November 2025
Haegue Yang presents Haegue Yang: Quasi-Heartland at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Contemporary artist Haegue Yang’s solo exhibition, Haegue Yang: Quasi-Heartland, is currently on view at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Returning to the American Midwest in nearly 15 years since her 2011 exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, the artist presents a curated selection of sculptures along with a new commission work throughout the museum.
Yang has worked through multifaceted and multidisciplinary installations, dissociating everyday objects and materials—including Venetian blinds, metal bells, artificial straw, and plastic twine—from their mundane roles to recast them in multi-component sculptures or sensory experiences. Especially, the artist, who explores diverse fields spanning art history, political history, and folk culture, offers a fresh reinterpretation of common themes of quasi-migration such as artistic exile, postcolonial diaspora, social mobility, and the liminal space between figuration and abstraction.
In particular, the large-scale commission work created for the exhibition, Mound Vehicles (2025), reflects the artist’s consistent interest in movement and performativity. Inspired by the form and historical background of CAM’s proximity to Cahokia Mounds, the work pays homage to ancient civilizations and enduring traditions by mimicking the shape of its mounds. Throughout the exhibition period, the work will be activated intermittently to embody and execute its innate mobility.
The exhibition title, Heartland, refers to the central inland region of the United States—areas not adjacent to the Pacific or Atlantic oceans—including the Midwest centered around St. Louis. It conveys both the cultural distinctiveness of the area and the position and identity of the artist as an ”outsider.” Connecting the artist to the landscapes of region and layered history while interweaving the museum’s architecture into the viewer experience, the exhibition runs through Feb 8, 2026.
Yang has worked through multifaceted and multidisciplinary installations, dissociating everyday objects and materials—including Venetian blinds, metal bells, artificial straw, and plastic twine—from their mundane roles to recast them in multi-component sculptures or sensory experiences. Especially, the artist, who explores diverse fields spanning art history, political history, and folk culture, offers a fresh reinterpretation of common themes of quasi-migration such as artistic exile, postcolonial diaspora, social mobility, and the liminal space between figuration and abstraction.
In particular, the large-scale commission work created for the exhibition, Mound Vehicles (2025), reflects the artist’s consistent interest in movement and performativity. Inspired by the form and historical background of CAM’s proximity to Cahokia Mounds, the work pays homage to ancient civilizations and enduring traditions by mimicking the shape of its mounds. Throughout the exhibition period, the work will be activated intermittently to embody and execute its innate mobility.
The exhibition title, Heartland, refers to the central inland region of the United States—areas not adjacent to the Pacific or Atlantic oceans—including the Midwest centered around St. Louis. It conveys both the cultural distinctiveness of the area and the position and identity of the artist as an ”outsider.” Connecting the artist to the landscapes of region and layered history while interweaving the museum’s architecture into the viewer experience, the exhibition runs through Feb 8, 2026.
