I've been interested in Haegue Yang's work for a long time and we felt that the new gallery
extension would offer Haegue the chance to create something truly extraordinary for Tate St Ives
There were particular aspects of Haegue's work that I felt would be highly resonant
for Tate St Ives in terms of both the geography and the collection displays
alongside her interest in geometric form the various histories of modernism
paganism and folklore and her use of both industrial and handmade or craft materials
In terms of the invitation to create an exhibition Haegue also responds to context and sight
in ways that are never literal but somehow bring out the elements of it in ways that
connect to the place while also touching on larger ideas cultures and geographies
The term 'strange attractors' is a phrase taken from the meteorologist Edward Lorenz and he
was looking at how small changes in environmental conditions could lead to
great divergences in environmental consequences Yang became very interested in this idea of
interconnectivity between time and place this in many ways embodies what Haegue
Yang's work has done in the past and particularly does in this exhibition.
Haegue Yang has taken the decision of showing the work of three other
artists that she encountered in our collection displays at Tate St Ives
Barbara Hepworth Naum Gabo garbo and Li Yuan-chia and for her they were all artists that
struck a chord with her had some kind of resonance to her own work to a greater or lesser extent.
The Li Yuan-chia Foundation kindly lent many works for the show and in gallery five you
can see a large disc one of Li's magnetic points that he made in red black white and gold on which
magnetic objects were placed and in their original condition could be moved around by the viewers.
There are also several of his reliefs with wooden elements and hand tinted photographs
including a striking self-portrait of Li with his head under a blanket and holding a broom.
As visitors pass from the first space of the exhibition to what is the larger space they are
presented by a range of Haegue Yang's sculptural works and larger architectural interventions.
Haegue created a new group of sculptures Sonic Intermediates - Three Differential Equations
and each of these has the title Parameters and Unknowns after Lee Hepworth and Gabo respectively.
So the first one you see is Parameters and Unknowns after Li
this is reminiscent of Li's hand-tinted photographs in that it holds a broom and instead
of a blanket over its head there's a mesh in the color red which fully symbolize blood or life
you can see the cooler tones of the Gabo Intermediate that relates back to works
like Circular Relief that we just saw in Gallery five its head is made of a
turbine vent and its body is covered in nickel plated bells and black straw and the upper and
lower sections can be activated through the handles and these move in different directions
Parameters and Unknowns after Hepworth reflects Hepworth's interest in natural forms
her use of the whole or void in her sculptures as well as her frequent use of tripartite forms
but the materials Haegue uses couldn't be more different from Hepworth's smooth sculptures
with black artificial straw sprouting from bulbous forms covered in copper-plated bells.
Suspended within this space are Sonic Half Moons that can be turned by members of the staff at
certain moments of the day as a symbol the moon has appeared in art for centuries suggesting
cycles of life something that not only Haegue is interested in but that also
connects her back to Li they're made of thousands of tiny bells and they glitter
and they twirl and you expect them to jingle but actually it's a kind of metallic rustling.
People are delighted when we spin them we hold them when we walk around with them and set them
spinning people say they look like octopuses they've got tendrils tentacles hanging down and
these swirl as we move them and they make lovely patterns of light and shadow.
The next work the visitors will encounter in the exhibition is Reflected Metallic Cubist Dancing
Mask and this is a human-sized figure on caster wheels made up of differently sized triangles
It has a handle behind it and it's intended that you move it around
and that you're behind it and you're being that figure that cubist dancer.
It's not that I don't understand I don't know this oh I know how to speak you can't hear me
you don't know I did a good job um yeah good job a job well done yeah I'm making sounds I
know how to make sounds I don't know how to do everything but there are a lot of things
I don't know how to do
By far the largest work in the space is a new wallpaper piece
that Haegue Yang has created.
This work was made digitally using stock photographs of coastlines and
other references to the sea and the coast inspired by Haegue Yang's site visits to Cornwall.
These images are manipulated and recolored and transformed and blended into a
composition that is chaotic and impressive and quite overwhelming to experience
There's the Mundus Cushions which were inspired by a visit that Haegue Yang made to St Senara
Church in Zennor and there the kneelers are all individually designed and stitched and so she's
responded to that and created her own cushions and I think those are magical and a lot of people love
looking at those and coming and talking about them that's the thing about the whole exhibition really
it does inspire people you know it's got energy it's got playfulness and I love that about it.
Moving through to the sea-facing Gallery eight this presents
the works on paper Non-Folding Geometric Tipping and the sculpture is Non-Indépliables, nues
and in combination these explore concepts of folding unfolding and non-folding.
These are some works that Yang has been making for a while in her career
and first made for an exhibition that was hosted in her late grandmother's apartment
and they were inspired by very everyday objects that Haegue Yang encountered.
These pieces were created through a process of laying origami models onto paper turning
them and then spray painting them so that each subsequent repositioning is captured in outline
Yang has taken the decision to cover the large curved window that looks out to the sea
with an architectural intervention a sheer curtain this curtain is made up of two layers of fabric
each layer has two colourways in it one is red and blue and the other is green and blue
and they create a very magical iridescent
effect as you move past them where the color shifts between those four colors
I was there one morning when it was quite busy and people were walking around the exhibition
and stopping and looking and talking about different pieces the ones that especially
attracted them there is such a lovely feeling about it.
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