YHAEGUENGSDOUBLEUL
SMK National Gallery of Denmark
5 March – 31 July 2022

1a

INTRODUCTION‘Double Soul is about the possible projection of oneself onto another being,
life, thing or phenomenon, whether through supernatural power, humanimagination, telepathy and empathy, or whatever. The fundamental idea here
is one’s will or aspiration to refer to the other, whether it is another human,soul, animal, nature or something else.’								Haegue Yang
Double Soul, the title of Haegue Yang’s exhibition at SMK, could serve as aheadline for her oeuvre in general. Yang’s titles – of exhibitions and of individual works – often incorporate concepts related to a duality of mirrored
oppositions or the idea of ‘one and the rest’: ‘doubles and couples’, ‘doubles
and halves’, ‘siblings and twins’, ‘double life’. In corresponding fashion, Yang’s
works frequently appear in pairs or interconnected groups, considering dualities in their echoes, reflections, parallels and repetitions, in which the individual parts govern each other, making them inextricably linked.
Such dualities also mark Yang’s biography. Korea was colonised by Japaneseimperialists until the end of World War II and was divided into North andSouth Korea following the three-year Korean War; the division was made permanent in 1954. Born in Seoul, 1971, Yang grew up against the backdrop ofa harsh military dictatorship and a non-democratic political environment.
In 1994, as a young art student, Yang moved from Asia to Europe to study inGermany, a country that was also divided ideologically, though is now reunified. Since the mid-1990s, she has been actively living and working between
Germany and Korea. One could speculate that this personal background of
geopolitical divisions and continuous historical ruptures, embedded withtransnational experience, shaped the foundation of Yang’s thinking and art.
Yang’s works encompass a variety of media and sensorial elements: installation, sculpture, text, graphic, speech, performative gestures, sound and video
combined with an activation of the senses and sensations, such as touch,smell, sound, heat and humidity. Her art frequently brings together opposite
poles: at once abstract and figurative, machine-like and human. She mixes
organic and industrially manufactured materials and uses plain commodities
such as blinds and drying racks, merging them with ancient craft traditions
such as straw braiding and weaving.
Exile, immigration and transnationality are preoccupations of the artist. Her
exploration of these concepts is often accompanied by a critical contemplationon the conventional ideas of both folk tradition and identity politics among
others. Domesticity, another of Yang’s concerns, examines practices rooted tothe home – a personal and private sphere where deeper reflection and radical

personal change can develop. A counterpoint to the great life-changing consequences of exile, globalisation, excessive digitisation and consequential alienation, this down-to-earth, sober yet disobedient dimension of the domestic
sphere offers a politics of quotidian intimacy – including the one between
people and things.
Many of her works contain narratives based on the lives and works of historical figures. A prominent example is the set of textual pieces, which intertwine the biographies of the French author Marguerite Duras and the South
Korean composer Isang Yun, as well as the English author George Orwell
and Duras – in a reading that reveals parallels and echoes. In recent years,
Yang has also created sculptural ensembles that serve as subjective portraitsof historical figures. For SMK, Yang has conceived a duo of sculptures as asimultaneously analytical and subjective response to two artists, Pia Arke
(Greenland/Denmark) and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (Denmark), from Danish
art history – and from the SMK collection. Like many of the other historicalfigures Yang has taken as her starting point, the lives of both these artists
are characterised by transculturalism. These two pioneering artists wereanchored in and affiliated with multiple places and cultures in the world,
in a nomadic (self-) exile that Yang engages with.
Yang is concerned with the inevitable necessity of navigating from an outsider position, and her works express an affinity with those figures that also
do not belong anywhere but with each other. Eventually, Yang aspires to inhabit a less tangible yet more inclusive community, in which she sees herself
reflected in these historical figures and, at the same time, lets them mirror
each other. This generative perspective stems from her deep interest in theanachronic and transcontinental mode whereby ideas, subjects or crafts also
exist concurrently in different cultures or are transferred and translated fromone era or culture to another.
The concept of a ‘double soul’ appears in a number of different spiritual orientations, such as shamanistic traditions. A common trait of these otherwise
dissimilar religions is the idea that humans (and other beings) can be overlapped by others. A key role of the shaman is to act as a medium to guideindividuals on earth by mediating with divine spirits. This act of overlaying
another soul onto one’s own facilitates the transition between life and theafterlife. In Korea, shamanism has thrived for thousands of years, sustainedin narratives, songs and rituals, which are performed not least by women.
For Yang, shamanism is an exemplary resilient practice that has survived indiverse cultures, mediating and safeguarding exchanges between the spiritualand the sublunary. As is typical in Yang’s works, unexpected modern materials, such as common metal bells with their rattle, successfully translate thisempowering civilizational practice.

Preoccupied with countering reductive categorisations, Yang actively introduces the entangled relations between folklore and contemporary culture,industrial manufacturing and craft, the factual and the imaginary, the quotidian and the exceptional as well as vulnerability and confidence among
other seemingly oppositional and disparate ideas. Yang also resists the notion of an authentic monoculture and the fantasy of a singular belonging.
Impelled by curiosity, she playfully insists that encounters and translations
between several different contexts and systems can give rise to new andalternative spaces and possibilities in which we can see ourselves reflected.
Marianne Torp
Senior research curator,
SMK National Gallery of DenmarkNote
In the entire exhibition of Double Soul, there are cross-cultural moments, originating fromgenuine curiosity, concerns and respect of the artist. Figures, events, artefacts, mythologies
as well as religious objects are mobilised to act in the context of artistic and subjective
viewpoints, rather than out of an academic or anthropological approach. We thank all theinstitutions and individuals that have generously shared their expertise in guiding theartist and the museum team for their advice in dealing with the material with caution andcare. If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to contact SMK at smk@smk.dk.

5Lethal Love, 2008/2018

4
Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings
4a Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings on Hemisphere #7, 2021
4b Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings on Hemisphere #3, 2021

Non-Indépliables, nues, 2010/2020
Non-Indépliable, nue – Crowny Figure in Crossed Leg
A
Non-Indépliable, nue – Three Hearts Lifts a Sprout
Non-Indépliable, nue – Sandwich Swing Squeezed 			between Buildings
3d Non-Indépliable, nue – Lifting Up
3e Non-Indépliable, nue – Three Times on Shoulder

3
3a
3b
3c

B

Sonic Intermediates – Double Soul, 2021
Sonic Intermediate – Tripodal Shapeshifter after Ferlov Mancoba
Sonic Intermediate – Six-Fingered Wayfarer after Arke

Lacquer Paintings
Blade Notations – Fission Path, 2019
Blade Notations – Splinter and Float II, 2019
Steely Starburst, 2018
The Days of Being Wild, 2015-2017
One Fine Spring Day, 2015-2017
A Baggy Pair in Rain – German Zucchini,
500 g and Dutch Red Onions, 1 kg, 2018
2g Cosmic Stretch on Ring – Limes, 250 g, 20182h Untitled, 2000
2i Airy Creases, 2016
2j Rainy Chili, 2011
2k Rainy Dirty, 2012
2l Messy and Drifty Message, 2016
2m Thick Dirt, 2016
2n Expandable Escape – Lemons, 250 g, 2018
2o Frazzled in Brief – Organic Spanish Oranges, 1 kg, 2018

2
2a
2b
2c
2d
2e
2f

1
1a
1b

4a

2h–o

1

3

5

6

2a–g

Entrance Hall

↱

4b

8

7

9b

12

Sculpture Street

13

14

Park

Bathroom Contemplation, 2000

8

Genuine Cloning, 2020

Silo of Silence – Clicked Core, 201713 Furniture Sculptures
13a Vita Cushion – Yielding S, 2020
13b Mundus Cushion – Yielding X, 2020

12

11 Sonic Celestial Ropes
11a Sonic Celestial Rope – Iridescent Dodecagon
Loose Curl, 2021
11b Sonic Celestial Rope – Iridescent Dodecagon
Straight Weave, 2021
11c Sonic Celestial Rope – Iridescent Dodecagon
Tight Curl, 2021

10

Chronologies of Conflated Dispersion
A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion– Duras and Yun, 2018
9b A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion– Duras and Orwell, 2021

FormativeWorks
Anatomy of the Pasta, 1995/2017
Tray with Landscape, 1995/2017
Bottle with Pasta above the Door, 1995/2017
Family Tree, 1995/2018
Anthology of Haegue Archives, 1998/2018
Sink with Wire, 1995/2017
Rod with Wire, 1994/2017
Dining Table, 1995/2017

7
7a
7b
7c
7d
7e
7f
7g
7h

9
9a

Multiple Mourning Room, 2012

6

Drunken Speech, 200710

The Story of a Bear-Lady in a Sand Cave, 		
2009/2011

Architectural Elements
A Haptic Verticals
B Shaped Wall

17 The Intermediates
17a The Intermediate – Ceremonial Pom-Pom
Ball, 201517b The Intermediate – Ceremonial Peacock 		
Ball, 201517c The Intermediate – Psychic Turbine Vents 		
Ball, 201716

Umbra Creatures by Rockhole, 			
2017-201815a Sonic Rampant Obscure Turbine 			9a
Vents, Double Decker – Brass Green
15b The Intermediate – Hairy Tele
Digi-Big-Bang Fanned Out
15c The Intermediate – Head
Carrying Woman
15d The Intermediate – Tinted
Asymmetric UHHHHH Creature W
15e The Intermediate – Tinted Bushy Bald-Headed
Bumpy Walks
15f The Intermediate – Tinted Multi-Tentacled
Serpent
15g The Intermediate – Tinted UHHHHH 		
Creature Inverted V

15

14

16

15

11

17

1a, 1b

1 Sonic Intermediates – Double Soul
Sonic Intermediates – Double Soul, 2021
Powder-coated steel frame, mesh and handles, ball bearings, casters, stainless steel bells,
PVD-coated stainless steel bells, powder-coated stainless steel bells, black brass-plated
bells, split rings, plastic twine, artificial plants, turbine vents
SMK National Gallery of Denmark, gift from the New Carlsberg Foundation
1a Sonic Intermediate – Tripodal Shapeshifter after Ferlov Mancoba
191 × 147 × 212 cm
1b Sonic Intermediate – Six-Fingered Wayfarer after Arke
210 × 100 × 104 cm

Yang has subjectively portrayed figures from cultural history in several ofher works as an act of countering the given history. With this new, two-part
sculpture, she brings together two significant artists with ‘Danish’ affiliations. Sonic Intermediates – Double Soul, the double sculpture speaks of Yang’sinterests and method of ‘portraying’ both the figures and her reading. In thisduo, she forges a link to historical figures across time, emphasising rather disparate yet common relations among cultures, arts, crafts and objects of use.
During a visit to Copenhagen in the early summer of 2021, Yang deepened
her fascination with the artist Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (1911–1984), especially
her many ‘multi-legged’ sculptures and their distinctive asymmetry. Ferlov
Mancoba was a pioneer of Danish abstract sculpture. In the 1930s, she waspart of the artists’ group Linien, a Danish articulation of the international
Surrealist movement, pursuing the ‘truthful’ notions of art, everyday life andsociety by liberating humanity’s mental, sexual, animal and not least creative
impulses. The juxtapositions of found objects, organic forms and ‘beings’
characteristic of these artists also resonate in Yang’s works, as she draws on
elements from cultures and history other than her own. Ferlov Mancoba’s
penchant for masks and her idea of sculpture​​
as a ‘being’ or ‘creature’ aretraits also found in Yang’s sculptural works. However, in contrast to artists
such as Ferlov Mancoba, Yang is not only preoccupied with authentic, artisanal traditions, but also engages with industrial mass production and its
contemporary societal conditions. For example, the plastic plants poking outof her sculpture are replicas ordered online of plants native to South Africa,
in recognition of the country where Ferlov Mancoba’s husband, the artist
Ernest Mancoba, came from.
Yang’s interest in the works of the late Greenlandic-Danish artist, Pia Arke
(1958–2007) lies in Arke’s biographically driven studies of the asymmetrical
power relations between Greenland and Denmark in the wake of colonisation,from which profound and complex issues concerning identity and culturehave risen. Both artists participated in the 2019 Istanbul Biennale, where
Yang’s curiosity in Arke was first piqued. Here, Yang encountered Arke’s
important work Legend I–V, 1999, which consists of collages of family photos
on scientific maps of Eastern Greenland published in the 1970s. Across thecollages, Arke sprinkled rice, sugar and other colonial goods introduced inGreenland as evidence of Danish colonisation. As a nod to Arke’s map ofGreenland, the huge hands in Yang’s sculpture carry a stylised globe with theusual colours indicating the land and the ocean reversed, paving the way fora different geographical outlook on the world. Yang also experiences a deeper
cultural connection to Arke through a notion of the Arctic, which encompasses time and geography, by being fundamentally transcontinental andeasily reaching a prehistoric dimension. Shamanism is found in many regions
across the world, for example, the Arctic, and in Central and East Asian aswell as Amazonian cultures, an enduring indigenous trait that Yang considers
as a lingering resistance to Modernistic narratives of urbanisation, centralisation, hierarchisation and institutionalisation.
Inspired by shamanic rituals that amplify certain body parts by means of costumes, masks, headgear and props, Yang focuses on the big hands as a powerful symbol of protection against physical and psychological dangers, threats
and illnesses. In the sculpture dedicated to Arke, a total of five huge hands,
two of them at the top and three of them forming the standing structure at
the bottom, are joined by a kind of hairy body in the middle. Each of thetwo uppermost hands have thumbs on both sides, making six fingers in all.
These extra thumbs are evidently inspired by the sealskin mittens with two
thumbs that the artist encountered at the National Museum of Denmark in
Copenhagen during a site visit. Found in its Arctic Collection, which is itself
part of colonial history, such mittens were commonly used by Inuit communities when hunting in kayaks: when one side got wet, the mitten could be
easily turned around and continued to be used. The refined solution of these
two-thumbed mittens to a practical shortcoming immediately spoke to Yang
who possesses a keen sensibility for everyday objects. The two upper hands
hold a globe with two maps; one depicts a hypothetical scenario of continental drift whereas the other is based on a 17th century circular Korean worldmap, Cheonhado 天下圖, known as the Complete Atlas of All beneath the Heavens.
The Cheonhado is famous for reflecting the new geographic knowledge from
Europe as well as referencing a Taoist worldview and the rich compilationof mystic geography found in the ancient Chinese book, called Shan Hai Jing,
known also as the Classic of Mountains and Seas 山海經.
It is of no coincidence that Yang specifically connects with two fellow womenartists from history as her predecessors Arke and Ferlov Mancoba, with whom
she seems to share a dual or multicultural background. Yang was born andraised in South Korea, yet started her artistic career in the mid-1990s in Europe.
Currently living and working in both Seoul and Berlin, she resides in a statethat the artist describes as ‘becoming diaspora’. Arke had a Greenlandic
mother and a Danish father and spent her brief life in Greenland and later inDenmark. Ferlov Mancoba was born and trained in Denmark, but lived mostof her life in France with her South African husband, the artist Ernest
Mancoba. The diasporic experience of living outside one’s ‘homeland’ andthe complex transcultural kinship seem central to Yang and her duo sculpture in its deliberate manifestation of mixed aesthetics, materials and references. Reflecting the way Yang renders both Arke and Ferlov Mancoba as‘double souls’, the sculptures on bright red steel frames, in part, focus on
their hybridity as complexity, how they echo each other’s souls – and perhaps
her own.
Please note that a presentation of works by Sonja Ferlov Mancoba as well as
Pia Arke is on display in the permanent collection, New Wing, level 2.

2c

2 Lacquer Paintings
2a Blade Notations – Fission Path, 2019
Chipboard, wood varnish, blades, dust, insect, hair
35 × 25 cm
2b Blade Notations – Splinter and Float II, 2019
Chipboard, wood varnish, blades, seeds, dust, hair
35 × 25 cm
2c Steely Starburst, 2018
Chipboard, wood varnish, blades, dust, hair
70 × 50 cm
2d The Days of Being Wild, 2015–2017
Chipboard, wood varnish, leaves, insects
75 × 55 cm
2e One Fine Spring Day, 2015–2017
Chipboard, wood varnish, graph paper, leaf, hair, insects, soil dust
125 × 75 cm
2f A Baggy Pair in Rain – German Zucchini, 500 g and Dutch Red Onions, 1 kg, 2018
Chipboard, wood varnish, found plants, seeds, mesh produce bags, dust, hair
50 × 35 cm
2g Cosmic Stretch on Ring – Limes, 250 g, 2018
Chipboard, wood varnish, seeds, graph paper, mesh produce bag, dust, hair
50 × 35 cm
2h Untitled, 2000
Chipboard, wood varnish, quad paper
27 × 18 cm
2i Airy Creases, 2016
Chipboard, wood varnish, framed
72 × 62 cm
2j Rainy Chili, 2011
Chipboard, wood varnish, chilis
60 × 45 cm
2k Rainy Dirty, 2012
Chipboard, wood varnish, soil dust
47 × 30 cm
2l Messy and Drifty Message, 2016
Chipboard, wood varnish, dust, hair, envelope, graph paper, rubber band
125 × 90 cm

2f

2m Thick Dirt, 2016
Chipboard, wood varnish, knitting yarn, rubber band
125 × 90 cm
2n Expandable Escape – Lemons, 250 g, 2018
Chipboard, wood varnish, mesh produce bag, dust
25 × 18 cm
2o Frazzled in Brief – Organic Spanish Oranges, 1 kg, 2018
Chipboard, wood varnish, seeds, mesh produce bag, dust
25 × 35 cm

The Lacquer Paintings are varnished collages made of organic materials suchas seeds and leaves combined with scraps and leftovers, including used knife
blades, discarded packaging materials and paper cut-offs, from the artist’s
workspace. These unassuming everyday materials are fixed onto chipboard
in floating compositions and sealed in place with thick layers of the mostcommon household lacquer product. Yang began the series of lacquer paintings back in her art school days in the mid-1990s and continues to extend theseries with new approaches.
Lacquerware is a more than 2000-year-old Asian craft tradition that holds
an important place in Korean culture, where the technique reached a particularly high level of refinement. Traditionally, the lacquer was extracted
from wood and applied in many layers on decorated surfaces, especiallyon wooden boxes with intricate mother-of-pearl ornamentation. In Yang’s
version, the exquisite and precious traditional materials were replaced withstandard or scrap ones, and the compositions are casual and accidental.
As the most inexpensive wooden varnish deliberately employed gives off anoxious smell, the Lacquer Paintings are left for weeks or months outdoors todry. During this drying process, unintentional elements such as insects, dust
and hair become stuck on the surface and occasional raindrops additionallyleave their imprints on it. Taking her point of departure from an ancient craft
tradition steeped in culture is emblematic of Yang. Her recent lacquer works
also point towards her own time: here, everyday materials, random events,
direct evidence of the daily production process and the setting in which it
took place all become important and visible parts of these painterly panels.

3a3 Non-Indépliables, nues
Non-Indépliables, nues, 2010/2020
Drying racks, light bulbs, cable, zip ties, terminal strips
3a Non-Indépliable, nue – Crowny Figure in Crossed Leg
183 × 105 × 78 cm
3b Non-Indépliable, nue – Three Hearts Lifts a Sprout
198 × 144 × 62 cm
3c Non-Indépliable, nue – Sandwich Swing Squeezed between Buildings
129 × 156 × 108 cm
3d Non-Indépliable, nue – Lifting Up
191 × 140 × 75 cm
3e Non-Indépliable, nue – Three Times on Shoulder
264 × 188 × 62 cm

For Yang, the drying rack is a metaphor encapsulating life as it unfolds in our day-to-day
existence involving the basic activities associated with ordinary household chores: cooking,cleaning and doing laundry. Seemingly mundane objects and common appliances in ourhomes become expressions of complex processes that shape our lives. Many of Yang’s works
focus on domestic spaces, such as the kitchen and bathroom, as well as appliances likeradiators, gas stoves and laundry machines, addressing the practicalities and rituals involvedin making and keeping a home.
The drying rack is a practical device that is usually folded up and stored away when not inuse. In setting up the drying racks, Yang transforms the humble objects into expressive
figures in their own right. Many of them are pieced together to constitute distinctive poses:of piggybacking, acrobatic balancing or supporting, etc. Even though the racks look fragile
and bare, they nevertheless refuse their original minor status of being folded away (theFrench title of the works translates to ‘non-foldable, nude’). Instead, they are now part of asculptural alliance with luminous light bulbs mounted on long cables.
The light bulb and the electric cable often appear in the so-called Light Sculptures, asevidence of the invisible flow of energy many devices are con-nected to. However, illumination also becomes a crucial symbol of communication and interrelations between these
unremarkable objects and the larger contexts that surround them.

4a4 Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings
Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings on Hemisphere, 2021
Powder-coated aluminium frame and mesh, ball bearings, PVD-coated stainless steel bells,
split rings, door knobs
4a Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings on Hemisphere #7
82 × 72 × 44 cm
4b Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings on Hemisphere #3
81 × 81 × 38 cm

Next to venetian blinds, metallic bells are one of the materials that Yangchooses to work with the most. Densely studded with bells in different metallic tones, her Sonic Sculptures are an orchestration of sounds on a metal meshframe. Often, the Sonic Sculptures are adorned with different ‘foreign’ yet common materials, such as artificial plants, decoration materials and turbine
vents on top. The metal bell is an important shamanic tool in Korean folk tradition and also appears in European pagan cultures in various regions, suchas Sardinia and the Black Forest region in southwest Germany. The jingling
sounds that accompany the shaman’s various rituals mediates between humans and the other, be it ghosts, souls or natural phenomena. The non-melodic
rattling sound generated by these sculptures can be understood as a nod tothe often rhythmic, monotone sound and repetitive modes of musical elements
in shamanistic rituals. Bells and sensorial inputs produced by other ordinary
objects thus allow Yang to access shared aspects of different cultures.
Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings demonstrate how Yang’s sculptures often
reference each other. In this case, the composition of bells on spheres, combined with door knobs, reflect the circular and tangential motifs that recurin many of Yang’s works. Mediating different dimensions, handles are practical devices that one operates to push/pull or open/close. They also symbolise an interface of access and approach. Here, the door handles and knobs
are mostly defunctionalised. Rather than reducing themselves to a merefunction, they insist on themselves as significant beings and encourage acontemplation on the metaphors that lie beneath.
When Sonic Rotating Whatever Openings is set in motion by hand, all the bells
slide around in their respective modules within the mesh. With a rotational
movement, the bells bounce clockwise and counterclockwise while theirrattling gradually fades.

5 Lethal Love
Lethal Love, 2008/2018
Aluminium venetian blinds, powder-coated aluminium hanging structure, steel wire,free-standing mirror wall, moving spotlights, scent emitters (Flower and gunpowder)
282 × 653 × 614 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin

Lethal Love is a seminal piece of how Yang incorporates historical events andbiographical details directly or indirectly in an abstract interpretation. This
work explores the fatal story of Petra Kelly, a German activist, pacifist andfounder of the German Green Party (Die Grünen) and the former general Gert
Bastian.
Kelly and Bastian seemed an unlikely pair, him being twenty-five years her
senior and with a military career and a background in the Wehrmacht, thearmed forces of Nazi Germany. Despite extensive public and media attention
on their partnership and political engagement, they became increasingly isolated with Kelly growing disconcertingly dependent on Bastian. In 1992, thestory of this German power couple came to an abrupt end with two gunshots.
The police found Kelly and Bastian killed in their home, and the investigation
indicated that in all likelihood, Bastian had first shot the sleeping Kelly andthen himself. The ‘double death’ of Kelly and Bastian was commemorated by
the Green Party, ignoring the possibility of Bastian being a murderer. Accompanied by the unusual pairing of their glamorous public careers and extreme
isolation, their deaths caused not only public bewilderment, but also theirsubsequent fall into oblivion.
Inside the darkened installation Lethal Love, where scent dispensers fill the
air with flower and gunpowder, one is repeatedly hit by bright and moving
spotlights, which are only partially screened out by the venetian blinds. The
installation thus establishes a physical situation that refers to the couple’s
juggling of their prominent public image and their private and dark secretleading to their deaths.

6 Multiple Mourning RoomMultiple Mourning Room, 2012
In collaboration with Manuel Raeder
Digital colour print (detail)Dimensions variable, at SMK: 440 × 1350 cm
Courtesy of the artists and Greene Naftali, New YorkThis large digital collage, Multiple Mourning Room, appears twice; firstly, ona built-in partition wall based on a modular pattern and secondly, on the end
wall of the exhibition space. Multiple Mourning Room suggests a mode of both
space and time characterised by great mobility and fluid identities. The title
is inspired by the multi-faith prayer rooms found in hospitals and airports,
which can be used by everyone regardless of faith. In these anonymous, autonomous, illogical and indefinable spaces between illnesses and borders,
Yang has found a potential for counter-gravitational spaces.
Since 2012, the design of Multiple Mourning Room has developed and adapted
to different exhibition contexts. The panoramic urban landscape that dominates the wallpaper is based on a digitally manipulated photo of Hiroshima,
which becomes an image of a universal grief about the never-fully-ended
Cold War and missing peace in the Asia-Pacific region. On top of this, various
objects float: bonsai trees, Japanese tombstones, Korean figures in volcanic
fertility stones from Jeju Island, pieces of driftwood, shide (zigzag paper
streamers used in Shinto rituals) and depictions of some of Yang’s collages
and sculptures. In the collapsed space of the wallpaper, a subjective and more
fluid connection arises between these disparate and seemingly unrelated
objects, places and their significance. To Yang, such compilations testify toher belief in the existence of cross-cultural and transnational connections
and similarities that transcend geopolitical segregations. From this perspective, her works materialise the importance and urgency of seeking out such
relations in a time that seems to be increasingly defined by divisions.
Every time Yang exhibits this wallpaper, new, local elements sneak into thework. At SMK, the wallpaper is not only fitted to the proportions of themuseum’s wall; the imagery has also been supplemented with sealskin mittens (with two thumbs), a historic, Greenlandic children’s anorak densely
studded with more than 80 protective amulets, wooden snow goggles anda whaling suit. These images are of objects from the Arctic Collection at the
National Museum of Denmark, which is in itself part of the complex webof colonisation. The updated demography of the wallpaper thus introduces
objects, including utensils and garments, in Inuit culture that convey a spiritual vocation and cope with practical challenges, reflecting Yang’s interestin such sophisticated and functional solutions to basic concerns.

7e7 Formative Works
7a Anatomy of the Pasta, 1995/2017
Pencil on plaster, cooked and dried pasta, masking tape
47 × 71 × 6 cm
7b Tray with Landscape, 1995/2017
Plaster
47 × 72 × 7 cm
7c Bottle with Pasta above the Door, 1995/2017
Milk bottle, polished bottle top, pasta, photocopy, text on foil, fabric, wood
100 × 16 × 20 cm
7d Family Tree, 1995/2018
Metal rod, cotton thread, wire, plant pot, plaster
133 × 29 × 20 cm
7e Anthology of Haegue Archives, 1998/2020
Glass showcase, objects, labels,
225 × 210 × 35 cm
Consists of:
3 Precious Things, 1995/2017
Blond Hair / Black Hair (Dyed), 1995/2017
Fishing, 1995 *Hand-Made, 1995/ 2018
IKEA Cup as a Self-Portrait, 1995/2018
Long Life / Bad Life, 1995/2017
Macaroni, 1995/2017
Macaroni (Metal), 1995/2017
Menu, 1995
Practicing Baking, 1995/2017
The Art and Craft of the Menu, 1995 , Collection of Barbara Wien, Berlin
The Transformation from Fish to Leaf, 1994, Private Collection, Lingen* Not originally part of Anthology of Haegue Archives, where Thread with Fishhook, 1995–1996
was included instead.
7f Sink with Wire, 1995/2017
Plaster, wood, steel wire, text on foils
57 × 73 × 49 cm
7g Rod with Wire, 1994/2017
Metal rod, steel wire
9 × 9 × 84 cm
7h Dining Table, 1995/2017
3 milk bottles, polished bottle top, cooked and dried pasta, masking tape, paper, glass
bowl, photographs, text on foil, dust, chipboard, wood, paint, lid, metal, plaster, cable
91 × 103 × 50 cm

This installation addresses the period when Yang, as a newly arrived student,
struggled to familiarise herself with European society and posit her own artistic production within that context. Many of those early object-based pieces
incorporate a variety of materiality and narrate that period, which is marked
by Yang’s language difficulties, a non-existent understanding of her cultural
heritage and her encounter with unfamiliar environments. As many of Yang’s
early works were disposed of or lost, most of the objects in this room andAnthology of Haegue Archives were reconstructed between 2017 and 2020,enabling her own rediscovery of her nascent practice.
For this presentation, comprised of some early object-based works andAnthology of Haegue Archives, Yang has arranged a selection of objects thatappear to be experiments, tentative efforts at artworks and commonplace
objects from the workshop. The Anthology of Haegue Archives’ pseudo-scholarlypresentation of objects in vitrines accompanied by labels mimics the convention of displaying objects in ethnographic or science museums. It is as if Yangis cataloguing, archiving and researching her own art. In a way, she is. Fromthe 1960s, many artists were preoccupied with the concept of the ‘archive’and the entire idea of ​​being able to distil phenomena and ideas, pulling theminto a rational, neutral space. Typically for Yang, she mobilises self-irony topuncture the (self-) aggrandising, almost ‘pathetic’ – according to her own
evaluation – aspects of the archive format by compiling her own works as an‘Anthology’.

7f

8 Bathroom Contemplation
Bathroom Contemplation, 2000
15 sheets: text on paper (laser print), written by Haegue Yang and Misoon Kim
Each 42 × 29.7 cm‘Only when I take a bath does the world seem to become right.’
Yang has continually produced text-based pieces; on occasion, these were
scripts for audio works or video essays. During her formative period, text
served as a space for her personal, even confessional voice and an exit fromthe conceptual tendencies of her sculptural works.
In this text piece we hear alternating voices of two protagonists – a motherand a daughter. Each voice of Bathroom Contemplation is printed on a separate
sheet and glued up on the wall, a direct and humble form of presentation
devoid of unnecessary effects. Here, the bathroom embodies a space where
two voices meet to recapitulate a situation of great embarrassment andalienation during a long-awaited time together after being separated due toYang’s departure to Germany in 1994. The mother-daughter relationship is
described here as a subject experiencing pain and agony from the daughter’s
immigration.
Yang suggested to her mother, who is a writer and activist, to write a kindof double-diary about their time spent together during her mother’s visit inGermany, with an assumption that their writing would eventually deal withan indelible incident in the bathroom. Based on a simple yet crucial difference of there being no drain in the floor in German bathrooms, a ‘crisis’ wascaused – when the mother accidentally flooded the daughter’s bathroom
during a caring attempt to clean it. Around this event, tension between two
beloved people builds and reaches a climax. It is a story about the shifts aperson experiences depending on whether one is foreign or familiar witha society, between dependence or independence, being free or trapped andfalling from ignorance or rising from knowledge. The text piece also conveys
the frustrations of one arriving in a new country without speaking the language or understanding the cultural codes, hampered in the simplest daily
activities to become like a helpless child again.

9 Chronologies of Conflated Dispersion
9a A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion – Duras and Yun, 2018
Digital print on self-adhesive vinyl
Translation into Danish: Dennis Meyhoff Brink
9b A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion – Duras and Orwell, 2021
Digital print on self-adhesive vinyl
Translation into Danish: Dennis Meyhoff Brink

Yang’s two text-based works A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion – Duras andYun and A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion – Duras and Orwell bring together
three figures from history: the French author Marguerite Duras (1914–1996),
the South Korean composer Isang Yun (1917–1995) and the English author
George Orwell (1903–1950). The text works unfold as chronological examinations of incidents in the lives of the three persons entangled/intertwined withthe colonisation of Asian countries and the Cold War, among other historic
events. The two works offer an opportunity to enter and connect the complex
and compelling lives of these historic persons that, at the same time, reflect
on Yang and her complex ties to Asia and Europe alike.
Duras grew up in Vietnam (then part of the French colony of Indochina), where
her parents worked as teachers for the French colonial authorities. Her father
died when Duras was still very young, and the family subsequently lived inpoverty, occupying an outsider position – both in relation to the colonial authorities and the colonised. For most of her adult life, Duras lived in France,but often wrote about her childhood in Vietnam and issues of belonging/not
belonging.
Yun was born in present-day South Korea, which was colonised by Japan until
1945. He studied in Korea and Japan before moving to Europe at the age of 39
to study music. He later became a German citizen, and his dual national affiliations had a major impact on his compositions, which are a fusion of traditional
Korean and Western avant-garde music.
Orwell was born into a colonial family in Myanmar (the then British colony of
Burma), where his father was employed in the opium department of the British
Empire. As a young man, Orwell himself served as an officer in the Indian
Imperial Police before deciding to become a writer, adopting a very criticalstance on imperialism.
At SMK, the text is exhibited on the floor in Danish. You can access the text inDanish as well as English using this QR code.

10 Genuine Cloning
Genuine Cloning, 2020
Digital sound file, speakers, 65:01 min., loop
The live broadcast recording made at the Inter-Korean Summit in the Korean Demilitarised
Zone on April 27, 2018 is included by permission of the Presidential Office of the Republicof Korea.

‘Typhoons know no borders. But the countries surrounding the Pacific Ocean
give typhoons names in their own languages. It’s absurd from the typhoons’perspective,’ states the voice-over in the audio piece Genuine Cloning, which isbased on a script written by Yang.
The protagonist is a cloned artificial voice of the artist, speaking English withher own pronunciation and accent. In one chapter, the protagonist wonders
what it means to be without a body, existing only as a voice. It muses on thesubject of learning other languages and​​imitating other identities by mastering someone’s dialect or accent. In another chapter, the voice recites all thenames given to typhoons in the region of the Pacific Ocean and then goeson to contemplate human beings’ ‘strange’ habit of naming everything, evennon-human things. Another sardonic comment relates to the order of nation/state in the human world and how it should not play a role in meteorologicalphenomena, such as typhoons. Occasionally, the protagonist’s train of thought
is interrupted by an ambient sound recording of birdsong.
Played from what Yang calls ‘Sound Fruits’, clusters of speakers hanging fromthe ceiling, the ruminations by the protagonist of Genuine Cloning is interlacedwith the recording of the historic Inter-Korean Summit in 2018 when the leaders of the two Koreas met in the demilitarised zone in the middle of the Korean
Peninsula. At one point during the meeting – a major political event that was
broadcast live worldwide – the two leaders conversed as they strolled on thezone’s pedestrian bridge alone. All that the assembled world press and viewers
could hear was the chirping of birds, occasionally supplemented by distant,incomprehensible voices and the photographers’ snapping cameras.

11 Sonic Celestial Ropes
Sonic Celestial Ropes, 2021
PVD-coated stainless steel bells, stainless steel chains, quick links, split rings
Each 1630 × 11 × 11 cm
11a Sonic Celestial Rope – Iridescent Dodecagon Loose Curl
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
11b Sonic Celestial Rope – Iridescent Dodecagon Straight Weave
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin
11c Sonic Celestial Rope – Iridescent Dodecagon Tight Curl
Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York

Many of Yang’s Sonic Sculptures in various modalities can be regarded as
performative pieces, evoking change and instability. Most of them are not stationary and can be set in motion, made to oscillate and turned upside down
– all of which introduce elements of concrete, palpable change and, mostimportantly, are accompanied by sonic resonance. The sound, the metallic
rattle and jingling, is an equally significant dimension of the Sonic Sculptures.
Seeking to expand our experience of sculpture, Yang often activates senses
other than just the sense of sight in her works – smell, touch or as here,
hearing.
Stretched between the ground and the 20-metre-high ceiling, Sonic Celestial
Ropes are made solely of bells connected with rings, hanging like sci-fi lianasin space. Their strong vertical axes draw one’s eye to automatically follow theropes all the way up to the ceiling. When the ropes are shaken or hit manually, the activated sound and curves rise, as if something is ascending.
The inspirational story behind these unusual rope sculptures is a Korean folk
tale about two siblings escaping a wild tiger by climbing a rope appearing
from the sky. Safe in heaven, they become the Sun and the Moon. A rope orsometimes a ladder is a recurring feature in many folk tales and mythologies
as a means of connection and communication between the sky and earth.
Yang’s keen interest in various references about mystic leaps thus informs
Sonic Celestial Ropes as well.
Sonic Celestial Ropes will be activated by a museum staff member, on behalf ofvisitors. Please speak with a staff member or guard for more information.

12 Silo of Silence – Clicked Core
Silo of Silence – Clicked Core, 2017
Aluminium venetian blinds, powder-coated aluminium and steel hanging structure, steel
wire rope, motor, LED tubes, cable
1654 × 780 × 780 cm

Comprising 154 venetian blinds, Silo of Silence – Clicked Core is 16 metres inheight. The suspended cylinder-shaped sculpture has two layers – the outer ismade of black blinds, while the inner ‘core’ is constructed out of cobalt blue
blinds with lighting tubes. Rotating at a speed that corresponds to a walking
pace, the inner core does not appear to move when the spectator is walking
in the same direction as the rotation. Inside the silo, the hypnotising rotational movement generates an imagery of kaleidoscopic geometry.
Yang has used industrially manufactured, aluminium venetian blinds in her
works for the past fifteen years. Easily purchased in the nearest curtain shop
or hardware store, blinds are by no means exclusive items and as such, exemplify Yang’s interest in ordinary domestic objects, similar to her frequent useof drying racks. The venetian blinds speak to our memories of densely inhabited urban areas, in which curtains or blinds are used to protect our privacy
and mark the border between the outside and the inside while regulating thepenetration and covering of views and lights.
Yang has spoken about her ‘problem of choosing colour’, a situation often circumnavigated by leaving room for a colour to emerge by itself. For instance,
the blinds’ cobalt blue colour in this installation is rooted in the long conception period in 3D computer simulation. When a graphic element is clicked,
it turns blue, indicating that it is activated and can be moved, modified ordeleted. In Silo of Silence – Clicked Core, the blue colour thus directly references
its own digital conception process. Our digital everyday life, with an infinite
number of blue hyperlinks that prompt us to further action on-screen are,in fact, imbued with this particular colour. In this work, the blue (core) thus
forms the active part.

13 Furniture Sculptures
13a Vita Cushion – Yielding S, 2020Clear-coated plywood, adjustable feet, screws, pegs, chip foam, canvas, wool yarn, cotton
yarn, jute yarn
145 × 191 × 324 cm
13b Mundus Cushion – Yielding X, 2020Clear-coated plywood, adjustable feet, screws, pegs, chip foam, canvas, wool yarn, cotton
yarn, jute yarn
182 × 311 × 309 cm

Cushions on furniture-like modular displays constitute Yang’s contemplation
on what she found during her site visit to Cornwall in South West England.
Yang visited the Church of St Senara in 2019 and was deeply moved by thescenes in the church and the breathtaking coastal landscape. St Senara isequipped with pews that display numerous kneelers – small cushions to kneelon during prayer. Against the backdrop of a majestic ocean, Yang’s focus wasparticularly directed to the cross-stitched motifs on the top of the kneelers,
while the pews appeared as display stands for them. The cushions were neatly
embroidered, based on centuries-old handicraft traditions. While the embroidery on pew cushions normally depict solemn religious symbols, Yang foundmodest yet impassioned expressions on cushions made and donated by local
churchgoers. The variety of embroidered depictions included their own
house, livestock, pets and natural wonders like an eclipse, somewhat grounded motifs instead of overtly religious ones. They all tellingly described therelationship between people and the rough life next to the coastal landscape.
Arranged to form an X and an S when seen from above, Yang’s sculptures’plywood structures are made by chopping the lengths and varying theirheights such that the kneelers go up and down like a musical score. Abstracted from the church benches, the modular display is now dedicated to deliver
the emancipated messages of the kneelers, assigned to ‘world’ and ‘life’.
Mundus Cushion refers to ‘eclipse’, ‘tempest’ and ‘climate’ and Vita Cushion includes ‘arson’, ‘man-made’, ‘inferno’, ‘food’, ‘digestion’, ‘comber’ and ‘rhizome’.
Suggestive of a communal reflection on the shared concerns of our time,such as the planet’s future and our newfound awareness of astronomy andmeteorology, these cushions also evoke the immediacy of the humble anxieties and joys of a sailor’s family.

14 Drunken Speech
Drunken Speech, 2007
Digital sound file, speakers, TV set, cable box, TV broadcast/signal, sleeping bag, approx.
16 min., loop, voice-over: Helen Cho (English)

The audio piece, Drunken Speech, is played through headphones and can belistened to while seated on a sleeping bag positioned in front of a monitor
playing free-to-air TV. Placed on the floor in a corner of the gallery, thisvoice-dominant work offers the mood and atmosphere of Yang’s intimate
inner voice, which is both confessional and self-reflexive.
The headphones let visitors listen to a prolonged ‘drunken speech’ in a husky
voice about love, obsessive dedication to work and loneliness, based on theactual notes written by the artist while intoxicated and gathered over several years. Drunken Speech was recorded by the artist’s friend, who is also an
artist of similar age, but grew up in Canada, as a possible alter ego. The work
expresses the thoughts of one selflessly devoted to work and, in the middleof restless travel, also contemplates the notion of love. Is it even possible tohave it all? In the case of this narrator, it would seem not.
The non-synchronised pairing in Drunken Speech between the visual andaudio seems to be a typical setting of what Yang often attempts to achieve.
The nondescript TV set shows mundane programmes, broadcast via satellite
or cable, and today, digitally. Yang sets our eyes on local communities by
including channels in foreign languages intended for immigrants, as is often
the case in her previous exhibitions. But we hear deeply personal doubts,
cries, agonies, and bursts – what the artist depicts as ‘pathetic whining’. The
disparity between the images of the TV programme and the sound, combinedwith two ordinary objects of the TV set and the crumpled sleeping bag, provide a rare arena for an artistic personal voice and her fixation on marginalised status. Drunken Speech is about homelessness – partly the (drunk) artist’s
homeless love, and partly the reality of concrete, universal homelessness.

15 Umbra Creatures by Rockhole
15 Umbra Creatures by Rockhole, 2017–2018
Powder-coated steel frames, mesh and stainless steel hanging structure, steel wire rope,
casters, powder-coated turbine vents, brass-plated bells, split rings, plastic twine, jutetwine, nylon cord, artificial straw, artificial plants, clippings from electronics market
catalogues on chromolux paper, mounted on alu-dibond, self-adhesive holographic vinyl
film, acrylic glass, Bupo
Courtesy of the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City / New York
15a Sonic Rampant Obscure Turbine Vents, Double Decker – Brass Green
167 × 118 × 188 cm
15b The Intermediate – Hairy Tele Digi-Big-Bang Fanned Out
214 × 130 × 130 cm
15c The Intermediate – Head Carrying Woman
234 × 108 × 110 cm
15d The Intermediate – Tinted Asymmetric UHHHHH Creature W
349 × 430 × 25 cm
15e The Intermediate – Tinted Bushy Bald-Headed Bumpy Walks
180 × 110 × 110 cm
15f The Intermediate – Tinted Multi-Tentacled Serpent390 × 390 × 300 cm
15g The Intermediate – Tinted UHHHHH Creature Inverted V
360 × 400 × 180 cm

The sculptural installation Umbra Creatures by Rockhole consists of sevensculptures, including six entitled ‘Intermediate’ and followed by individual
subtitles. In this large sculptural ensemble, a range of cultural traditions andtechniques, imaginative and fantastic figurations, modern synthetic materials
and objects are combined to form a hybrid totality. Residing in both Korea
and Germany since the mid-1990s, Yang’s life seems to traverse cultures, andshe considers her works as nothing but vital manifestations of today’s complex and compelling cross-cultural experiences. While the early Intermediate
series are made of natural-looking artificial straw on basic geometric frames
in an obvious reference to traditional straw weaving, the Umbra Creatures
employ black synthetic cords with a fetish-like shine, freeing the material
from its folk connotations, and are adorned with eccentric features. This shift
in method and material is characteristic of Yang’s work and acts as a way tounlearn a self-established rule.
The Umbra Creatures collectively allude to the shadow creatures poised between the alienating and the familiar. Some, like many of Yang’s sculptures,are on casters, while others hang from the ceiling like a giant serpent or extend their tentacles and reach out like a sea animal. A figurative body features
artificial plants, while another hairy body is crowned with a double-sided
screen of collages in a kaleidoscopic composition with electronic store catalogue clippings as well as holographic vinyl film. The last metallic work, a
Sonic Sculpture, is (hysterically) covered by golden bells and turbine vents,
as an ivy grows.
The word ‘intermediate’ incubates the idea of ‘medium’, implying a connection of separate parts, times or dimensions. Considering the artist’s interestin shamanism, the idea of ‘intermediate’ is significant, since it reflects how
a shaman mediates between different worlds, things and minds. It can also
be applied to the sculptures’ materiality of products and commodities in needof further processing. Both associations underscore Yang’s fascination withprocesses of mediation, translation, adoption and exchange.

16 The Story of a Bear-Lady in a Sand Cave
The Story of a Bear-Lady in a Sand Cave, 2009/2011
Digital sound file, speakers on tripods, 20:30 min., loop, voice-over: Tsukasa Yamamoto(English)

One of the many doubles or pairs in this exhibition involves an animal-likewoman – a bear-lady whom Yang made up by weaving two stories together.
One part of the character hails from the novel The Woman in the Dunes by theJapanese author Kōbō Abe. In the novel, a young widow lives in a wooden
house at the bottom of a sand pit, where she has to ceaselessly shovel sandout of the house to prevent it from being engulfed. The other is inspired bya mythical figure – a bear – who, according to Korean folklore, had to endure
a long stay in a cave with a tiger and only with garlic and mugwort to eat.
Only the one who could endure the hardship the longest would become human. The tiger gave up after twenty days, while the bear persevered and wastransformed into the woman who later became the mother of Korea’s firsthuman king, Dangun.
In this audio work, the two women merge into a single character in a newstory where this bear-lady lives in a dark cave with a tiger whom she does
not know or have any contact with – yet still nurtures feelings for in herloneliness. She spends all day shovelling sand out of the cave to prevent itfrom being swallowed up by the dunes. The story becomes a kind of allegoryof Sisyphean tasks in general, of trivial domestic repetitions and perhaps
even of the working life of an artist. Despite little understanding from thecommunity outside the cave, Yang’s bear-lady remains dedicated to her task,
steadfastly struggling with the sand and ends up composing mesmerisingsand waves as aesthetic signals right outside the cave.

17 The Intermediates
17a The Intermediate – Ceremonial Pom-Pom Ball, 2015
Artificial straw, powder-coated steel frame and mesh, casters, plastic raffia string, brass-,
nickel-, and copper-plated bells
120 × 120 × 120 cm
17b The Intermediate – Ceremonial Peacock Ball, 2015
Artificial straw, powder-coated steel frame and mesh, casters, Indian bells, Korean bridal
crowns, artificial feathers
116 × 128 × 130 cm
MN Collection, Aalborg, long-term loan SMK
17c The Intermediate – Psychic Turbine Vents Ball, 2017
Artificial straw, powder-coated stainless steel frame, ball casters, turbine vents
92 × 120 × 120 cm

Reminiscent of haystacks in a traditional rural rice field as well as Korean
harvesting rituals, the three spherical sculptures fitted with various objects
and placed on casters are part of the Intermediate series, which Yang began
in 2015. One is adorned with artificial peacock feathers, Indian bells and traditional Korean bridal crowns; another sculpture has mass-produced aluminium turbine vents poking out on all sides; while the third is decorated withnylon pom-poms and balls of bells.
It is typical of Yang to juxtapose – and align – objects with religious, ornamental or practical functions. The Intermediate sculptures incorporate traditional
Korean weaving patterns, including youngmareum, the straw-weaving methods
used by Korean peasants to make baskets, shoes and other items, and mostprominently, roofs for farmers’ housing, as well as a method of twining called
dunggumi. Yang and her team in Korea learnt the craft techniques from artisanal weavers, and she soon realised that similar weaving can be found in various other cultures. Techniques that take native plants or unassuming crop
leftovers from farming – such as palm leaves, banana leaves, reeds or straw– to repurpose by weaving captures Yang’s attention. She keenly studied how
weaving creates decorative yet sturdy surfaces, which can in turn be shaped
into three-dimensional objects with ornamentation. The techniques as wellas the objects produced are inherited and renegotiated over generations without authoritative bodies or safeguards.

ABOUT HAEGUE YANG
Haegue Yang has been dividing her time between Germany and Korea since the mid-1990s.
These two countries are also home to her two studios, where she works on a myriad of
projects. In 2019 – before the pandemic hit – she had fifteen exhibitions on four continents
in just one year.
Born in 1971 in Seoul, South Korea, Yang grew up with twin brothers and, alternately,with her mother and father. Given her politically committed parents as well as her brothers’ engagement in politics, her decision to study sculpture at Seoul National University,
enrolling in 1990, made her an exception within her family. Upon her arrival in Germany
in 1994, she embarked on her art education at the renowned Städelschule in Frankfurt
with limited knowledge of German language and society – a lack that Yang set about toovercome, often through artistic projects. Over time, she developed her own original practice, indeed informed by a transcultural identity and history.
After Yang graduated from the Städelschule in 1999, she started to participate in a range ofsmaller shows and presented projects that were on a modest scale. In 2006, Sadong 30 wasstaged in her grandmother’s house, which had been abandoned for eight years, in Incheon,a suburb of Seoul. Today, this self-initiated exhibition, which did not garner internationalrecognition, is regarded as her breakthrough. Amidst tattered wallpaper, glassless windows
and crumbling bricks, Yang inserted origami objects, mirrors, wrapped drying racks, lightbulbs on intravenous stands and a series of smaller objects. The show marked the beginning of an enduring artistic focus on the notion of ‘home’ and ‘homelessness’, which deal
with the activities involved in managing a household and also the sensation of deliberately
leaving one’s home. Since then, domestic everyday objects have appeared in her oeuvre toconvey the elusive understanding about the public and the private as well as the humble
yet vital activities that organise our daily lives. Throughout her practice, Yang seeks andpursues her own way to convey a sense of her experience of the diaspora while living in andout of her country of birth.
At the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, Yang received international attention with her extensive presentation, both at the Korean Pavilion as well as in the Arsenale. Ever since, herwork has been featured at a number of international exhibitions, including the Istanbul
Biennale (2019), the Sydney Biennale (2018), the Sharjah Biennale (2015) and dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel (2012). Recent solo projects and exhibitions include: Tate St Ives (Strange
Attractors, 2020); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (Emergence, 2020); National Museum ofModern and Contemporary Art, Korea (O2 & H2O, 2020) and MoMA, New York (Handles,2019). In 2018, her first European retrospective, ETA 1994-2018, was hosted at the Museum
Ludwig in Cologne alongside the publication of her second catalogue raisonné of the same
title. She received the Wolfgang Hahn Prize in the same year. Since 2017, Yang has been
engaged at her alma mater, the Städelschule, as a professor.

Sources:
Haegue Yang: ETA 1994–2018. Edited with text by Yilmaz Dziewior. Text by Chus Martínez, Leonie Radine et al.
An Artist Whose Muse Is Loneliness by Zoë Lescaze. The New York Times Style Magazine.

PROGRAMME

Thank you for supportof the exhibition:

SMK Wednesdays
Every Wednesday, we expand our usual programme tooffer guided tours and surprising art experiences exploring
this spring’s major exhibition Haegue Yang: Double Soulfrom new angles. Highlights include concerts, artist talks,
lectures and creative workshops.
Wednesdays 9 March – 15 June 2022
16.30–20.00
11 May 2022
Artist talk by Haegue Yang
For a full overview of activities, visit smk.dk

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS AT SMK
Danish contemporary artists from the former Yugoslavia
Autumn 2022

Siv Baumann

Henri Matisse: The Red Studio
13 October 2022 – 26 February 2023
Carl Bloch
11 February – 28 May 2023
Buy an SMK Annual Pass today for a full refund on yourticket – and access to all three exhibitions.
Thank you for supportof acquisition:

HAEGUE YANG: DOUBLE SOULSMK National Gallery of Denmark
5 March – 31 July 2022
Curated by Marianne Torp,
Karen Ormstrup Søndergaard
Education: Nana Bernhardt,
Michael Hansen, Julie Maria Johnsen,
Louise Springborg, Hilde Østergaard
Communication: Sasha Carlson,
Sofie Linde, Michala Rosendahl,
Astrid Boye Wiik, Niels Mortensen
Events: Daniel Smith, Ayoe Torbensdottir
Conservation: Louise Cone, Tora Hederus
Technical coordination and production:
Staffan Boije af Gennäs, Atsuko Ichikawa,
Zarah Landes, Shira Lewis, Andreas
Sachsenmaier
Art handling: Christian Jeppsson,
Morten Sørensen
EXHIBITION GUIDE
Texts and production: Marianne Torp,
Karen Ormstrup Søndergaard
English editing and proofreading:
Magdalen Chua
Danish editing: Cecilie Høgsbro Østergaard,
Camilla Jalving
Danish proofreading: Birthe Egdal
Translation: René Lauritsen
Design: Anni’s
Print and lithography: Narayana Press
Typeface: Kleisch by Chiachi Chao
Photos: Studio Haegue Yang, Anders
Sune Berg, Jan Søndergaard, The National
Museum of Denmark© 2022 SMK National Gallery of Denmark
ISBN 978-87-7551-238-6

Thank you to the lenders:
Barbara Wien, Berlin; MN Collection,
Aalborg; private collectors
Special thanks to:Tone O. Nielsen, colleagues at The National
Museum of Denmark, Louisiana Museumof Modern Art, Frilandsmuseet – Open Air
Museum, Nuuk Art Museum
Studio Haegue Yang, Berlin: Liene Harms,
Chieko Idetsuki, Cheongjin Keem, Nicolas
Pelzer, Katharina Schwerendt, Tsukasa
Yamamoto
Studio Haegue Yang, Seoul: Hwiwon Chun,
Heeyun Kim, U-jung Jang, Insun Kim,
Myoungjung Kim, Junseok Lee, Sihyun
Ryu, Solkyu Yang, Heejung Ye
SMK thanks the galleries of the artist:
dépendance, Brussels
Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
Greene Naftali, New York
Kukje Gallery, Seoul
kurimanzutto, Mexico City / New YorkAll works courtesy of the artist, unlessotherwise indicated© Studio Haegue Yang

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