This autumn, the Tate St Ives will host Strange Attractors by celebrated South Korean artist Haegue Yang
Words by Jessica-Christin Hametner
The exhibition, which will be Yang’s largest to date in the UK, includes examples of her widely known household items, such as light bulbs, brooms and drying racks. Highlighting the artist’s unique visual language, Strange Attractors will showcase Yang’s tendency to employ sensory experiences that marry scent, sound, light and tactility.
Her sculptures and installations often utilise industrially made objects, interwoven with labour-intensive and craft-based processes that reflect pagan cultures and their interconnectedness with seasonal rituals in relation to natural phenomena.
For the first time, visitors will be able to view the exhibition across both the top-lit gallery in the new building and the spectacular sea-facing expanse as the artist will transform both spaces into an open-ended exploration of geometry, abstraction and the aftermath of modernism.
Much of Yang’s work is designed to stir the viewer’s imagination. As part of the exhibition, Trustworthiness will be on view – a paper collage series installed on the blank walls – while the expansive wallpaper Non-Linear and Non-Periodic Dynamics will host the small-scaled Lacquer Paintings. The ethereal theme continues with otherworldly, creature-like sculptures made of artificial straw from Yang’s The Intermediates and Sonic Intermediates series, along with the gigantic Reflected Metallic Cubist Dancing Mask. Meanwhile, flowing layers of translucent fabric will deck the entire length of the gallery’s curved glass front facing the sea.
Curated by Anne Barlow, Director of Tate St Ives, with Assistant Curator Giles Jackson, the title ‘Strange Attractors’ is a concept taken from mathematics, relating to complex patterns of behaviour in chaotic natural systems. Yang’s work often touches on philosophical and political ideas, which are informed by her ongoing research of art history, literature and political history. Her self-proclaimed attitude of ‘indetermination’, from melding different genres and media to inviting the viewer into a world of tactile exploration, will be present throughout the exhibition, creating spaces that play to the senses.
Yang’s work will be on display in Tate St Ives, from 24th October to 3rd May 2021. The exhibition is supported by Henry Moore Foundation and Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, with additional support from Kvadrat.
Images courtesy of Haegue Yang, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris and Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin. (Photos: Nick Ash)