Museum of Modern Art Presents 'Projects 92: Yin Xiuzhen', 2/24-3/24

The Museum of Modern Art presents "Projects 92: Yin Xiuzhen," the first U.S. installation of the artist's large-scale sculpture "Collective Subconscious (2007)," February 24 through March 24, 2010.

 

Yin Xiuzhen's site-specific installations and sculptures bridge the past and the present, the environmental and the personal. "Collective Subconscious" is a 38-foot-long minivan that has been bisected and lengthened via a tube covered in a patchwork of secondhand garments and set upon rows of tiny wheels. A limited number of Museum visitors at a time are welcome to climb inside the caterpillar-like sculpture, where low stools provide seating and the strains of the popular Chinese pop song "Beijing Beijing" (2007) by Wang Feng fill the air, creating a refuge within the white walls of the gallery and a place for conversation and discussion. "Projects 92" is organized by Sarah Suzuki, The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr., Assistant Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art. The Elaine Dannheisser Projects series is coordinated by Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director, The Museum of Modern Art.

Yin often employs quotidian materials in her work, frequently including found and repurposed textiles. "Collective Subconscious" incorporates used clothing taken from friends, family, and strangers. For the artist, these worn garments have the power to evoke memory, retain human experience, and convey time and place. In previous works, she has used conveyances from airplane fuselages to tractors; for this sculpture, she uses a Songhuajiang minivan. In the years before private car ownership became common in China, this type of minivan, known in Chinese as xiao mian ("little loaf of bread"), was used as a communal taxi and represented economic success for those who could afford to hail-or own-one. The work reflects the rapid social and environmental change in urban China, as communal vehicles have given way to private car ownership, and shared communist ideals have been eclipsed by individual material success.

Yin Xiuzhen, who lives and works in Beijing, trained as a painter during the rise of the artistic avant-garde in China in the mid-1980s. In the early 1990s, she shifted her practice to focus primarily on site-specific installations and sculpture.

Her work has been shown internationally at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Germany (2009); 7th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai, (2008); Venice Biennale, Venice (2007); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2007); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2005); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2005); 26th Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo (2004); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2003); and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (1998).

Sarah Suzuki, the Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr., Assistant Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books at The Museum of Modern Art, joined the Museum in 1998. Previously, Ms. Suzuki co-organized the exhibition "Projects 90: Song Dong" (2009) and organized "Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities" (2008), "Projects 86: Gert & Uwe Tobias" (2007), and "Focus: Elizabeth Murray" (2005), an exhibition of Murray's editioned works in conjunction with the artist's MoMA retrospective. She has collaborated on numerous other exhibitions, including "Eye on Europe: Prints, Books & Multiples/1960 to Now" (2006); "The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934" (2002); and "Collaborations with Parkett: 1984 to Now" (2001).

Created in 1971 as a forum for emerging artists and new art, the Elaine Dannheisser Projects series plays a vital part in MoMA's contemporary art programs. With exhibitions organized by curators from all of the Museum's curatorial departments, the series has presented the work of close to 200 artists to date. For further information on the series, including a listing of all Projects artists, please visit www.moma.org/projects.

The museum is open Wednesday through Monday from 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Friday from 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m., and open until 8:45 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month. The museum is closed on Tuesday.

Museum admission is $20 for adults, $16 for seniors 65 years and over with I.D., and $12 for full-time students with current I.D. Admission is free for members and children 16 and under.
For more information, visit online at moma.org.