Haegue Yang Tate St Ives – Strange Attractions
I must confess that I didn’t understand the explanations and hence entered the gallery with a degree of scepticism, but this immediately changed with a challenge to my mindset. @tate
This was one day before England’s second Covid-19 lockdown and the galleries at Tate St Ives were full of carefully social distancing viewers.
The Tate staff coped extremely well with difficult circumstances, full credit to them especially with some of those people who were becoming frustrated and annoyed at the curtailment of individual liberties for the good of all.
Haegue Yang’s exhibition was visually stunning. Monumental in places, richly colourful with dramatic construction, through to subtle and more gentle approaches. Yang employs a multitude of vastly differing materials from CLS to straw, metal and wall-paper.
So what is the message of the exhibition? What does it all mean? Should we try and make sense of it or just enjoy it for what it is? To quote from the gallery explanation: ‘This exhibition borrows its title from the scientific study of ‘strange attractors’ the unexpected structure towards which chaotic systems tend to evolve. ‘Strange Attractors’ considers our universal human ventures within chaotic and unpredictable futures’
I was at this point that I gave up trying to understand where she was coming from and simply indulged in the aesthetic immersive experience.
The exhibition will be at Tate St Ives until May 2021. Well worth a visit if in the area.
Whatever the world throws at us, we always have art (and design) and galleries such as the Tate St Ives are making a wonderful job of enriching people’s lives; offering an escape as well as an opportunity to reflect on the times and even interpret ourselves within the context of a greater dimension.
Haegue Yang Tate St Ives