Haegue Yang 양혜규 梁慧圭 / Leap Year, Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2025

Leap Year
March 1, 2025 – August 24, 2025
Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Intentionally nonchronological, Leap Year is loosely structured with several thematic sections,
such as Social, Political, Spiritual Quotidian, Quasi-Performativity, and Singular-Plural and
relies on the flow of the audience’s perceptions and associations.

Yang frequently draws inspiration from sociopolitical history, as well as from artisanal crafts
and rituals—ranging from European pagan traditions, as seen in _The Intermediates_ (since
2015), to non-Western folk arts or shamanic practices, as in _Mesmerizing Mesh_ (since 2021).
In the latter, mulberry paper, also known as _hanji_ in Korea and _washi_ in Japan, plays a key
role. Yang embarked on artistic research into the spiritual presence of paper in various
shamanic rituals and its role in different folk traditions and indigenous cultures.


One of Yang’s noteworthy formative works in Leap Year is _Storage Piece_ (2004), a sculptural
installation consisting of nothing more than her own artworks in boxes and crates, tightly
stacked on wooden pallets. This seminal piece was born out of Yang’s precarious nomadic life
as a young artist without any storage space for her works. While it departs from a personal
circumstance at that time, _Storage Piece_ conceptually extends its impact to a broader and
challenging socioeconomic narrative about migrant artists around the world. Rotterdam-based
artist Pris Roos (1984, Rhenen), who strongly identifies with its subject matter, has
been invited to narrate _Speech for Storage Piece_ (2004). Even after twenty years, _Storage
Piece_ demonstrates its conceptual poignancy and social relevance.