Sleepy Eye
Mickey Yang
By constantly referring to images from our collective memory, I strive towards a ‘language of things’, navigating between the excess of our created identities, meaning and misunderstanding.
Mickey Yang creates multimedia installations that seek the interplay between individual experiences and larger - often narrative - forces around us. For this exhibition, she created a wandering path. Searching for a healthy relationship between art and craft, Yang creates meandering lines from metal and textiles, guiding us through a stream of phrases inspired by symbolic and spiritual elements from Chinese and East Asian cultures. Unlike the way media and popular visual culture convey one constructed narrative, Yang embraces the chaos of polyphony of cultures, myths, thoughts, and experiences. The signpost has no direction and refers to a slowed-down time, a moment in which you can build up self-defense. The wandering path embraces a deep doubt that everyone experiences: which way do you go, what next step do you take? The winding installations and words that appear before us stretch our classical understanding of time and space. Yang invites us to embrace ambiguity and find meaning in the chaos of life in wilful ways.
Installation including multiple sculptures:
2023 - Sʌn, 120 x 120 x 10, forged metal
2023 - Ooty, 135 x 125 x 18, forged metal
2022 - Teams of two in fall, 131 x 123 x 44, forged metal
2022 - Terry is out of the office, 92 x 57 x 30, forged metal, motor
Courtesy of the artist
Commissioned by STUK, House for Dance, Image & Sound in the context of At the still point of the turning world (2024).
Mickey Yang
°1988, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Mickey Yang lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and was artist-in-residence at the Jan van Eyck Academy (2020-2021). In Yang's installations, sculptures come to life, synchronized with narrative elements such as video and sound. Her work explores themes of mass culture and the subjective experience of collective memory. Craftsmanship, traditional or otherwise, plays a major role in her work. In her laborious processes, Yang slows down. This creates a meditative way of working that allows her to discover the character of a work as she goes along. Mickey Yang thus maps out a wandering path of (mis)interpretations and meanings, challenging the viewer to question what is suggested. Yang has exhibited at P/////akt Amsterdam, KM21 The Hague, Kunsthalle Osnabrück and Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, among others.