When the sound of Double Concerto begins to resonate, light falls in shifting patterns across the colored Venetian blinds, at times resembling rippling reflections of memory, at others suggesting the emotional fluctuations of narrative between light and shadow. Through the rhythm of light and the flow of musical notes, the large static installation seems to transform into a theatrical stage, giving structure to sound and allowing light to perform emotion. Viewers perceive the work through both sight and hearing, entering a richly immersive and distinctive sensory experience.
▸ Haegue Yang, Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun, 2024. Installation view of Leap Year, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Photo | Mark Blower
▸ Installation view of Haegue Yang: Star–Crossed Rendezvous, MOCA Grand Avenue, 2026. Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Photo | Zak Kelley
▸ Photo | Tang Xuan
▸ Photo | Tang Xuan
▸ Haegue Yang, Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun, 2024. Installation view of Leap Year, Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Photo | Marco De Swart.
Korean artist Haegue Yang (b. 1971, Seoul; lives and works in Seoul and Berlin) is known for large-scale installations that employ everyday functional objects. Venetian blinds—originally a window system designed to control light through adjustable slats and organize spatial relations—have been a central material in her practice since the mid-2000s. Inspired by the generative power of abstraction, she orchestrates light, color, and sound to construct immersive sensory environments, creating fields of perception that transcend linguistic boundaries.
▸ Haegue Yang, Star–Crossed Rendezvous after Yun, 2024. Installation view of Leap Year, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Photo | Mark Blower
Presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), Star–Crossed Rendezvous brings together two significant Venetian blind installations created nearly a decade apart: Sol LeWitt Upside Down – K123456, Expanded 1078 Times, Doubled and Mirrored (2015). This monochromatic installation draws on the iconic cube structures of American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928–2007). Yang reconfigures LeWitt’s open cube forms by replacing them with densely layered Venetian blinds, producing a shifting visual condition between transparency and opacity through interwoven angular structures.
▸ Haegue Yang, Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun, 2024. Installation view of Leap Year, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Photo | Mark Blower
On the other side of the exhibition is Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun (2024), a tribute to composer and political dissident Isang Yun (1917–1995). The work’s geometric formations are animated by synchronized dynamic lighting alongside Yun’s Double Concerto (1977). In this composition, Yun draws on Korean folklore as a metaphor for the divided Korean Peninsula.
▸ Haegue Yang, Star-Crossed Rendezvous after Yun, 2024. Installation view of Leap Year, Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Photo | Marco De Swart.
Yang’s practice often stems from specific historical events or figures, though these references frequently remain obscured. The artist refers to this method as “incubated abstraction,” in which historical context serves as a latent structural foundation for the work, establishing an open and permeable relationship between past and present, thereby generating new possibilities. Through the juxtaposition of two works made nearly a decade apart using the same material, the exhibition constructs a relationship of mutual reflection while remaining incomplete, embodying the artist’s long-standing engagement with the themes of asymmetry and doubling.
▸ Installation view of Haegue Yang: Star-Crossed Rendezvous, MOCA Grand Avenue, 2026. Courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). Photo | Zak Kelley
▸ Photo | Zak Kelley
