In 2018, the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig rec­og­nizes Haegue Yang for her ex­traor­d­i­nary body of work with the Wolf­gang Hahn Prize. The Mu­se­um Lud­wig show­cases her en­tire oeu­vre in the artist’s first-ev­er sur­vey ex­hi­bi­tion with over 120 works rang­ing from ac­tion-based ob­jects from the 1990s to lac­quer paint­ings, pho­to­graphs, works on pa­per, video es­says, an­thro­po­mor­ph­ic sculp­tures, per­for­ma­tive pie­ces, and large-scale in­s­tal­la­tions.

The ab­bre­vi­a­tion ETA stands for “es­ti­mat­ed time of ar­ri­val,” among other things. Thus, the ex­hi­bi­tion ti­tle points to an artis­tic ca­reer in tran­sit and the con­s­tant itin­er­a­cy of an artist who main­tains stu­dios in Seoul and Ber­lin and has ex­hibit­ed in­ter­na­tio­n­al­ly since 1994.

With her di­verse oeu­vre, Yang adept­ly avoids clear at­tri­bu­tions. Her works de­mon­s­trate el­e­ments of In­sti­tu­tio­n­al Cri­tique and are con­cep­tu­al as well as rich in cul­tu­r­al and his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly sen­su­al­ly com­plex and emo­tio­n­al­ly charged. Across over 1500 square me­ters of ex­hi­bi­tion space, this com­pre­hen­sive ret­ro­spec­tive’s spa­tial scenog­ra­phy will echo the con­cep­tu­al dy­nam­ics of the works, lend­ing the ex­hi­bi­tion the qual­i­ty of a Ge­samtkunst­w­erk—har­mo­nious yet full of dis­so­nances.

With the Wolf­gang Hahn Prize, the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig e.V. hon­ors ex­cep­tio­n­al con­tem­po­rary artists on an an­nu­al ba­sis. The prize mon­ey of up to 100.000 eu­ros goes to the ac­qui­si­tion of a work or group of works by the artist for the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig. The award win­n­ers are al­so hon­ored with an ex­hi­bi­tion in the mu­se­um.

Haegue Yang: ETA / Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Vernissage, April 17, 2018.

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Haegue Yang (*1971 in Seoul) lives and works in Ber­lin and Seoul. Since 2017, she has been teach­ing at the Städelschule, where she her­self be­gan her studies un­der Ge­org Herold in 1994. She was twice rep­re­sent­ed at the Venice Bien­nale in 2009 (in the pro­gram­mat­ic ex­hi­bi­tion fare mon­di and in a so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion in the Ko­re­an pav­ilion), and in 2012 she par­ti­ci­pat­ed in dOC­U­MEN­TA (13). Her re­cent so­lo ex­hi­bi­tions were held at the fol­low­ing in­sti­tu­tions, among others: Kun­sthaus Graz (2017/2018), KINDL – Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Ber­lin (2017); Cen­tre Pompi­dou, Paris (2016); Ser­ralves Mu­se­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art, Por­to (2016); Ham­burg­er Kun­sthalle (2016); Ul­lens Cen­ter for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Bei­jing (2015); Leeum, Sam­sung Mu­se­um of Art, Seoul (2015); Bon­n­er Kun­stverein (2014); Au­bette 1928 and Mu­se­um of Mod­ern and Con­tem­po­rary Art, Stras­bourg (2013); Haus der Kunst, Mu­nich (2012); Kun­sthaus Bre­genz (2011); New Mu­se­um, New York (2010); and Walk­er Art Cen­ter, Min­neapo­lis (2009). In 2018 she will al­so par­ti­ci­pate in the 21st Bien­nale of Syd­ney and the 10th Liv­er­pool Bien­nial. Her first ret­ro­spec­tive in North Amer­i­ca will be at the Mu­se­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art in Los An­ge­les in 2019.