Continuing to expand its cultural universe, Jaeger-LeCoultre announces the latest instalment in its Made of Makers programme: a new collaboration with the Korean digital media artist Yiyun Kang.
Expanding the Dialogue Between Watchmaking and the Arts
Through a series of collaborations with artists, designers and craftsmen from disciplines outside watchmaking, Made of Makers explores and extends the dialogue that naturally exists between horology and art. The programme focuses on artists who share Jaeger-LeCoultre’s values of creativity, expertise and precision, with nature at its core, exploring new forms of artistic expression through different and often unexpected materials and media. Like the watchmakers of La Grande Maison, these artists and innovators have a deep respect for the past as their creative foundation and a springboard for their trailblazing work. In 2023, Jaeger-LeCoultre further explores the world of contemporary art with an unexpected new collaboration.
A Unique Artistic Vision Expressed Through Exceptional Technological Skill
Recognised for her immersive audio-visual installations that recast space with moving image and sound, Yiyun Kang is one of the most active and talented Korean digital media artists in today’s international art scene, as well as a highly respected teacher and researcher.
In both her art practice and her research, Yiyun Kang is exploring the intersection of art, technology, and experience to investigate what she describes as “the in-between – between the finite and infinite, reality and unreality, surface and depth, absence and presence”. Valuing art as a medium for communication, she invites us, through her work, to contemplate where the boundaries are and what those boundaries mean – for humanity and the important questions that we face in today’s world.
Through the relatively new art form of projection-mapping, Yiyun Kang’s works play with the symbiotic relationship between moving images, narrative, and space beyond the conventional screen. From relatively small-scale works created for indoor environments to very large site-specific works created for public outdoor spaces, these immersive environments involve the viewers as participants, taking them into another dimension; the effect is awe-inspiring, and occasionally disconcerting as the sense of space, dimension and time is dissolved and re-formed. Fractal geometries move and flow in a way that seems almost organic, lending a grace and fluidity to each work that makes it seem effortlessly natural. However, as with watchmaking, the beauty of the work is underpinned by intellectual rigour, complex mathematical calculations and extreme precision.
A 3D-Video Sculpture Inspired by The Golden Ratio
For each Made of Makers collaboration, Jaeger-LeCoultre commissions an original work, inviting the artist to express a theme of interest to the Maison in a new way, through their particular craft. To better understand what the 2023 theme of the Golden Ratio means to Jaeger-LeCoultre, Yiyun Kang spent time at the Manufacture in the Vallée de Joux, gaining a deeper understanding of the Maison’s home, its values and the process of watchmaking.
“It was fascinating to see how the Reverso was made at the Manufacture. As an artist who works at the intersection of creativity and technology, I found it very interesting that the original design of Reverso was driven instinctively by the Golden Ratio, and I sought out scientific research that could explain why humanity has been drawn to the concept for so many centuries,” says the artist. “Jaeger-LeCoultre inspired me to explore, to draw a continuous line from the natural world into my digital space.”
This became the starting point for the newly commissioned work, titled Origin. Presented in a very large three-dimensional screen that has been purpose-built for installation in public spaces, Origin is a tribute to the ubiquity of the Golden ratio in the world around us. Through its narrative, it builds a parallel between the symmetry in nature and the geometry of Art Deco design.
“There are astounding examples from nature that literally represent the Phi number, the Golden Ratio, in their organisms,” Yiyun Kang observes. “Perhaps we are attracted to it because it identifies the origin of life – not just an aesthetic pattern, but an anchor for evolution. Seen in this light, the meaning of Golden Ratio becomes even more significant for us now that we are living in an Anthropocene age.”
A Seoul Debut Followed by a World Tour
Origin will make its debut in Seoul in June, before being presented at a series of Jaeger-LeCoultre events in key cities around the world, such as Chengdu, Singapore, New York and Zurich.
About Made of Makers
The Made of Makers programme brings together a community of artists, designers and craftsmen from a variety of disciplines outside watchmaking. Expanding the dialogue that exists between horology and art, the programme is founded on the core principles that have always defined La Grande Maison: creativity, expertise and precision. It focuses on passionate and experienced creators who share the Maison’s values and whose work explores new forms of expression through different and often unexpected materials and media. Each year, new works commissioned through the programme animate the exhibitions that Jaeger-LeCoultre stages around the world, amplifying the chosen theme and creating new opportunities for audiences to engage and to become part of the wider conversation about art, craft and design.
About Yiyun Kang
One of the most active and talented Korean digital media artists in today’s international art scene, Yiyun Kang is recognised for her immersive audio-visual installations that recast space with moving image and sound. After graduating from Seoul National University with a BFA in Painting, she continued her studies at UCLA, and gained her PhD at the Royal College of Art in London, where she has subsequently been a visiting lecturer. Yiyun Kang is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in the UK. Alongside her art practice, she is currently an assistant professor at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology)’s engineering school where, as director of the experience design lab, she is also pursuing a genuine convergence of art, design, technology and science through diverse research and practice.
Yiyun Kang’s works have been exhibited in Europe, Asia, and the United States, and she has participated in international events such as the Venice Architecture Biennale and Shenzhen New Media Art Festival. In 2015–16, she participated in the residency programme of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), which subsequently acquired her site-specific work for its permanent collection; in 2017, she received the Red Dot Award for Exhibition Design for Deep Surface, an exhibition commissioned by Max Mara; and in 2020, she participated in the transcontinental contemporary art project Connect, BTS. In 2021, Yiyun Kang had a solo exhibition, ‘Anthropause’ at PKM Gallery in Seoul, and in 2022 participated in the group exhibition ‘Cubically Imagined’, which travelled from Paris to Hong Kong, Moscow, Beijing, New York and Washington.
As an academic researcher, Yiyun Kang’s writings that examine the novel characteristics of digitally projected moving-image artworks have been published by both MIT Press and Oxford University Press. She was awarded the British Council Alumni Award for Culture and Creativity (2022) and participated in a formal meeting of the UK government’s Digital Culture, Media and Sport committee. She is regularly invited to speak at international conferences and to give talks at institutions and companies that work on the cusp of art, design and technology.