HARD POP!
Seungjin Yang’s Impenetrable Air Chairs
- Text: Elaine YJ Lee
- Images/Photos Courtesy Of: Seungjin Yang
Don’t count on seeing South Korean artist Seungjin Yang’s balloon sculptures at a children’s birthday party. In Yang’s hands, the floating, bouncy thing turns into a hard-surfaced, pop-proof object, more specifically into chairs, couches, stools, and lighting. Epoxy resin is carefully applied to the balloons by hand, which are then hung to dry. Yang reapplies the coating and repeats the process eight times, until they become rock solid. “Sometimes I need to do repetitive tasks to take my mind off things, as a distraction,” Yang says, surrounded by his bubbly creations.
Yang’s works gained a cult following when New York gallery The Future Perfect showed a suite of them in Los Angeles in the spring of 2019. His creations have since been seen in numerous Architectural Digest shoots, adding a pop of color and play to some of the world’s most beautiful homes. At Marc Jacobs’ Los Angeles Heaven boutique, which opened this spring on Fairfax, Yang’s seating is at home among the eclectic decor. If this is the era of the art chair, Yang is in the vanguard.
Yang grew up in Hongcheon County, a small city in the South Korean countryside, west of Seoul. “I was a normal kid who loved making things with my hands. I would assemble plamodels or make paper airplanes—not the simple ones you make by just folding paper, really intricate ones.” Yang graduated from Hongik University, one of Korea’s most prestigious and historic art schools, and took on odd jobs—from assisting other artists to doing interiors and making butcher shop signs—until he could create his own resin works in 2013.
Yang first experimented with resin while assisting another artist working with the medium. “It all started pretty spontaneously, I tried applying epoxy to a balloon one day and thought it looked pretty.” After working exclusively on lighting fixtures, Yang began to realize the unlikely durability of a balloon. “A flat slab of epoxy may break more easily, but when it’s in a round, whole shape, it becomes quite durable,” he tells me.
“What I’m doing now may be more difficult than assembling toys, but I think a lot of it is the same thing I did as a kid,” he says, his calm, low voice a stark contrast to the giddiness of the rainbow-filled studio. “When I’m blowing balloons, sometimes it feels like child’s play.”
In actuality, his whimsical creations are the result of careful calculation, structural planning, and minimalist editing. “There is not a single balloon that doesn’t need to be there for structural support,” Yang explains. “I don’t like things that are simply decorative.” Far from a kiddy pastime, the 35-year-old artist now makes balloon furniture full-time, taking orders from (adult) clients all over the world.
Elaine YJ Lee is a writer and creative producer based in New York and Seoul. Her work can also be found on i-D, VICE, Highsnobiety, Apartamento, Office Magazine, Document Journal, and more.
- Text: Elaine YJ Lee
- Images/Photos Courtesy Of: Seungjin Yang
- Illustrations: Sierra Datri
- Date: August 2nd, 2021
