Symposium: Haegue Yang – Through leaps and bounds

Venue: LUMA, schwarzescafé, first floor Löwenbräukunst

Using the exhibition Leap Year as a focal point, the symposium examines how Haegue Yang’s practice has developed through leaps and bounds, highlighting pivotal moments. It reflects on the core themes that have shaped Yang’s practice over the past three decades. Known for resisting categorisation, Yang’s work navigates the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, drawing on diverse media including sculpture, installation, and experimental text. Her practice unfolds as a series of constellations – complex, layered compositions that challenge conventional understandings of everyday life.

While Yang’s work spans geographies, art historical periods, and materials, a consistent thread runs through it: a deep engagement with 20th-century art, design, philosophy, and music. There is, at times, a sense of sentimentality in this engagement – a reflective look at the past that is neither nostalgic nor fixed. Rather than situating her work within any one specific moment, Yang offers a contemporary articulation of what it means to exist today. Contemporary life – with its materials, objects, sounds, and references – is not merely represented in her work but activated through it.

This symposium uses the exhibition as a starting point – a reflective look back at thirty years of Yang’s practice – and aims to draw connections between her current work and the ways it has evolved over time. As her exhibitions span global contexts, one consistent element remains: her use of everyday materials. Simple household items, such as blinds, are transformed into complex scenography's and sculptural installations. How can we situate Yang’s work within a global context when it so often engages with themes of migration, displacement, and blurred boundaries? What are the underlying complexities that evoke a sense of nomadic existence – rooted in her life between Berlin and Seoul, and her constant abstraction of elements drawn from diverse places?

Contributors:

• Lynne Cooke, curator and writer, New York
• Binna Choi, independent curator, curator of the Korean Pavilion, 2026 Venice Biennale
• Charlotte Matter, art historianis, Laurenz Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Basel.
• Panel discussion with Lynne Cooke, Charlotte Matter and Michael Birchall (curator of the exhibition), moderated by Paula Thomaka (assistant curator).
• All bios and abstracts for the keynotes.

Schedule:

11–11.10am:

Coffee and Welcome by Tasnim Baghdadi

11.10–11.30am:

Introduction by Michael Birchall

11.35 am–12.05pm:

Lynne Cooke, En Route

12.10 am–12.30pm:

Lynne Cooke and Michael Birchall in conversation

12.30–2pm:

*** Break 1 – Sandwiches and Fruits ***

2–3pm:

Binna Choi, Travelling around the world, hometown stories hurt but where’s that home?

3–3.15pm:

*** Break 2 – Coffee and Biscuits ***

3.15–4.45pm:

Panel Discussion Through leaps and bounds with Lynne Cooke, Charlotte Matter, Binna Choi, Michael Birchall. Moderated by Paula Thomaka

4.45–5pm:

Questions

• The event is free of charge
• No registration required