Ajar
October 18 – December 8, 2012
La Douane, Chantal Crousel, Paris
Installation view of Ajar, La Douane, Chantal Crousel, Paris, 2012
Photo: Florian Kleinefenn
Swedish Villa
2012
Drifting Tree House with Orangey Branches
2012
Clowny Yin Yang
2012
Press release
The Gallery Chantal Crousel is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Haegue Yang in France, hosted by the Gallery at La Douane.
The exhibition, titled Ajar, is solely composed of sculptural pieces: three of them are nicknamed by the artist Chandeliers, and two mobile sculptures are categorized by the artist as Dress Vehicles. Both categories of the sculptures equally center around the primary material of the sculpture, Venetian blinds, suggesting its ambivalent nature of obscuring or allowing our vision.
The Chandeliers are ceiling-mounted sculptures made of industrially manufactured, but customized Venetian blinds and powder-coated aluminum frames. Electric cables with light bulbs are draped over the frame, reinforcing the otherwise oblique distinction between the internal and the external of the sculptures. Several layers of complex assemblies are combined to mirror geometric patterns based on grid, such as a tangram.
The two newly-produced Dress Vehicles are also composed of Venetian blinds. They are layered grid and transformable. These sculptures, designed to be performed by someone, function like a baby walker. From inside, a person can walk forward or backward with it or rotate it. The vehicles, mounted on casters, extend and accommodate the body and enable us to choreograph a limited yet stylized movement in space. Partly inspired by the ritualistic Sacred Dances of the Russian spiritualist Georges I. Gurdjieff and the Triadic Ballet (1922) of Oscar Schlemmer, the two Dress Vehicles presented at La Douane are slightly modified versions of those Haegue Yang presented with sound and light display in the frame of Art in Action at The Tanks at the Tate Modern, London this year.
Exhibited works
Dress Vehicle – Yin Yang, 2012
Drifting Tree House with Orangey Branches, 2012