HAEGUE YANG: ARRIVALS, CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ 1994-2011

ed. Yilmaz Dziewior, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Berlin, 2011, 351 pp., German/English

Landing on the occasion of Berlin-based Korean-born artist Haegue Yang’s solo exhibition at the Zumthor-designed Kunsthaus Bergenz (KUB) in Austria, Arrivals expands beyond solo exhibition catalogue to stand as a catalogue raissoné, a printed compilation of Yang’s creative output from 1994 onward. It is this that forms the bulk of this hefty publication, as a meticulously thorough archive of these 17 years’ worth of images and texts, some by the artist herself. Immediately preceding these is a plurally reflexive essay by curator Anders Kreuger titled “What Things Mean” and an artist interview with KUB director Yilmaz Dziewior. In conjunction with the myriad spreads of the alien-like light-sculptures and flickering installations of venetian blinds of “Arrivals,” the words exchanged between the two seem to constitute a faint transmission of dialogue from some distant star. At one point, the two agree that Yang has treated KUB as a surreal space, echoing the sensation that readers may experience, clutching this algae-green clothbound hardcover in their hands, that this book itself is but a precarious carrier of another surreality: the language of art.