Yearmaster 2022/2023: Mickey Yang

Mickey Yang about her focus for this season: ‘I was allowed to accomplish my finest and most valuable projects in project spaces where I was trusted, given time and space to test out ideas, and felt unlimited artistic freedom.
Unfortunately, experimental project spaces that encourage this are becoming increasingly rare. As a Yearmaster, I want to give starting artists the opportunity to make their spaces completely their own in a surprising way.’

Mickey Yang (b.1988) is a multidisciplinary artist, living and working in The Hague, who creates immersive multimedia installations consisting of objects, videos and performances. Often, her installations come to life: the sculptures move, vibrate and rotate, frequently synchronous with narrative elements such as video and sound. Her practice explores image representation, astonishment, mass culture, the subjective experience of our collective memory and the search for material culture and (traditional) craftsmanship. Yang works with bronze, aluminium and plastic, using laborious processes such as moulding and casting – techniques which are global and universal, used throughout history and across cultures. Using these materials, she plays with stereotypical notions of what art should look like, challenging that almost religious veneration for a finished piece.

Her practice is underscored by a philosophy and approach towards materials, processes and learning that is not oriented towards western culture alone. The daughter of Singaporean-Chinese immigrants, her split cultural identity often informs her work. Most recently, she has turned towards her Asian heritage and delved into Asian philosophies and spiritual practices, as well as the origin of Chinese characters.

Humour and optimism are key to her work. By applying the same manipulative strategies used by the media and commercial advertising, she attempts to make us change the way we see things, having us rediscover a playful innocence. She calls herself a friendly manipulator.

Recent exhibitions include: KM21, Den Haag (2022), Kunsthalle Osnabrück (2021), P/////akt, Amsterdam (2019)

https://mickeyyang.nl/ 

Photo: Jeanne van Jeannette Slütter, Temet studio
© Images courtesy of SCHUNCK Museum