It would be a shame if Jonathan Jones’s one-star review of the Haegue Yang exhibition at the Hayward Gallery (A must-see show if the slats of venetian blinds make you cry, 8 October) deters readers from seeing work by one of the most original and interesting artists of her generation. Since her early video work, in which she wandered through the backstreets of Seoul, Yang has offered paths through the lesser-trodden areas of intellectual history. Alongside the beauty of much of her work, she asks above all for intellectual curiosity.
You can, of course, simply refuse to embark on her offbeat journeys (as your critic did). But if you don’t, you may explore unlikely and illuminating juxtapositions, as she unfolds her distinct vision of the world. This combines melancholy with ecological awareness, a sensitivity to the ways in which ordinary people live out of joint with an environment forced upon them, and a deep sense of the many ways that those who resist have challenged the imposition of colonialism and consumerism with all their dire consequences.
Julian Stallabrass
London
