We love rebels — or, at least, we say we do. After all, much of American cinema can be seen as a long celebration of disobedience, of the thrill of defying the status quo.
But though we may fetishize iconoclasm in our entertainment, our support is less full-throated in real life. The appearance of someone who seems not just unafraid of breaking with tradition, but indeed unapologetic about doing so, is often greeted with wariness. Sometimes this circumspection is justified — the line between iconoclasm and narcissism is easily smudged — but often our reaction is more complicated: We can find ourselves unexpectedly invested in the maintenance of institutions of power, and while seeing someone willing to set those institutions aflame can inspire admiration, it can also engender envy (why can’t I do that?), self-recrimination (why didn’t I do that?) and fear (can he really do that?). The rebel, initially welcomed, becomes the subject of suspicion instead, especially when it becomes clear that, no, we don’t necessarily have to follow the path to success that we’ve been told we must.
But maybe the thing we fear most about rebels is their aloneness, their apparent lack of need — for approval, of course, as well as for people in general. Being alone doesn’t necessarily mean one is lonely, but the possibility is greater. Haegue Yang may have been born in Korea, and may now live in Seoul and Berlin, but part of her discipline is belonging to nowhere, and refusing to be a part of anything. She is single by design, and has freed herself from the burden of being nice (a syndrome that particularly besets women artists). She is a nomad, constantly shuttling between countries, but she is also an ascetic: Her work bristles with things, everyday objects that we all accumulate over a rooted existence, but her own life is stripped clean of possessions. Comfort, she believes, is the enemy of art-making, not to mention intellectualism, and she has dedicated her existence to living without it.
It’s not a life I could live myself, as much as I admire her steel and her will. A book editor I know once told me that every artist’s credo should be “Compromise when necessary, but never concede.” It’s good advice (note, however: the same doesn’t apply to a politician or an elected official). Though what if we never had to do either? A rebel shows us it’s possible, and that is something we can all find hope in: Never compromise, never concede. The road is long. But it will always be yours.
Read more from T’s March 8 Men’s Fashion issue.
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