The Sea Wall: Haegue Yang with an inclusion by Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Arnolfini, Bristol
16 July — 4 September

By David Trigg

Whether by serendipity or design, Haegue Yang's first UK solo show is, intriguingly, running in tandem with this Bristol presentation, energising Modern Art Oxford with the Berlin-based Korean artist's signature venetian blinds and other formally astute works. At Arnolfini, however, Yang has opted for a refreshingly experimental approach, presenting a discursive and unexpectedly atypical selection, including several early, formative pieces. Another surprise is the inclusion of Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Untitled (Water) (1995), which intersects the exhibition at several points with a scintillating curtain of glistening blue and white beads, generating a felicitous conversation between the two artists.

Felix Gonzalez–Torres, “Untitled” (Water), 1995 (installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2000), strands of beads and hanging device, dimensions variable. Photo: Stephen White. © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, New York. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

On entering the exhibition, we’re immediately confronted with the Gonzalez-Torres, which acts as a permeable barrier; a veil through which one must pass to access Yang's thread installation 186.16m3/372.32m3 (2000–11). Recalling the quiescent works of Fred Sandback, slender lines of red thread are stretched horizontally at ten-centimetre intervals across the gallery, forming another — this time impassable — barrier. Beyond this, unsettling our line of vision, is the large wall drawing 49.46m2 (2002–11), in which evenly spaced lines slope awkwardly at a gradient of one degree. These three 'surfaces' of varying opacity feel almost like a single installation. But affinities between the practices of Yang and Gonzalez-Torres reach far beyond that of a shared formal rigour; a common interest in identity politics is apparent, as is a knack for carefully balancing the poetic with the political.

Haegue Yang, VIP's Union, 2001, design commissioned for the VIP Lounge at the Art Forum Berlin consisting of borrowed chairs and tables, Art Forum Berlin, 2001. Photo: Haegue Yang. Courtesy the artist

Upstairs sits a motley array of tables and chairs belonging to various distinguished people connected with Bristol. This is VIP's Union (2001–11), originally commissioned for the VIP lounge at Art Forum Berlin. Here are chairs loaned by Richard Long, Martin Parr and the Lord Mayor of Bristol, among others, and though a list of lenders is available, one can only speculate as to whom each item belongs (save for Nick Park's director's chair, emblazoned with his name). Indeed, domesticity and the conflating of private and public spheres are recurring themes in Yang's work, where domestic objects are often employed to evoke political figures and narratives. Take, for instance, 5, Rue Saint-Benoît (2008), in which Yang makes oblique reference to the apartment of French author, filmmaker and activist Marguerite Duras. Considering the domestic environment as a site of political and artistic struggle, Yang's smart and elegant installation comprises eight metal-framed forms containing variegated venetian blinds and electric bulbs. The dimensions of these objects — intersected by another stunning instance of Gonzalez-Torres's shimmering curtain — approximate domestic objects such as a stove, boiler, radiator or washing machine. As one of the show's most satisfying works, it demonstrates Yang's poetic handling of politically charged biographies.

Haegue Yang, 5, Rue Saint-Benoît, 2008. Photo: Steve White. Courtesy Galerie Wien Lukatsch, Berlin

Duras — whose novel 1950 The Sea Wall gives this exhibition its title — appears again in Rotating Notes (2010), where three rotating notice boards are filled with references to the French author, the German activist Petra Kelly, the Black Panthers and colonial Africa, among other subjects. Pervaded by a frustrating yet strangely compelling ambiguity, these sculptures are intended to be spun, thus becoming unreadable — a process that Yang refers to as 'unlearning'. The words of Gonzalez-Torres seem particularly apposite here: ‘the politics that imbues [aesthetics] remains entirely invisible. In effect… the most successful political acts are those that don’t appear to be political.’