HAEGUE YANG

b. 1971, Seoul, Korea

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Seoul, Korea

 

Born in 1971 in Seoul, South Korea, Haegue Yang currently lives and works between Berlin and Seoul. One of the most significant artists of her generation, Yang is a prolific artist who consistently experiments with her artistic language and maintains a steady stream of exhibitions worldwide. Yang moved to Germany in 1994 to study at the renowned art school Städelschule, where she received a Meisterschüler. She is currently Professor of Fine Art at her alma mater. In 2018, she received the prestigious Wolfgang Hahn Prize as well as the Republic of Korea Culture and Arts Award (Presidential Citation) in the visual arts category. In 2022, she won the 13th Benesse Prize, presented by Benesse Holdings Inc. in collaboration with the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), leading to her forthcoming project in Naoshima, Japan, slated for June 2024

 

Known for using utilitarian household items, from space heaters to extension cords, and placing them out of context, Haegue Yang’s works reflect the transitory nature of the artist’s own experience of living and working in multiple locations. Her works in video explore displacement and alienation in both geographical and personal terms through a combination of fiction and documentary. Yang’s visual, sound, and olfactory installations reveal the intersections of public and private. To this end, she often includes complex formations of ordinary Venetian blinds, which provide porous boundaries for viewers to navigate around, or mobile sculptures clothed in layers of colourful yarn or adorned with hanging light bulbs, wires, and assorted pieces of fabric.

 

Yang has held solo exhibitions in numerous museums across the globe, including: MOCA & LA Phil, Los Angeles (2026); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Saint Louis (2025); Taichung Art Museum, Taiwan (2025); Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam (2025); Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas, Dallas (2025); The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (2024); Hayward Gallery, London (2024); HAM, Helsinki (2023); S.M.A.K, Ghent (2023); Pinacoteca, São Paulo (2023); National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (2022); Tate St Ives, St Ives (2020); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2020); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2020); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); The Bass, Miami Beach (2019); South London Gallery, London (2019); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2018); KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2016); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2015); Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul (2015); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2015); Tate Modern, London (2012); South Korean Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); among others. 

Her works have been acquired by numerous institutions, including the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pittsburgh; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Museum of Modern Art, New York; M+, Hong Kong; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art; Serralves Foundation, Porto; Tate Modern, London; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.