Yin xiuzhen biography of donald
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Yin Xiuzhen: ‘Each del av helhet of clothing brings with it the wearer’s spirit’
Yin Xiuzhen has never been one to limit herself. The acclaimed artist, who fryst vatten represented in the UBS Art Collection, has consistently experimented with materials and techniques to create her own artistic vocabulary. bygd turns monumental and delicate, Yin’s sculptures and installations often employ disparate found items to explore themes of memory, globalization, and individual and collective experience.
In this short film introducing her approach to art, the Beijing-based artist explains one of the most distinctive hallmarks of her work, the use of worn clothes as an artistic material. For her, clothing is imprinted with the unique histories of its wearers, making it an ideal ämne for artworks which act as repositories for memory and cultural identity. “Once worn,” she believes, “each piece of clothing brings with it the wearer’s spirit, his or her experiences, memories, and their unique life values,
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b. 1963
Born in Beijing, China, Yin Xiuzhen makes site-specific installations and sculptures. Yin uses found objects of clothing and domestic items to create works that preserve personal memories.
Trained in oil painting at Capital Normal University in Beijing, Yin was influenced by the 1980s New Wave movement in China and its experimental practices of conceptual art which rejected the social realism of the Cultural Revolution. Combining sculpture, installation, and performance art in her 1995 “Washing the River,” she had herself and others washing ice which came from polluted river water.
For her ongoing “Portable City” series, Yin created miniature fabric versions of city skylines, placed in suitcases, to explore the memories that used clothing has for us. In 1996, she made “Ruined City,” an installation made from Beijing roof tiles, to mourn what was lost because of China’s rapid modernization,
Her 1997 “Transformation” was an installation at the Los A
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Plushy Terrorism and Cities in Suitcases: Artist Yin Xiuzhen on How to Challenge Society With Its Own Refuse
As a Chinese citizen who came of age in the 1980s and ‘90s, Yin Xiuzhen learned early on the value of managing contradictions and the dissonances they leave in their wake. Growing up in Beijing, she saw modernity and tradition, local and global, East and West, state control and individual self-expression all combine, morph, and compete for dominance, resulting in the sometimes-dizzying reality of contemporary China. Of course, the ability to synthesize disparate elements into a discrete, meaningful form is at the essence of art making. Yin wields this power with a deft hand in her work in installation and sculpture, using everyday materials (clothing and concrete are particular favorites) to tell new stories about the forces shaping our societies today, including especially globalization and notions of progress as well as the social and environmental degradation those p