Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible
Bait Al Aboudi, Sharjah, UAE
March 5 - June 5, 2015
Installation view of Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible, Bait Al Aboudi, Sharjah, UAE, 2015
Photo: Deema Shahin
Photo: © Sabine Reitmaier
Video: Studio Haegue Yang
In her work, Haegue Yang has employed existing ready-made objects such as fans, humidifiers, venetian blinds, clothing racks, and building materials, customizing them with found matter, color, handmade forms, and sensory choreography. At the heart of these works is always a unique play on human experience through temporality and spatialisation. Yang’s work An Opaque Wind (2015) takes as its point of departure the intertwined geo-economic history of Korea and the Gulf region since the 1970s, through which Korean labor and dreams of industrialization lent thousands upon thousands of fathers, uncles, and brothers to construct the oil infrastructure that drives today’s political economy.
A freestanding steel structure stretches across the courtyard of Bait Aboudi, each axis covered with corrugated plate or steel grating, creating an oscillation between transparency and opacity, openness and impenetrability. Situated within this structure and the surrounding incomplete rooms are various sculptures constructed from common construction elements including industrial vents that, like Sharjah’s traditional wind towers before them, take advantage of her directional winds. Within her labyrinthine installation, one space has been transformed into a private, interior space with areesh roof and mats, multilingual local papers, and a satellite-feed of Korean broadcast news recontextualized by a single contemplative voice that ponders the forces that have brought us here.
Eungie Joo
Curator, Sharjah Biennial 12
Sharjah Biennial 12 The past, the present, the possible Guidebook, Sharjah Art Foundation, 2015, pp. 18-19 (Eng. / Ara.).
Exhibition work