Known for her multisensory installations and anthropomorphic sculptures, Yang’s expansive oeuvre has made her one of the most significant artists of her generation. Yang employs a vast array of mediums, ranging from collage, video essay and performative sculpture to large-scale installation. Her work is an ongoing process of experimentation, where chance encounters with objects and materials generate unexpected forms, emotions and narratives.

Although formally distinct, the works in this exhibition – from the artist’s latest video essay Doubles and Halves—Events with Nameless Neighbors (2009), to the audio work The Story of a Bear-Lady in a Sand Cave (2009/2011) and the venetian blind installation Lethal Love (2008/2018) – are inextricably linked. Evoking the biographies of historical figures, mythical creatures, and self-reflective ideas of alienation and neighbourliness, as suggested by the exhibition’s title, each character nests within another, representing our interwoven, interconnected realities.

Alongside Yang’s early, seminal work series Chalk Line Drawings (2002- ), Yang continues her series VIP’s Union (2001/2018-19) with a version for the Govett-Brewster. VIP’s Union ties in with earlier presentations from this series, realised in Berlin, Bristol, Antwerp, Bonn, Seoul, Graz and Cologne. Well-known local figures, ‘VIPs’, from different areas of society including culture, sports, business, and politics, are invited to lend their favourite chair or table for the duration of the exhibition. The resulting collection of assorted furniture forms a temporary ‘community’ within the gallery, creating a picture of New Plymouth and wider Taranaki while also serving as a rest area open to all visitors to the gallery, not just a few VIPs.
Download the VIP's Union Room Brochure here

About the artist

Haegue Yang was born in 1971 in Seoul, South Korea. Currently, she lives and works in Berlin and Seoul. Her works are known for their eloquent and seductive sculptural language of visual abstraction based on her research on historical figures and events.

Yang has exhibited in major international exhibitions including the Liverpool Biennial (2018), the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), La Biennale de Montréal (2016), the 12th Sharjah Biennial (2015), the 9th Taipei Biennal (2014), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012) and the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) as the South Korean representative. Recently Yang’s first major survey show, ETA 1994-2018 was hosted by the Museum Ludwig, coinciding with her receiving the Wolfgang Hahn Prize 2018 and the publication of a catalogue raisoneé of her complete oeuvre. Yang’s recent solo exhibitions were held at La Panacée, Montpellier (2018), La Triennale di Milano (2018), Kunsthaus Graz (2017), KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017), Serralves Museum, Porto (2016), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016), Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2015), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015), Museum of Contemporary Art, Strasbourg (2013), Bergen Kunsthall (2013), Haus der Kunst, Munich (2012), The Tanks at Tate Modern, London (2012), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2011), Modern Art Oxford, (2011), Aspen Art Museum, (2011), and the New Museum, New York (2010). Her works are in the collections of major international institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany, among others.