Video Summary
Haegue Yang's Nasher exhibition evolved over seven years, shifting from large-scale to smaller, natural material-based sculptures. Her work explores folk art, shamanism, and cultural identity. Yang's interest in language and site-specific installations is also highlighted. Below is a chronological outline of the topics covered:
Adapted from text generated by AI.
About Haegue Yang
Haegue Yang was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1971. Since the mid-1990s, Yang has lived and worked in Seoul and Berlin and currently teaches at her alma mater, the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Her immersive multimedia environments combine diverse materials and cultural traditions with references ranging from scientific phenomena and sociopolitical narratives to art history. Using a range of industrial objects and intensive, craft-based techniques, her works make connections between divergent worlds of contemporary mass production, ancient civilizations and natural phenomena.
Yang regularly exhibits at key international museums and biennales, and her work is represented in institutional and private collections all over the world. She has been the subject of over 60 solo shows and projects at institutions, including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2009); the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2010); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2012); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2018); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2020); Tate St Ives (2020); SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (2022); Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2023) and S.M.A.K., Ghent (2023).
Her work has also featured in around 170 group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2009), the Gwangju Biennale (2010), Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), the Taipei Biennial (2014), the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT), Brisbane (2015), the Biennale of Sydney (2018) and the Singapore Biennale (2022). The Hayward Gallery, London is currently presenting a survey show of Yang’s work.
Transcript
Anna Smith: Good afternoon. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Nasher. I'm curator of education, Anna Smith, and today I'm happy to welcome artist Haegue Yang.
Before we begin, I invite you all to join us again on February 22nd for a fascinating look at the life and legacy of artists to David Smith with author Michael Brenson. I'll also remind you to silence your phones out of respect for our presenters.
Before we begin, oh, excuse me. In case you hadn't noticed, our galleries have become a bit more magical with fluttering bird forms, blooming seed pods, snaking tentacles, and shadowy creatures residing in our galleries. Haegue Yang's sculptures combine materials in a way that creates unexpected connections between contemporary mass production and ancient civilizations. Yang actively exhibits at international biennales while her work is represented in prominent institutional and private collections all over the world, including the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, to name a few.
A prolific artist, Yang has been the subject of many solo shows and projects at the aforementioned institutions and others, including The New Museum, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, SMK, National Gallery of Denmark, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, and SMAK, Ghent.
The Hayward Gallery London is currently presenting a survey of Yang's work over the last three decades.
Her work has also been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta 13, the Taipei Biennale, Sharjah Biennale 12, Istanbul Biennale, the Biennale of Sydney, the Singapore Biennale, and most recently the Lahore Biennale.
Joining Yang in conversation is Nasher curator Leigh Arnold, whose most recent exhibitions include Hugh Hayden: Homecoming in 2024, and the landmark survey Groundswell: Women of Land Art in 2023. I look forward to their conversation today. Please join me in welcoming Haegue Yang and Leigh Arnold.
Leigh Arnold: Thank you, Anna. Thank you for being here today. Thank you to everybody for being here today. I'll just start kind of at the very beginning. At the Nasher, we really tend to let the artists drive the ideas for the exhibitions and especially if we're discussing the possibility of new work.
So when I made the invitation to you, Haegue, I was really interested to see how you might respond to the building, to the collections, the garden, to the spaces. And during our conversations over the years since my initial invitation to you, your one and only site visit in 2018, which was a long time ago to now, here we are at the opening of your show, which has been seven years. You've had so many projects, commissions, your work has evolved. You've initiated and developed new bodies of work. So it's clear the ideas for what you may have thought about in 2018 to what is in the galleries now, probably shifted a little bit. Can you take us through how that process evolved and maybe your first impressions of the Nasher and how you, yeah, how did that shift and evolve for you?
Haegue Yang: By the way, she didn't give me these questions in advance. It's a bit unfair game. 2018. I have a very bad memory. So '18, I always had to think about through production and exhibition. '18. Yeah, I was young and beautiful, I guess. More energetic. I mean, you saw the sculptures now, it became small. And like-
Leigh Arnold: Maybe for reference, you were just about to debut the body of work Handles at the MoMA.
Haegue Yang: That was-
Leigh Arnold: It was a year before, so MoMA commission.
Haegue Yang: That was which year?
Leigh Arnold: Was 2019.
Haegue Yang: 2019. Oh.
Leigh Arnold: Yeah. So maybe your head space when we first started talking was really about movement in the body and also incredibly large scale.
Haegue Yang: She can answer on behalf. Yes, thank you. It reminds me of, yes, movement was a key word, and I think MoMA project is maybe a good example of how my artistic ambition has been manifested. Manifested in a, I guess not only in the massive referential researches, but also quite a massive body, the physicality. A weight where... quite nothing to dismiss, let's say.
I guess it has been such a long time. I mean, I gave a little speech at the opening as well that as the time goes by, we went through so many things like COVID and there were a lot of world-shaking events, so I thought that nation might have forgotten me, that there was a point of time that I was not sure if I'm going to have a show or not.
And I think in terms of response to Nasher, I mean Nasher has such a reputation. I think you guys hear it too much of compliments so, I don't want to add on top, but of course I was very honored to be an artist exhibiting at the Nasher. And I think what I didn't know and what was important was the site visit to come to Texas.
I had one group show in Houston and another three-man exhibition in Houston, but it has been long time ago, and I guess I was a young artist with less exposure in U.S. and less experience as a professional to travel, to take in the new place and people in me. Not that I'm enormously established, I feel still like a forever emerging artist. I don't know if it is good or bad, you guys tell me, but today I guess I definitely feel the impact of all those loads of time as a practicing artist thinking about what does it mean, the physicality as a sculptor, placing things in space, very basic questions. I think I was really revisiting those questions, those years based on all the chunky productions and prominent exhibitions and traveling around as a metaphorical orphan, I would say.
Yes. I don't know if it does make a good response to your question.
Leigh Arnold: I think so. I'm curious, do you describe yourself as a sculptor?
Haegue Yang: That's the answer I am giving to whenever there is a question about my own understanding of me as an artist. Yeah, I do. I think I said it multiple time.
Leigh Arnold: It's on record.
Haegue Yang: Of course, the definition of sculptor is kind of evolving and keep changing. But the same way when I was young and I randomly expressed I want to become a painter because painter stand for their art in the younger age, and I was not aware of what sculptor mean. It didn't existed when I was in the elementary school or junior high school. I think at the end of junior high school I discovered the notion of sculptor. And since it was unknown to me, I immediately jump on it and start insisting I want to become a sculptor. And my grade for sculpture was not as good as the painting, so it really provoked me as well. Yeah, ever since I think I'm in search of the notion of sculptor, what it could mean today.
Leigh Arnold: You gave a quote a couple of years ago saying, "Sculpture making is in fact the process of making my own encounter with materials into an experience that can be shared with others." And I think that's a fascinating quote given how much of your earlier work, I would say before you really started with the intermediates, you were really known as producing work out of ready-mades using, and you still continue to use materials that are everyday objects. So these are already objects that we encounter in our daily lives, all of us. But it's kind of through your sculpture making is essentially then helping us kind of reshape our understanding of how we encounter these different objects. Would you say that's true?
Haegue Yang: I mean, honestly, I don't remember what I said. I try my best to forget what I said because as an artist, I think saying is one thing, but doing is more substantial and significant act. It is only additional.
But if I revisit the quote you were presenting here, I think there is the, I would say like a aspect of modesty what I want to bring as a sculptor. What I meant by the modesty is the material or the method of sculpture making come first. I often internally feel that I'm only following up what the material or the method require me to follow up. It's really triggered by encounter. There is this mysterious, miraculous moment. All of a sudden the material slash object appear to me different than usual. We call encounters, no? Whether it is a feeling of unfamiliarity, or alienation or exoticness, it appeared to be something that I should contemplate about so, then I do research. I do let's, I call it material agony, I start agonizing with the materiality. And I try to follow up what material require me to do to bring back to you to the audience that it finally became something to share.
What would, like bringing, talking about the intermediate, I think we have a couple of intermediate work in the lower level gallery. So the intermediate is primarily a anthropomorphic sculpture, freestanding, whether it's freestanding or suspending. It's also made with a weaving technique. So it's either have a great volume and shape and ornamented surface. Sometimes it has a hairy skin, but it's about the weaving and the materiality was the whatever you can weave. And started with folk art techniques such as straw weaving.
But I also have done macrame, knitting, crochet, all types of weaving because weaving is such a inefficient making of something that was just a fiber, like what we call fiber is not a thing yet. And through the methodology of weaving, you can give a shape, you can give a scale, you can give a narrative and then patterns and ornamentation, you can go all different direction. And that appeared to me all of a sudden the mediating act between the material world and our thinking world. So I thought whatever shaman does, whatever artist does, it's actually intermediary work. Now, I'm totally lost. I don't know what I'm talking about.
Leigh Arnold: No, this is good because I think-
Haegue Yang: It's good? Yeah?
Leigh Arnold: Yes. It's good. So it's been about a decade since you started the intermediates, which was when you embarked on that new series. It represented a big turn in your practice.
Haegue Yang: It was because I mean, the world always tried to define the artist. And I think before the initiation of the intermediate, I was the artist of everyday object and the intermediates kind of launched through the exhibition in Korea at Leeum. And that was the kind of big institutional reintroduction of me in my hometown.
And like many other artists and my colleague and dear friends, I was a bit opposing the idea of keeping what people were expecting so, that made me initiate many, many new sculptures and one of them was intermediate, so it was completely new to the Korean audience. And I started my research into the notion of folk art because I think the hometown is always the most difficult place to be exposed to because there is an unfulfillable amount of expectation and fantasies and whatever so, it's felt like a game that I would play, but I already lost the game before it ever begun.
So I thought I will take it as a opportunity to show my challenges instead of my achievement and especially the folk art. Whenever we talk about this ethnic or the folk art, it always bouncing the question of the belongness. And I think already at that time I felt a bit like I'm drifting away to be the authentic Korean, but there are so many Koreanists that coming from the past, meaning my upbringing in the period when Korea was the Third World. Do you say the Third World? You don't hear that.
Leigh Arnold: I think it's kind of out of fashion.
Haegue Yang: Yeah, we don't hear that word anymore. But also the coming and arriving in Europe and all those things was kind of revisiting and poured into the research of the folk and the question of belongness, and the more I actually look into the folk art, I actually saw a lot of universality and maybe non-academic commonness that only the dilettante would find. So that was another thing I was weaving not only the materiality, but also maybe all those hidden disparate things and parts that I found rather common and shareable than maybe distinctively different. But of course, it's a difficult job because you don't want to dismiss the particularity of the vernacular culture, but how can I actually not go in one or the other way, but becoming a container to give back the complexity of the whole cultural parameters, let's say.
Leigh Arnold: In addition to shifting towards folk kind of handicraft, craftsmanship, labor patterns, the intermediates in that timeframe, also you shifted to more natural materials, or at least the illusion of natural materials because many of those intermediates are still made with artificial straw. And here at the Nasher you've kind of just fully turned into sculptures that are almost entirely natural. This is also the debut of two new bodies of work, the Airborne Paper Creatures, Triple Synecologies, and the Mignon Votives.
Haegue Yang: I cannot even pronounce it my own title like her. It’s impossible.
Leigh Arnold: I have a question about titles that we'll get to in a second, but I think so I feel as though maybe we are lucky at the Nasher to be part of what Leeum Museum got to experience in 2015, which was being with you as you make a turn in your work. And now you're, I've noticing the greater inclusion of natural materials and wondering what prompted that. I think you just described how you arrived at the paper cutting, the airborne paper creatures. I think we can understand that as stemming from your research into folk techniques and paper cutting. But I'm curious, what about this turn to natural materials that you can tell us about?
Haegue Yang: Maybe this is a good opportunity to talk about a paper in general that, last couple of years I was very invested in the so-called mulberry papers, and that is maybe known to us as rice paper, which is such a strange term because there is no traces of rice in the paper. It's like mulberry bark or the bark of the fig tree.
And it's again, also attached to certain craftsmanship in this case, more connected with ritualistic act and spiritual orientation that I rediscovered the use of mulberry paper in the ritual of Korean shamanism. There are of course great element of dance and chanting and offering, but somehow I was so surprised to find so many, so much use of paper in the props, what shaman was mobilizing within the ritual. Because for me, the paper was so far such a civilizational material and so closely tied with text and writing so, I didn't consider the paper as sculptural material. And I embarked my research into many different civilizations, how the paper were mobilized to make it short. But so far there were not so many pieces of work that is sculptural enough that where the paper is used.
And so I think in this exhibition you see maybe two sculptural group where you could see the traces of mulberry paper and one is this Airborne Creatures. So the body is actually the wooden plate, the cut...
Leigh Arnold: Plywood?
Haegue Yang: Plywood or I think it's called bark wood?
Leigh Arnold: It's like CNC laser cut birch plywood.
Haegue Yang: Forget about it.
Leigh Arnold: Birch plywood.
Haegue Yang: Yeah, birch. Yes, birch was the word. But then it's ornamented with mulberry paper or marble papers. So I think this combination is.
Haegue Yang: So I think this combination is based on kite making. You make a bamboo or wooden frame, and then you would glue the paper and make the object that can move through the aerodynamic. And it's also very universal tradition, and I really focused on the kite through my participation of Lahore Biennale in Pakistan. And they own the great tradition of kite fighting in their spring festival. It's really world-famous, massive, almost like fanatic and almost hysterical passion for kite flying, which is currently banned. And I was looking into this point of conflict. There are a lot of loaded conflict, why it is banned and still mysterious, and people miss this festival and flying kite up into the sky. And so I launched the one kite base sculpture in Lahore Biennale. I learned great deal. And that made a second version for sculptural version for nature.
And the second example was what you can see in the downstairs, it's a relief. And the whole relief is for me an excuse to boast about flower making out of paper. And there are different types of flower making tradition in the whole world. And a lot of noble, let's say like royal or aristocratic tradition of flower making, is done with silk or textile. Really, it's the folk tradition evolves with the paper flower and it's much more ephemeral and much more accessible.
Similar to intermediate, they also stand intermediary between real flower and the artificial flower. And why do we make artificial flower? Of course, it's about the duration. For the lot of ritual and festivity, you want have a decoration that lasts longer. That might be the pragmatic reason to make of paper flowers. But the other desire was paper flower is a symbol for describing different topology. Because flower, or any types of vegetation, is a product of the land and the climate. So it is grounded in certain season and climate. And when you make a paper flower, you fictionalize a world that we don't have in this world and it often refers the other world, whether it is rather apocalyptic world or heavenly world, or wishful word or damned world. And that ability to aspire to other world, I actually saw my space for expression. Does it make sense?
Leigh Arnold: Can you talk about, did you yourself learn how to do this paper flower making? And who did you work with in your studio to make those paper flowers that are, for example, on radial tassel epiphyte, which is the relief sculpture?
Haegue Yang: So when I started the collages made out of the mulberry paper called Mesmerizing Mesh, we did visited a couple of shamans in Korea. And in our society, like in the contemporary Korea, there are let's say prominent shamanic figures. They are practicing shaman, but they are declared as immaterial heritage. So it's not a heritage that is a physical side or object, but it's human being who knows how to do certain ritual, how to deal with the food. Ritual meaning they know how to cook, what food come along for rich ritual. They know how to dance, they know how to chant, they know how to even embroidery. So for me, they were performing artists as well as craft, visual artists. And they have a lot of ability to deal with the human destiny as well as healing. And not healing not only a singular individual, but also they do a lot of rituals for the community. It could be a small town, a village, but they are national figures. They would appear to the public to care the community in despair or in sadness, et cetera. Why was I bringing…?
Leigh Arnold: You were telling us about the process for making cut paper flowers.
Haegue Yang: So you were asking for making-
Leigh Arnold: I'm curious, what's your process? And you were taking us through your research into the techniques by meeting the different shamans.
Haegue Yang: I cannot knock the door of those shamans directly, they would be extremely suspicious. And so my accessibility was through the curators at the folk art museum and scholars who has published about those rituals. So they introduced me as well as my team to visit them. But we were already studying and practicing certain cuts and folding, so we were a bit prepared. And they would demonstrate they would receive us. And so we did a couple of those visit.
But so for instance, one of the shamans we visit is a national immaterial heritage. I mean he was a genius shaman already recognized as a young kid. And so I sometimes has a hard time to say he or she because they're sometimes a bit genderless because they can be men or woman. But I have a hard time to keep the person as he. He knows a very, very complicated ritual, so demonstrate us certain cuts and folding. But then specifically the flower making are very known as the technique of shaman, but more famously by the Buddhist monk. And that visit I haven't made yet, but we were studying the monk flower makers.
Leigh Arnold: I think it was three of your studio members that did all the flowers.
Haegue Yang: Yes. So I mean we learned, we meaning me and my studio mates, we learned this together and we practiced together. And often with the time, it crystallized that certain people can do and certain people cannot. There is nothing you can do about it. So it's boiled down, some person is very good at certain composition and it ended up that actually three male studio members are the best for the flower making. So we have three flower boys. So I developed most of flower with them.
Leigh Arnold: Going back to the Mesmerizing Mesh, which is a series that really came out of your time spent in Korea and Seoul. And because of the pandemic, you found yourself spending more time in Seoul, right than you had since you left in 1994. And so I'm curious if you could tell us about how having to stay still and not be this nomad that you're frequently described as, how did that affect your practice and has it had lasting effects in how you make work and make exhibitions?
Haegue Yang: Orphan, not nomad.
Leigh Arnold: Okay, orphan.
Haegue Yang: I don't know. I found nomad a bit outdated and maybe too fantasizing. Yeah, the COVID, I left Korea in 94 to study in Germany, and ever since I think I was going back to Korea a lot, I do have two studio. So I regularly going back to Korea to work and to live. However, there was not a single time that I spent I think four seasons back in Korea. And thanks to COVID, I was forced to stay in one place over the longer period of time. And I think that gave me enough chunk of time to dive into the new technique and research. But also, I don't know, thought about what my lifestyle means. I don't know if it's lifestyle or destiny, whatever term one could use because it was of course huge crisis that I was empowering the way how I live and work a lot, and all of a sudden that way of living was not possible and seems even not good, like ecologically and whatever.
And so it was a huge crisis. I think I got some lessons from that period that I try not to make a long flight multiple times within the year. And so once I'm in Asia, I do consolidate all the trip and moving around within Asia and those, let's say modification has been embarked. But I think this crisis also gave me that... For instance, go back to my feeling about the term nomad, that it has to be more nomadic in the mind than in the geophysical sense.
I mean the research sounds always so academic, but I really don't mean only the intellectual or knowledge-based studying. I think it has to be very mindful studying. And I think it's my willingness to take something in. And often you cannot make the field trip. It's a luxury that you can make a field trip. It's a luxury to visit someone, make a real encounter. No matter how much I want to do, it's not always possible. Whenever it's possible I would do it, but otherwise we have to study and indirect encounter. I think that's what I meant, that it's maybe the nomadic sounds too romantic and too real.
Leigh Arnold: Let's talk about the exhibition. And before we talk about the different bodies of work, I want to talk about your titling process. My colleague Jed recently made a comment that you probably need a dictionary on hand when you're reviewing the checklist or titles for your works. And I was privy to the process of titling when it came to thinking about what to title the show, for example, brainstorming titling of these new productions. And it became very clear to me how important language is to your practice, and that is communicated through the titles, but also you have a very strong attention to how your work is written about and discussed. And I think that I'm curious if you could tell us how language functions for you, and do you use language to provide clarity interpretation or do you use it to abstract things further?
Haegue Yang: I think all of it.
Leigh Arnold: Yeah?
Haegue Yang: You can see that I'm clearly not English native. And when I arrive in 94 in Germany, my German was so poor and my English was not there at all. So I guess I think language has been almost an obsession to survive, to communicate. I mean it was such a struggle as well. I think it left some mark in life that I think the way how I'm obsessive about the language is not towards the perfection that I don't want to achieve. I think that's not it. But I guess I understood the attraction and the power of the language, and what a door it is to open certain society and culture. And so it's more awareness of that accessibility, that's the handle, the interface to that opening to enter somewhere.
So I want to keep my imperfection as well as forever improving. And I guess the use of the dictionary is interesting for me because I will look up the word forever in my life, I guess that keep me alert. I guess, and that I totally acknowledge and accept as my destiny. And luckily I'm not a scholar and I'm a practitioner, so you will see me with my imperfect language forever. But I love different types of languages and pick up some words and play with it.
Leigh Arnold: Let's talk about the works in gallery one, the Mignon Votives. What you see in the galleries now is an evolution of ideas that really always, I think from the outset, at least when we were communicating about the show, you were very interested in this broad horizontal plane. So there were different ideas that were proposed, but they all revolved around opening that gallery up, but also making work that would take your attention down. Or at least encourage bodily movement to move down to get closer to these things. But also natural materials. I mean each one of the pebble parades and seed pod statues incorporate such a variety of things. I just want to know how you got there with your process, because these are such new works for your practice.
Haegue Yang: Super new.
Leigh Arnold: Yeah. Do you know what you think about them yet?
Haegue Yang: Maybe I start with this that, I mean, again, I start with the respect for the institution that I'm like sculpture center. I mean, how great it is for someone like me, and I immediately understood it's an opportunity that I can launch something very ambitious as a sculptor. Plus, I just love the building, every aspect of it. I'm an artist who really love architecture, really appreciate the architecture. And again, appreciate doesn't mean, oh, I like, I don't like, not this. The understanding of architecture is so much fun for me to understand how the own architect came up with the solution to deal with the air and light, and logistics and movement. I mean, it's such a joy. And as someone who also deals with space, I want to understand what is given for me as a starting point. And not always, but often it triggers certain types of production. So I guess it's a mixture of the nature's legacy as a sculpture oriented institution, but also having this great but intimate and beautiful architecture.
So I guess I can call it is our main production of the show, the Mignon Votives. I was dreaming to have a turning point that this exhibition become memorable. And what kind of turning point do I need? I had a real urgency based on also my crisis about movement in our time. It became expensive and difficult and even more precarious than before, that as a sculptor, I almost felt like a profound guilt to make things so difficult to move around. And I'm someone who exhibits here and there far away, and my sculpture had to travel. So my desire was becoming small and light. And it sounds so simple, small and light, but I went all the way to the mega production and it was also necessary. I had such a desire as a small Asian female person, I wanted to govern. I wanted to deal with the volume and feel the volume of space with physicality that I fully articulate.
But then I had a, all of a sudden, completely different desire to come all the way down. It's like a Robert DeNiro, getting the weight and then losing the weight, incredible. You have to do it. And I felt the necessity. Again, I felt like I had to follow up, but it was much difficult than I actually thought that we were actually very last minute with the production. It was quite a difficult birth, I can say. Maybe Airborne Creature, I had a one step before in Pakistan. I think it was helpful. Still, we were more than last minute. And Mignon Votive was another last minute. And Mignon Votive were produced in Berlin and Airborne Creatures were produced in Seoul. So it was going to Seoul and working overnight many days and then come back to Berlin to work another weeks of overnight. I think I just want to maybe share the experience, what a difficult process it was for me, even if it looks Mignon, you know? But that's exactly what I wanted to do at Nature. I felt confident that this is an institution who can take that risk and the desire of an artist to-
Haegue Yang: ... and the desire of an artist to transform. Yes.
Leigh Arnold: Let's talk about the pebble parades, which actually coincide with what's being shown on the screen. Which are these stacked stones, and all of the allusions to this pan-civilization tradition of stone stacking. But curiously, you've inserted within many of them, almost all of them, bits of currency from all over the world. These are functioning as offerings, totems. Maybe if you think about it like you make a stacked stone and you put some money in there, maybe your wishes will be fulfilled sooner, et cetera.
The money part is really fascinating to me because it could introduce maybe a political element to the works because they're representations of different countries. I should say that they are all fake upstairs. You're not going to earn any money by trying to steal some of them. But they all reference actual currencies that have been used and in circulation.
Haegue Yang: Except one.
Leigh Arnold: Except for one. And that is the game that you all play now. You'll all play. You'll get to go decide which one. This idea that you're focused strictly for the Mignon Votives was on currencies that depict animals, fauna. Anything from the bull shark you just saw on the Costa Rican currency. To cicadas, which feature prominently on Fijian currency. And oftentimes these pieces of currency will have actual figures, aristocratic figures, royalty, politicians on the flip side, but every-
Haegue Yang: Or man-made architecture.
Leigh Arnold: Or man-made architecture. In many instances, it's like one side will feature an animal or an insect, or some type of non-human creature, non-human life as a way to provide a metaphorical or a contemporary heraldry. Like what type of virtues does this country want to communicate about themselves, and what do we put into depictions of animals? The metaphor of an eagle representing freedom, for example, or an elephant representing wisdom, or all of these things.
Anyway, so you have on one side a reference to animal life, on the other side, a reference to humanity, culture, et cetera. All of the versions that you're showing only allow us to see the animals. It was a very deliberate choice to just feature the animals.
And my question is, and this is a question that I've been pondering myself, and I haven't had a chance to ask you. What came first for you? Were you just in your research focusing on developing a list of the currencies that featured animals and then making selections based on what were the nicest or what maybe fit a color scheme? Or was it animal first, or were you deliberately focusing on parts of the world, and then looking at their currency?
Haegue Yang: Money first.
Leigh Arnold: Money first? There's not very many high-value bills in these things.
Haegue Yang: I don't know why. We already had the archive of money.
Leigh Arnold: For what?
Haegue Yang: I think it was born as a publication project. Really long time, maybe 20 years ago I wanted to make an artist book on money.
Leigh Arnold: Oh.
Haegue Yang: Yes. I did have a archive of the money. But not the coin, but the bills about motifs. Yeah, I had an idea for a long time, but we had a sudden offer of an internship from US, and I gave that research up to him and he did made the initial research. And then we did narrow it down to the animal. The money first is correct answer. But also, my inspiration for the pebble motifs was coming from hiking. No matter I went anywhere, I actually saw some stacks. And often people offer something, sometime it's a cookie or something to eat. Or a lot of people pour precious oil or incense. But also cash, little bill. And then they would put the stone on it that it doesn't fly away. And then other person, this is only money that is not-
Leigh Arnold: Not based in reality?
Haegue Yang: ... real. Because we use both historical money and the current money that is in use now. And this one is only one which is not real, let's say. Because I wanted to bring Asian money, and there were not so many animals. And this was a mistake that I... I was stupid enough that I believe this is real money because it's a Chinese yuan. And in fact there is only Mao all over the yuan, it was never different. How stupid I am to believe this is real money the panda is on. But then again, I wanted to keep this. But I guess even it's a deviation. I think we also have the saying there is no rule without the exception. I try not to be so consequential, so I thought it's perfect.
Coming back to the money, it's coming from this universal idea or stacking and signaling one's wish or one's presence in certain place. And no matter how light the wish is implied in that stack, or how strong it is, I think it has been done throughout time. And again, I thought... All of a sudden it appeared to me very significant, the moment of encounter. I guess many projects start from this encountering moment that I guess it has so much to do with being out there, walking around. Just us, each of us being out there, which was also the case throughout the period of COVID as well.
I choose the pine cone and the stone as the base of the body of my sculpture. And then I started to insert little narrative by combining different materials. And that types of methodology of let's say collaging material was already embedded in the previous sculptural works known as a light sculpture. I have done over 10, 15 years long excessively producing this so-called light sculpture. And it's very similar that you have a body of either IV stand or clothing rack. And then I started to drape the materiality as well as the electric cable and the lamp. I was very acquainted of the collaging material. But however, the scale was so difficult that I felt like I became a jewelry person instead of like a show window displayer.
Leigh Arnold: From gallery one we go downstairs, we could talk about the garden.
Haegue Yang: Can we talk about the beach?
Leigh Arnold: Yes.
Haegue Yang: Maybe before we go down.
Leigh Arnold: Okay. While you're in the gallery, and it's a quiet day, you'll hear waves crashing on pebble beach. And that's an actual soundtrack that was taken from Bogil Island.
Haegue Yang: Bogil Island, yes.
Leigh Arnold: Which is an island off the southernmost tip of the Korean Peninsula. And it's known for its pebble stone beaches. But also, its interior is really gorgeous verdant lush landscape. And I've never been there, but you have. I think your concept for gallery one was really to try and transport us there. Take us there through a full experience of the sound of the water rushing over pebble stones and coming back into the ocean, but also the moss, which brings a particular scent to the space. Although, I will say when we first started testing the sound, I smelled saltwater when we were in the gallery.
Haegue Yang: Me too. Two of us.
Leigh Arnold: It was so wild. It was crazy.
Haegue Yang: Like a crazy woman.
Leigh Arnold: It was this way of taking us there and trying to evoke a particular landscape. And this island is significant to Korean history for the fact that there was a poet whose name is... I have it written down.
Haegue Yang: Yes, curator.
Leigh Arnold: You're the Korean so you should be announcing pronouncing it. Yun Seon-do. He was exiled in the mid-sixteenth century. And he was on his way to a different part of a different island and he found himself in Bogil Island. And rather than continuing his journey further into exile, he stays there for a period of 12 years. And during that time writes some of his more significant works of poetry, and also constructs these pavilions, builds gardens. And so, it became this location that's very significant to Korean cultural history, history in general. And it has this connection to world building, connection to poetry writing, but also this idea of being part of this landscape and building it up in such a way that you make it into a place where you just never want to leave.
Haegue Yang: I guess within the slide there were some reference or picture of his garden. I just stumbled upon this island that I had to admit that I'm not really well-traveled within Korean Peninsula. Because I'm too much old... It's very hard to drag me out of the studio when I'm in Korea. But I just stumbled upon this island, and as Leigh well introduced, it is remote place. Even if Korea is so small and so well-connected with trains and highways, it still remains such a remote unconnected place. And historically you send people to those regions because it's so remote. When you are a high... Oh, yeah, here. Yeah, this is the garden. When you are aristocrat and the royal officials, and then for some reason you are sent away, and this is the kind of place you ended up.
Oops. I found this architecture and poetry so significant because it is only created through the exiled. I think these people were serving people, serving the nation, serving the community, but they were dismissed. And what do they do? They are highly educated, devoted people. The creation of art by these people came to me all of a sudden very significant. I call this exiled architecture. And the way how they deal with the nature was so holistic. They got lost. They were abandoned by the almost civilization. And they were completely alone, there was no future and disconnected from their past and career and family. And what they do, they keep going with the creation.
And this was such a, for me, significant... The beauty and the architectural innovation, I can talk for hours. But even put that aside, it was an incredible empowerment I got. We actually didn't have this idea until we actually installed the show, but we were talking about this reference where we actually coming from. But very last minute we inserted with the sound, like bring us back to the beach of this remote island and bring it all the way to Texas. I think that has been our achievement. Like spirit, we bring the spirit. It's like folding the landscape and bring these two remote point right back to back. That's it, we can go downstairs now.
Leigh Arnold: You often just, when we're speaking about the downstairs, the lower-level gallery, which is the nomenclature we use internally and externally. But I love it when you slip and you're like "the work in the basement". Because I think that it is a basement. I grew up in a place where basements are very common. But where I grew up, the basements were often reserved for storage. They were often dark. A little bit dank. And they were often places where you put things that were out of sight, out of mind. So when I hear you say the works that are in the basement, and this also coincides with the arrangement, it's a very dense arrangement. The title you've given it connects it to caves. So it becomes this very cavernous, fully immersive installation.
And it is the biggest collection of existing work within the exhibition. And in some ways I'm wondering if you were like, "Let's shove everything I've made in one room." And the darkest room in the building. And like, I'll give you what you want masher by giving you the greatest hits, but I'm going to put them in this room, and then I'm going to take over the rest of the space that is gorgeous and light-filled. But then there's this hope that is the wall vinyl, which is this... It show... Oh, thank you. We're synced now with our images. Which shows this opening at the back of the gallery as if there is this infinite future ahead. It's offering a path forward.
I'm curious if your thought process for this installation, was it really about showing... It's almost like these are the seeds or the germination of the ideas that you experienced first. Then you come down and you see it, and then it's pushing you out into future possibilities.
Haegue Yang: I think there are two way of maybe explaining how I got there. In one ways, I had one small exhibition at the Kukje Gallery in Seoul. Tiny, teeny traditional house. And actually, this traditional architecture, what was given to me as an exhibition place, it's actually too small for my big sculptures. But again, I was really thinking how to make a show out of this space, and it was not an easy task. But my solution was being very passive-aggressive about the scale. I just put lot of big sculpture in a very tiny space. That there was more... Most of space were occupied by the sculpture that only one person can go around the sculpture.
Normally we have one work and then there are us in front of it. It's a very different portion towards the artwork that we are rather surrounded by the forest of sculpture. And I think I learned great deal out of that exhibition. And this is maybe born out of that experience certainly. And the other inspiration is the cenote, the landscape in Yucatan in Mexico. Our exhibition title is Lost Land and Sunken Field. We didn't made it without the reason. The sunken field is the lower level gallery, and it's the inspiration was cenote. When the land gets sunken, we are sunken, but there is the opening over us.
I think if we always look for this level and dimensions. And so this was our sunken field, the cenote. And normally when you say sinkhole, it's not a beautiful feeling. But when you say cenote, there is the notion of beauty attached to it because it's beautiful the way how the vegetation is still growing into the sunken hole. And then there is the notion of water. I think without me have noticed it so much, I think the water is always there in the idea of cenote, the idea of this pebble stone beach, but also our Imoogi outside in the garden is right next to the water. I think there is an idea of water a little bit. Unconsciously building the subterranean fountain. Yeah, so cenote.
And also, I have studied all the great exhibitions of nature and one of really, oh my god, so radical show was the Phyllida Barlow show, and the way how she used them. I was like, "My God, what is these people at the nature? How dare they can allow this happen?" It was, for me, such a inspiring moments have studied all this exhibition. Because let's face the reality, a lot of museum, so many things are not allowed anymore. There are so many things that you can't do at the exhibition. This density, let's say, of the sculptural forest, I think I was very inspired that the accommodating power of the institution as well.
Leigh Arnold: I think we should leave it at that. That's great.
Haegue Yang: Yeah.
Leigh Arnold: Thank you. Yeah.
Haegue Yang: You like the compliment?
Leigh Arnold: Yeah. I think, yes, we do. Let's leave it a compliment on the Nasher Actually, before we open it up-
Leigh Arnold: A compliment on... Actually, before we open it up for questions, I just wanted to make a remark is something that I've noticed in the way you speak about your work and your practice, there's a lot of agonizing, exhaustion. So there's all these self-infliction of pain, and yet there is so much joy in the actual work and the experience-
Haegue Yang: Unintended.
Leigh Arnold: I know. So there is so much joy in your work, and so I know you don't like joy, but I think it's going to be a tremendous joy and honor to be able to live with this work for the next three months. So thank you.
Haegue Yang: Please take care of my work.
Leigh Arnold: I think we have some time for questions, so if there are any questions from the audience.
Haegue Yang: Maybe not.
Leigh Arnold: Maybe not. Should we start just giving off facts about Haegue. Okay.
Audience Member: Hi, there. I'm sorry. Who was the artist that you were talking about, the sculpture here that really inspired you?
Haegue Yang: Phyllida Barlow.
Leigh Arnold: Phyllida Barlow.
Haegue Yang: The British.
Leigh Arnold: She was a 2015 exhibition artist.
Haegue Yang: The British female sculptor who just passed away.
Leigh Arnold: She passed away last year, two years ago. She represented England in the Venice Biennial in 2017. Phenomenal artist. Yes. Next question.
Audience Member: Hi. Thank you so much for both of your times. It has been a very humorous discussion as well. I love the levity that was at play here. You mentioned how there's so many things one can't do in institutions anymore. I was curious what walls you feel like you're coming up against in perhaps other institutions and spaces. Is it a physical limitation of what they're allowing you to explore with your work or is it more conceptual or perhaps both?
Haegue Yang: Yeah, I want to have an open flame at the museum.
Leigh Arnold: She wants to be able to smoke her cigarettes in the museum basically.
Haegue Yang: When can I do it? I mean, I don't need to provoke museum or architecture all the time, but if there is a desire, we should find a way to accommodate, I guess. And I guess that's the negotiation. And so far, I mean, most of my career were brought up by great institution. They were my teachers and lighthouses for what really we can do in the society. But more and more I feel like, yeah, there are a lot of insurance matters and I don't know. Many things that I don't want to ignore, but it feels like burden. And we need to continue to negotiate to make things possible, I guess.
Yeah, this is the exhibition I mentioned in the traditional house. So I think towards the end of the space, I think the sculpture look like they're just stored. It's like gigantic sculpture just crawling into the little space. And even this, I think this one I showed in a big museum space, like 10 meters high, a vast space. And here it again, crushed into the space and I think was sometimes the exhibition reinvent the piece. And that's how I'm so obsessed with exhibition making. I must... I'm an artist. I do make works in the studio, but exhibition teach me in a different way to deal with my own work. So the work is finished, but then it continues, right. So there is a kind of post-production going on through the exhibition. So yeah, just let me make a lot of exhibition further.
Leigh Arnold: I will say too, the Nasher, I mean I've been here for 10 years and when our previous director, Jeremy Strick was always just kind of like so artist driven in terms of he was my teacher, right, Jed Morse another teacher where it was always about let's work with the artist and then we'll sort out the legalities, the mechanics, all of that later. Because I think that... And so I just think that experience really spoiled me. So if I go to ever, ever go to another institution, I'm going to be like, what, we can do that. What do you mean we can a moss all over the gallery floor. We can raise our garden beds for some stones. It's fine.
Haegue Yang: Just wanted to point this out that I even challenged the exhibition that we had a nocturnal visit. And in this show I didn't use any artificial lighting. Sorry for Jed, for your job was not existing.
Leigh Arnold: The apologizing because Jed does most of the lighting for our exhibitions.
Haegue Yang: Because I was so lazy that I didn't put any light here. So the visitors were allowed to have a nocturnal visit, but they were only given a little flashlight, so.
Leigh Arnold: Also is it correct that the Hanok was, it was like a new construction or it was in between being renovated-
Haegue Yang: In between.
Leigh Arnold: ... and you were actually meant to have a show in the gallery proper, but you were like, well, this space is available, why can't I do it here?
Haegue Yang:
No, it's supposed to be renovated for my show. So the renovation started, but I freeze in the middle of the renovation. So it was dismantled some part. And you don't really know whether it is in the process of destruction or construction.
Audience Member: How do you decide where to put-
Haegue Yang: Huh?
Audience Member: How do you decide where to place in the lower gallery, the basement gallery as you refer to it?
Haegue Yang: How?
Audience Member: How do you figure out the relationship between the different works of art and where you want to place them in the room?
Haegue Yang: 3D computer program. Yeah, I do prepare my scenario. I mean we changed actually a lot in this case, but I prepare the scenario in all in 3D. Control freak.
Leigh Arnold: You come in with a plan and then the idea is to start from the plan. And then there's always flexibility for deviations from the plan-
Haegue Yang: A little.
Leigh Arnold: ... and adaptability. Yeah, a little.
Haegue Yang: A little.
Audience Member: Thank you.
Audience Member: Just kind of adding to that last question. In the different galleries, your eyes kind of look at the work from a different point of view. And I wanted to ask what your perspective or take was on the gaze of the viewer and whether we're looking down at it or looking up because there is such a variety in the different works in this show.
Haegue Yang: I mean, you pointed out very important aspect of the exhibition, I think. The viewpoint it goes all the way down, all the way up. And then you are so surrounded that wherever you see there are works. It was meant to be... It was conceived from that perspective. But it's not only the gaze, but it's only also with the light, the scale and the weight. And for instance, the outdoor sculpture, it also has a ambiguity that you don't know if this creature has fallen down or started to crawling up. And it's proximity to the water is it coming out of water, crawling into the water. It's a lot of implication for and attraction to dragging down, dragging up. And yeah, I push and pull you.
Audience Member: Yeah. Haegue, I'm very happy that you push and pull me always to things I never knew before. So I have a question. When you were in Lahore last year, how did you approach this culture? It must be completely unknown to you also for, and did I understand it right that kiting is banned there and why?
Haegue Yang: Lahore, so for me, the very adventurous part of the research often triggered by the participation in biennales. I do love to work with an institution like stable institution with a long legacy. But what biennale can offer is an adventure because it's often there is not enough time. Limited resource things are a bit tricky and the place is completely unknown. I cannot do many multiple visits, galleries and insti- museums provide much more care. And so I intentionally keep going with the Biennial for that reason. It keeps me very vital and often my decision, of course I was paying attention to Lahore Biennale from the beginning of its birth, similar way to Chiang Rai Biennale, Istanbul Biennale. Like many of those biennale taking place in a rather difficult area that you don't normally go with big production. But another motivation for me is the people who curate the show and who I'm going to work with.
I mean, we still do things with other human beings and it plays huge role for me that I was very curious how that curator of the Lahore Biennale would do, who is a very old friend of mine and rather known as a researcher and never curated an exhibition. And I was just really genuinely curious and I thought I want to be part of it. And the similar way I participated in the Chiang Rai Biennale, which was curated by an artist called Richard. And I wanted to spy on him, be he's someone to spy on. I want to. I want. So I was like me, me, me volunteering. No, really, I want to realize my own project, but I really want to see how these people do, who else is coming and what kind of community is arising.
And so coming back to Lahore, I traveled a bit in India, but indeed I never had been in Pakistan. And I have been Bangladesh in India before, but not in Pakistan. And so I was lured into the biennale through the friendship and I discovered so many interesting aspects. And it's not all beautiful aspect, but interesting.
Number one is, again, architecture. They have incredible Mughal Empire architecture. It's just stunning. And the sculptural tradition of Indira style, what we know as Indira style, the Buddhist sculpture, what I only learned at the university in the book museums were full abundance number of Indira Buddhist sculpture. I was almost crying. It was overwhelming. And then of course I look into the society, the air pollution, economic instability, military presence, and political instability, all of this. But then amazing art school. And I knew a couple of artists, I mean not in-person, but I was already admiring the artistic scene and the artists. And meeting them in their country in-person. And it's just the most honorable thing for me to do.
And so I had initiated, often how I do biennale is I do site visit and research and I propose categorical thing. I could go this, I could do this. And categories to the curator. And from the conversation with the curator, I narrowed down what would make more sense to pursue further. And for instance, Richard instead of narrowing down, he said, I want to do all. It's really up to the curator. There are so many different minds of curator.
And in Pakistan, like many of other idea actually died because the circumstance didn't allow to pursue further. But the kite, we actually thought that it's not possible because it's very sensitive motif to use. So what we did was we made a little kind of pirate studying stage of the sculpture and then presented when there was a press conference announcing the biennale in the country, whether this would triggered not too much trouble or accept it or not. Why it is banned, there are many theories why it is banned. And number one official reason is the safety reason.
And since it is kite fighting, kite fighting, meaning you make kite and you would treat the thread with the glass that you can cut it when while it is flying, you would cut each other's thread, that one would fall, then you failed. So that's how kite fighting work. But because of this treatment of the thread, a lot of kids and people got injured, cuts, and quite many severe injuries. So the safety was number one official reason. But there were a lot of rumors saying that maybe it is rather religious conflict that is embedded, which also incubates possible political conflict between Hindu and Muslim. And because a lot of people believe that Hindu mythology is the origin of kite based spring festival. However, I actually read many academic papers on Bazaar Festival is the spring festival and the scholarly seen it is a complete, how do you say, secular festival. It has no religious background or strong religious affiliations, but you know how the reality works.
And so people were a bit abandoned with their passion for kite. And it was kind of my dedication to this lost tradition. That is my story. And by the way, this is the site I choose to install. The kite installation is so-called Shalimar Garden. It's incredible garden architecture. I mean the scale and the ornamentation, but as well as the engineering of the Mughal palaces and gardens are impressive because it's very hot in the summer. So the way how they use the aerodynamic bringing into the stone in a metaphorical way look heavy architecture, how they deal with almost immaterial material... Immaterial and material-based thing and combined into the architecture is just stunning. It's such a holistic wisdom behind this and beauty.
And when people, like families coming to the Shalimar Garden in the weekend, they dress up from top to bottom.
Leigh Arnold: What do they wear?
Haegue Yang: Traditional. They really show the respect in coming to the palaces and gardens.
Leigh Arnold: How has the response been to having kites?
Haegue Yang: They're very... I mean, they have so many childhood memories, so there are in despair.
Leigh Arnold: Because the kite flying or kite fighting has been banned since 2009 or earlier?
Haegue Yang: That I don't remember.
Leigh Arnold: I think it's, but it's been some years.
Haegue Yang: Yeah, some years. Yeah.
Leigh Arnold: We could have one more question or we could... Nobody's feeling it's, oh yeah, we got another. We'll do one more question.
Audience Member: Hopefully it's a quick answer. Earlier you said that you are passive aggressive about scale and throughout the question and answer I was curious, is that aggression towards the limitations or is the passive aggressiveness towards the viewer like challenging us?
Haegue Yang: I think it's as a strategy. I'm actually 99% trait-
Leigh Arnold: You're 99% aggressive.
Haegue Yang: Yeah.
Leigh Arnold: Not passive.
Haegue Yang: But sometimes my straightforward approach doesn't work. Then I think I geared into something different. And that would be maybe passive-aggressive strategy. Not always.
Leigh Arnold: Thank you everyone for joining us.