Born in 1971 in Seoul, lives and works in Berlin.

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Haegue Yang's work stands out by its singularity and the complexity of a proposal combining strength and delicacy. The artist uses everyday objects, which she diverts to create surprising installations: clothes dryers are transformed into sculptures draped in fabric, Venetian blinds create mysterious spaces, envelope linings become geometric collages.

 

If the objects she uses are familiar and easily identifiable by the spectator, sometimes the installation and the association of these multiple objects is not obvious. The path chosen by the artist may then seem ambiguous. Moreover, she does not want her works to leave the spectator indifferent, she invites him to perceive the anthropomorphic aspect of her sculptures, whether there is a possibility of identification that can inspire feelings of empathy or sympathy.

For Haegue Yang, there is a lot of mystery and spirituality in the banal things of everyday life, which she succeeds in bringing out through these industrial, manufactured objects, combining them with a poetic approach to geometric composition, articulating common and extraordinary elements.

At the Atelier Calder, Haegue Yang has created two sculptures that are part of a new series entitled "meubles sculptures", composed of tree roots on which various objects are fixed (tools, glass spheres, stones...).

Through these two sculptures, Haegue Yang refers to several traditional practices very present in Asia: the culture of Bonsai or Suiseki. The latter consists of collecting stones whose particular shapes may recall those of animals, human forms or landscapes.

These stones are placed in habitats usually alongside bonsai trees, and thus acquire supernatural powers, capable of protecting humans from evil spirits. Thus, these natural commonalities acquire an extraordinary status.

It is thus from this tradition that the two works created by Haegue Yang in Saché, entitled Seat of Grandeur at Villeperdue (exterior) and Adventure at Villeperdue (interior), are inspired. Figures of this everyday poetry, the roots thus staged unfold their formal potential.

These two works bear witness to the reappropriation of ancestral practices, the work carried out on these two roots is particularly mastered, precise, it highlights their singular beauty, their colours, their complex entanglements. However, these yew roots are disproportionate, monumental, compared to the usual size of bonsai or stones collected in the art of Suiseki.

As very often Haegue Yang proposes a very referenced work but the interpretation that the artist makes of it proposes a shifted reading.

 

The sculpture of Haegue Yang Seat of Grandeur at Villeperdue, was presented at the Jardin des Plantes during the FIAC, as part of its "outside the walls" program. In 2015, on the occasion of COP21, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris, FIAC extended this route in the Jardin des Plantes until December 2015.

Haegue Yang represented Korea at the Venice Biennale in 2009. A series of exhibitions have been devoted to him: at the New Museum in New York in 2010, the Kunsthaus Bregenz, the Aspen Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum in Oxford and the Arnolfini in Bristol in 2011. In 2012, she participated in the documenta (13) in Kassel. In the same year she designed a monumental installation at the Haus der Kunst in Munich as part of an annual art commission. In France, Haegue Yang presented a solo exhibition, "Equivoques" at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg and at the Aubette 1928. In 2013, she is represented by the Galerie Chantal Crousel.