Haegue Yang, portrait of the artist, 2023, ©HAM Helsinki Art Museum/Sonja Hyytiäinen
The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila is thrilled to announce the book launch of Haegue Yang: The Cone of Concern in Manila, Philippines, on Saturday, 23 March, and Central, Hong Kong, on Tuesday, 26 March 2024.
This event is open and free to the general public.
RSVP is essential due to limited seating capacity.
Yang, who lives and works in Berlin and Seoul, is known for her unique interweaving of conceptual language and aesthetic vocabulary. The Cone of Concern, her solo exhibition at MCAD Manila which took place at the height of the pandemic in 2020 through to 2021, takes its name from a graphical sign used in weather forecasting that traces the path of an oncoming tropical storm. Yang explores this concept as a way to understand humanity’s attempt to confront natural phenomena and also as a metaphoric notion of solidarity among those facing destructive circumstances.
Installation view (ground floor) of Haegue Yang: The Cone of Concern at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila, 2020. Photo: At Maculangan/Pioneer Studios. © Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila
The publication The Cone of Concern is a valuable document of Yang’s exhibition of the same title; it revisits the exhibition’s complex layering of objects—anthropomorphic rattan sculptures, light sculptures, rotating sonic disks with metallic bells, whirlwind-derived wall partitions, elements of textile canopies, fans, and sounds—against a lenticular print backdrop of a digitally constructed space swirling with meteorological measuring devices.
Installation view (mezzanine) of Haegue Yang: The Cone of Concern at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila, 2020. Photo: At Maculangan/Pioneer Studios. © Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila
Designed by Studio Hik, the print catalogue features essays by
- Esther Lu, director of Taipei Contemporary Art Center from 2015 to 2017 and the curator of
This is not a Taiwan Pavilion — collateral event in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, - Daisy Nam, executive director at Ballroom Marfa, Texas,
- Leilani Lynch, associate curator at MCA Denver (formerly of The Bass in Miami, Florida, where Yang exhibited In the Cone of Uncertainty),
- June Yap, director of curatorial & collections at the Singapore Art Museum,
- Joselina Cruz, director and curator at MCAD Manila, and
- a conversation between Yang, Cruz, and anthropologist Padmapani L. Perez.
Installation view (ground floor) of Haegue Yang: The Cone of Concern at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila, 2020. Photo: At Maculangan/Pioneer Studios. © Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila
Haegue Yang: The Cone of Concern is a hardcover publication measuring 21 cm x 28 cm. It has 168 pages, with more than 100 of them featuring high-quality installation photographs and images of the exhibition. It will be distributed worldwide by Hatje Cantz.
Manila, Philippines
Saturday, 23 March 2024
Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar-Quezon City
134 Fernando Poe Jr. Ave., San Francisco del Monte
Public Lecture
3 PM
Roosevelt Function Room
Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, QC
Built around the metaphor of a weather forecasting graphic tool, The Cone of Concern presented a complex layer of works and elements to draw out the metaphoric potential of solidarity amongst those facing difficult circumstances. Yang will share her experience working remotely on this show during the pandemic, which mirrors her concerns about the meteorological challenges facing humanity.
Book Launch
4:30 PM
Cocktails at the Plaza
Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, QC
RSVP bit.ly/COCBookLaunch
Central, Hong Kong
Tuesday, 26 March 2024
pre-dinner cocktails, 5:30–7:30 PM
The Lawn, Level 6, The Upper House,
Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Hong Kong
