Singapore Biennale 2022: Natasha
October 16, 2022 - March 19, 2023
Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Installation view of Natasha, Singapore Biennale, Singapore, 2022
Photo: Singapore Art Museum
Haegue Yang is an artist interested in picturing a non-hierarchical, hybrid perspective in the language of abstraction. This pursuit of a more holistic view manifests across various media, including sculpture, wallpaper, and immersive installations.
The sculptural dyad The Hybrid Intermediates – Flourishing Electrophorus Duo (2022) was conceived specially for the Singapore Biennale. Poised on casters, each life-size work features sculpted electrical outlets housed in positive and negative forms along their “bodies,” which are topped with colorful gardens of plastic vegetables. Both sculptures’ frames are made of stainless steel, though the materiality of the surfaces differ: one is covered by rattan, the other shrouded in bells and plastic twine.
While anthropomorphic in scale, the sculptures depict a thing: a receptacle for electrical devices to plug into and be powered. Power outlets are typically integrated in the architecture, hidden behind the wall. By rendering the receptacle of static infrastructure visible, freestanding, and mobile, the broader concept of the hybrid, namely a “thing-figure” is invoked. Equipped with handles, these complex and self-insisting sculptures also address the actual and metaphorical possibility of movement. Enlarged to human proportions and occupying real space, these peculiar “thing-figures” in the form of multiple electrical outlets forge a dynamic pair inviting us to dance.
Exhibited works
The Hybrid Intermediates – Flourishing Electrophorus Duo, 2022