to “rebuild the spirit of a project that doesn’t exist anymore.”
 
Yang likens herself to an anthropologist. She researches and collects stories from different cultures, like in her “Mesmerizing Mesh” series (2021-) — which includes collages made from folding, cutting and pasting layers of colorful hanji (traditional Korean mulberry paper). The practice derives from shamanistic traditions and has since expanded to apply other papercutting methods, like wycinanki from Poland and pabalat from the Philippines.
 

″Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun,″ as part of Haegue Yang’s solo survey exhibition ″Leap Year″ at the Hayward Gallery in London [KUKJE GALLERY]

 
Her latest large-scale commissioned installation “Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun” explores the idea of separation and reunion. Comprised of venetian blinds that are hung by steel wires from the ceiling in ascending levels, the piece fully blooms when the musical score “Double Concerto” (1977), composed by Isang Yun (1917-1995), starts playing in the background and synchronizes with a light show against the blinds.
 
“Double Concerto” alludes to the mythical folk tale “Gyeonu and Jingnyeo” in which the titular lovebirds are forced to be separated by the Milky Way and are only able to meet once a year. In a similar sense, the music and lights for the installation only turn on once per hour.
 
“We’ve been asked by many people, how come the silence is longer than the music?” Ma said. “And my answer is that the separation is much longer and more painful, so you have to sit through the silence.”
 

Installation view of Haegue Yang’s solo survey exhibition ″Leap Year″ at the Hayward Gallery in London [KUKJE GALLERY]

 
“Leap Year” got a one-star review from The Guardian, which became the talk of the town. Yang didn’t shy away from mentioning it. Instead, she boldly said that she’d already retweeted the review, adding she still felt “pretty confident.”
 
“It looks like a big institutional show, but it’s a big chunk of my life and I have to make it real,” Yang said. “If it’s not real, I think I wouldn’t be myself and couldn’t have come so far.”
 
“Leap Year” continues until Jan. 5 next year. The Hayward Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays to Fridays and on Sundays, and until 8 p.m. on Saturdays. The museum is closed Mondays. General admission is ￡19 ($24).

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]