Jean Shin's work has intrigued me. The artist explores the 'collective memories' and people's commonality through her extensive collection of discarded objects. These objects are collected/donated from various communities (i.e. Asian American society, MoMA staff, veterans, etc.). Her ways of redeeming the leftovers are labor-intensive and the visual transformation of collected objects is formally beautiful.
My work speaks of the optimism inherent in giving new form to life’s leftovers. In my sculptures and large-scale installations, I seek to recall an object’s past, as well as suggest its greater connection to our collective memories, desires and failures.
My inventory of everyday materials includes broken umbrellas, donated clothing, losing lottery tickets, emptied wine bottles and old computer keycaps. These humble remnants, often forgotten and no longer “useful”, retain the traces of their former lives. After accumulating and deconstructing hundreds—sometimes even thousands—of these cast-offs, I generate a seemingly homogenous construction that in turn emphasizes the individuality and variety among apparently indistinct objects. As the uniformity of the collection falls away, the accumulation of ephemera reveals new meanings and associations.
Jean Shin
Chemical Balance II, 2005
Penumbra, 2003
It is now my 2nd week working at Jean Shin's studio. I walk on Classon Ave., take G train to Smith-9th Street, and get on to 77 bus to the Red Hook area in Brooklyn. And there is her studio on Conover Street, about an hour commute from where I am.
Her current project Everyday Monument is specifically for her upcoming solo show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She gathered about 2000 trophies through donation from different communities, and altered the figurines into American heroes of labor. They are quite patriotic and kitsch, yielding much amusement in encountering each figure. Countless hours of labor have been put in these trophies - Everyday Monument. I appreciate this sense of celebration and commemoration of everyday labor.
Past 3 days, the studio assistants have been packing trophies after trophies.
Taping boxes, wrapping trophies, cutting foam support, taping boxes again... Curator from MoMA stopped by the artist's studio tonight, and it was cool to listen their conversation about the project in its concept and process.
Cannot wait to see its final installation of two thousand trophies!!!
Packing will continue next week...
Tomorrow will be my catching up day with errands, school work, and KOREAN FOOD in Flushing with my friend!
Jung Hee Choi, a disciple of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, will perform solo in a setting of her acclaimed video sound installation RICE. This performance will take place within the space of Young and Zazeela’s Dream House, a continuous electronic sound environment in luminous fields of colored light currently installed in the museum as part of The Third Mind.
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