Haegue Yang

From dancing blinds to giant drying racks: Kunsthal Rotterdam takes you on a sensory journey through the thirty-year-old oeuvre of Korean-born Haegue Yang (1971). Through her play with light, music, smell, heat and movement, Yang explores themes of tradition, rituals, migration, identity and community

In her work, Yang emphasises how movement, feelings and emotions are experienced in different cultures. She uses light, sound, vapour, heat and smell to evoke memories and associations. She makes theatre lights move across blinds and cast shadows, and transforms drying racks into human-like creatures in acrobatic poses. For the past 30 years, Yang has mainly travelled between Berlin and Seoul. Themes such as migration, identity, history and tradition are therefore naturally woven into her work, and closely linked to stories from music, literature and politics. Folk rituals and traditional crafts have also become a focus of her work in recent years. On the other hand, Yang also critically reflects on ideas from modern Western art history. But even when she tackles social issues, her work always remains personal and intimate.

Cover Image: Haegue Yang, The Randing Intermediates, 2020