ICYMI: A second chance for Emergence

Contemporary artist Haegue Yang is participating in the University of British Columbia's Joan Carlisle-Irving Lecture Series later this afternoon. At 3pm EST, Yang will appear live via zoom for a conversation about her landmark AGO exhibition Emergence. In case you missed it, check out our story below for an in depth look at the exhibition's catalogue – available now at ShopAGO.  

Due to public health closures in 2020/21, AGO visitors unfortunately had only a few short weeks to experience Haegue Yang: Emergence. For an exhibition comprising 84 artworks, including large-scale installations, sculptures and two-dimensional works – representing 25 years of Haegue Yang’s career – that’s not much time. Luckily, the show’s accompanying catalogue contains enough imagery and insight to offer readers an alternative means to experience Yang’s landmark exhibition. 

Image courtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario, design by Conny Purtill, Purtill Family Business.

Co-edited by Adelina Vlas, AGO Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, the catalogue includes a complete body of images documenting Emergence, guiding readers gallery by gallery. The book opens with an essay by Vlas introducing the concept of emergence and setting the tone for a tour of all 84 artworks illustrated. Additional essays by National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, curator Lynne Cooke and Director of The Seoul Museum of Art, Beck Jee-sook (translated from the Korean by Koh Achim) provide further insight into Yang’s career and complex artistic practice.

Image courtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario, design by Conny Purtill, Purtill Family Business.

 The catalogue reflects and amplifies the physical exhibition in its design as well as its organization. The cover and endpapers are directly tied to one of the new works in Emergence: Yang’s large-scale wallpaper installed on the Concourse Level of the AGO. Titled Tectonic Undulations – A Fugue for the Great Wilderness, the wallpaper was designed in collaboration with Conny Purtill, who also designed the catalogue. Like much of Yang’s oeuvre, Tectonic Undulations explores the layered relationships between people, places and materials, responding to the specifics of the exhibition’s Canadian context. Commenting on the impact of raw material extraction – the basis of Canada’s economy – the wallpaper is derived from aerial views of extraction fields, fabulous creatures from an ancient Chinese book entitled the Classic of Mountains and Seas, as well as a quote from the artist in a typographic treatment designed by Purtill. The catalogue also features another new commission, Woven Currents – Confluence of Parallels, which was entered into the AGO Collection. Still on view in the Joey & Toby Tanenbaum Sculpture Atrium, this large-scale installation, made from venetian blinds, reflects another aspect of Canadian history – rendered in the language of abstraction, as it is found in Yang’s work as well as in Two Row Wampum Belt Treaty (1613).

Image courtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario, design by Conny Purtill, Purtill Family Business.

The catalogue Haegue Yang: Emergence is available now at shopAGO, both online and in-person. Pick it up today, and experience the striking complexity of Haegue Yang’s first survey exhibition in North America.