Artist Haegue Yang unveils large installation at Taichung Green Museumbrary in Taiwan

Artist Haegue Yang on Saturday unveiled her largest Venetian blind installation yet at the newly opened Taichung Green Museumbrary, delivering her first major commissioned work in Taiwan.

The image shows "Liquid Votive - Tree Shade Triad" by artist Haegue Yang. [KUKJE GALLERY]

Artist Haegue Yang on Saturday unveiled her largest Venetian blind installation yet at the newly opened Taichung Green Museumbrary, delivering her first major commissioned work in Taiwan.

The installation, titled "Liquid Votive — Tree Shade Triad," fills the complex’s central lobby and surrounding circulation areas. It is the biggest iteration so far of Yang’s blind-based works, which she has developed over more than two decades, and it is built to integrate directly with the building’s architecture.

The Taichung Green Museumbrary opened on Saturday in Taichung, Taiwan’s second-largest city. The complex brings the Taichung Art Museum and the Taichung Public Library together, combining exhibitions, reading and public cultural programs under one roof.

The art museum runs the TcAM Art Commission, a program that presents large-scale works every two years. Yang is among the first commissioned artists selected to mark the opening, alongside the Taiwanese artist Michael Lin.

With a transparent exterior and an open layout, the institution frames itself as a “library in a park and a museum in a forest.”

Yang’s installation rises through the museum’s core, occupying a lobby space that reaches roughly 27 meters (89 feet) in height and extending along the surrounding spiral ramps.

The structure consists of low-saturation Venetian blinds in deep greens, reds and browns that echo natural tones, while at night, flexible vertical LED lighting and firefly-like laser points illuminate the work, creating different visual effects by day and night and enhancing its sense of mystery as a hovering sacred tree.

The work draws on the symbolic meaning of sacred old trees that have long represented communal protection and spiritual belief across cultures, including Korea’s dangsan trees, Japan’s sacred shinboku, India’s bodhi trees and Taiwan’s Dashu Gong.

“Haegue Yang is an artist uniquely capable of articulating the relationship between art and architectural space,” said Yi-Hsin Lai, director of the Taichung Art Museum. “'Liquid Votive — Tree Shade Triad' interacts not only with the museum’s elegant ramps but also with its natural and cultural values, offering visitors a singular sensory and artistic experience.”

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]