Discover the surreal and spellbinding work of Haegue Yang at Leap Year, the first major UK survey of the internationally-celebrated artist, writes Rosanna J Head.
Arranged into five thematic zones, the exhibition includes three major new commissions and several new productions which create a visual and sensory experience through installation, sculpture, collage, text, video, wallpaper and sound.
Yang uses everyday domestic objects and materials in her artwork, from clothes-drying racks, window blinds and nylon pom-poms and transforms transforms them into sculptures, collages, and super-sensory installations.
Leap Year features key works including Light Sculptures, Sonic Sculptures, The Intermediates, Dress Vehicles, Mesmerising Mesh and the Venetian blind installations.
This exhibition is thought-provoking, mesmerising in parts, surreal and a definite feast on the senses. Some of the sculptures made me question the significance of the art work, even after reading the synopsis, especially the number of clothes-drying structures and the array of window blinds installations.
There is a lot going on, from a love affair and subjective chronologies offered on the likes of George Orwell and Primo Levi, to ’Storage Piece’ – a large sculpture given its own room – made up of twenty seven items of readily available domestic objects and mass produced commodities.
Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery, says: “Yang is one of the world’s most pioneering artists and consistently pushes the boundaries of what an artwork can be and how it is presented with true imagination and creativity.”
Haegue Yang says: “My artworks often have very long names with seemingly odd combinations of words that are hard even for me to memorise, whereas my exhibition titles are much simpler. This naming tradition mirrors my relationship to art-making versus exhibition-making. Art making is like weaving together a piece of complex, and therefore impossible to unweave, fabric, while exhibition making is like tailoring it into something comfortable to wear. Both acts are eager attempts towards perfection. For this survey show, I deliberately unfocused my eyes to obtain the hidden 3D vision of my own practice, which is a rare, perfect occurrence like a leap year.”
I suggest you make your own mind up on this one. It was a little like Marmite for me.
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX until January 5th.
Full price standard: £19. Concessions available.
Opening times: Tue – Fri, 10am – 6pm; Sat, 10am – 8pm; Sun, 10am – 6pm.
Booking: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/haegue-yang-leap-year/
