The Intermediate--Naturalized Klangkoerper

2016

The Intermediate--Naturalized Klangkoerper, 2016. Haegue Yang (Korean, b. 1971). Artificial straw, steel stand, powder coating, artificial plants, artificial fruits, artificial vegetables, plastic twine, Indian bells, fringes, casters; overall: 180 x 150 x 100 cm (70 7/8 x 59 1/16 x 39 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchased with funds donated by Scott Mueller 2018.29 The Intermediate – Naturalized Klangkoerper uses contemporary mass-produced materials—in the “readymade” tradition of modernist art—to conjure folklore and history from the artist’s native South Korea. Its anthropomorphic straw form is suggestive of Korean straw dolls popular in folklore rituals, and the bells integrated throughout the work evoke Korean shaman rituals in which the shaman, almost exclusively women in the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), would ring bronze bells to communicate with the spiritual world.