Haegue Yang: Leap Year

Haegue Yang’s work spans a vast range of media – from paper collage to performative sculpture and immense sensorial installations.

Equally as wide-ranging, her inspiration draws on diverse histories and customs, including East Asian traditions and folklore, modernism, contemporary art history and nature.

Yang uses a variety of crafts, techniques and materials in her work, tapping into the cultural connotations they carry. Her works often feature a variety of household and industrial objects, including drying racks, light bulbs, metal-plated bells, nylon pom-poms, hand-knitted yarn and hanji (Korean paper).

Leap Year is the first major survey of the internationally celebrated artist in the UK. It presents a comprehensive study of Yang’s work from the early 2000s to today, highlighting how her artworks resonate on a personal and sensory level while also speaking to social, political and spiritual ideas.

The exhibition features key works from some of her most notable series, including Light Sculptures and Sonic Sculptures, complemented by three new major commissions and a number of new productions.

These works bring together a wide spectrum of visual and sensory experiences through the mediums of installation, sculpture, collage, text, video, wallpaper, sound.

Yang (born 1971, Seoul) lives and works in both Berlin and Seoul. Her multisensory environments encourage perception beyond the visual, creating immersive experiences that highlight issues such as labour, migration, and displacement.

She has had recent solo exhibitions at Helsinki Art Museum (2024); National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2023); S.M.A.K., Ghent (2023); and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2023).

The exhibition is generously supported by the Samsung Foundation of Culture. We are also grateful for the key support from Korea Foundation and Kukje Art and Culture Foundation. Additional support has also been provided by the Yang Won Sun Foundation, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) and the Goethe-Institut.