CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile) announces its Winter Programme 2020 featuring the title exhibition -- Yin Xiuzhen: Sky Patch, the first solo exhibition of Yin Xiu zhen in a museum setting in Hong Kong. A leading figure in Chinese contemporary arts, Yin Xiuzhen's exhibition explores the idea and the very action of patching and repairing one's relationship with their surroundings and various communities to which they belong through the common thread of textile.
World-premiere of Yin's new video arts: patching intergenerational communication
The exhibition sees the world-premiere of two new video works of Yin Xiuzhen. Commissioned by CHAT, the two videos, titled Sky Patch (2020) and Rebel (2020), trace her family history as she delves into her mother's past as a textile factory worker and the growth of her own daughter respectively. The two videos present fragmented snippets of the family's daily lives, shedding light on the role industrialisation has played in family estrangement and intergenerational communication between mother and daughter. Along with the video installations, the reconfigured gallery space turned memory bank also showcases a divers set of sewing machines, visitors are invited to reflect on the intricate linkages stretching from oneself to their families and their socio-economic environment.
Yin Xiuzhen, Sky Patch, 2020 (Video still)
Textile as a point of departure: Collective memories through collected materials
Known for her agile cross-medium practice, Yin Xiuzhen is committed to her ongoing exploration of collective memories manifested in collected materials. Embodying both personal experiences and sentimental contemplation on the monumental impact China's industrial development has had on the country's social fabric and the lives of its people, Yin's work is deeply rooted in textile, and yet extend from this subject matter to incorporate collected materials including acrylic, steel and glass for Microcosm (2016) and Black Hole No. 4 (2019), while playing around with objects such as magnifying glass, suitcases, and maps for Portable City series (2001 -- ongoing).
Yin Xiuzhen, Microcosm, 2016
Yin Xiuzhen, Portable City, 2001 - ongoing
Visitors can also find the photo series My Clothes (1995), exhibited for the first time. This set of 32 still images is displayed uniformly on the gallery wall and is to be read alongside personal descriptions written by Yin. Captured within the frames are clothing items once worn by Yin which are neatly folded and stitched shut, each becoming a series of mementos of the artist's early years -- a time where clothes were rationed objects and difficult to come by.
Yin Xiuzhen, My Clothes, 1995 (Detail)
Yin Xiuzhen, Round Fan, 2019
Artist reimagines the spatial layout of CHAT -- a former textile manufacturing factory
With the idea of CHAT as a former textile manufacturing plant, Yin personally redesigns CHAT's gallery space to explore the motif of intergenerational divide and collective memories derived from various socio-economic backgrounds. Yin's spatial reconfiguration challenges the conventional approach of visiting HCAT's gallery space. The whole space is reimagined and restructured to seamlessly integrate the elements of Hong Kong's textile industrial history at The D.H. Chen Foundation Gallery into the seasonal exhibition Yin Xiuzhen: Sky Patch as part of the visiting experience.
'Fracture and suture, opposition and integration -- antithetical motifs and concepts are placed at the centre of Yin Xiuzhen: Sky Patch. Yin's art often revolves around the use of found objects that have been marked with personal traces. Through the processes of collaging and rearranging, these old objects are reconstructed to reveal codependent or contradicting memories and experiences, both personal and communal, thus reflecting on the individual condition in our fast-changing political, social and natural environments. In the face of COVID-19 pandemic, Yin offers a sense of poetry and humour in her works, denoting a heartwarming wish to the visitors despite the perpetual struggles and conflicts,' said Weiwei Wang, CHAT's Curator, Exhibitions & Collections.
About Yin Xiuzhen
Artist: Yin Xiuzhen
A leading figure in Chinese contemporary art, Yin Xiuzhen (b. 1963, Beijing, China) explores themes of the past and present, memory, globalisation and homogenisation. Yin began her career after earning a BA from Capital Normal University’s Fine Arts Department, Beijing, in 1989. She is best known for her sculptures and installations comprised of second-hand objects like clothing, shoes, and suitcases. Inspired by the rapidly changing cultural environment of her native Beijing, Yin arranges and reconfigures these recycled items to draw out their individual and collective histories. Her assembled materials operate as sculptural documents of memory, alluding to the lives of individuals who are often neglected in the drive toward rapid development, excessive urbanisation and the growing global economy.
Yin Xiuzhen has participated in many international and domestic group and solo exhibitions. Solo exhibitions include Nowhere to Land, Pace Beijing, Beijing, China(2013), Yin Xiuzhen, Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands; Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany (2012), Second Skin, Pace Beijing, Beijing, China (2010), Project 92, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (2010), where her large scale installation Collective Subconscious – first debuted in her solo exhibition hosted by Beijing Commune (2007) – was displayed. She has participated in various significant exhibitions around the world including the 58th Venice Biennale, Italy (2019), DARK MOFO, Australia (2014), the 5th Moscow Contemporary Art Biennale, Moscow, Russia(2013), DUCHAMP and/or/in China, UCCA, Beijing, China (2013), the First Kiev International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev, Ukraine (2012), OUR MAGIC HOUR: Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama, Japan (2011), the 7th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China (2008), the 52th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2007), the 14th Sydney Biennale, Sydney, Australia (2004), the 26th Sao Paolo Biennale, Sao Paolo, Brazil (2004) and Inside Out: New Chinese Art which was organized by the Asia Society Galleries, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (1998). The artist has received a range of prestigious awards including the China Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) and the UNESCO/ASCHBERG award in 2000. Her work has also been acknowledged in The New York Times in 2006 and Art in America in 2003.
Exhibition details：
Exhibition: Yin Xiuzhen: Sky Patch
Date: 31.10.2020 - 28.2.2020
Address: CHAT, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong
Opening hours: 11am to 7pm, closed on Tuesday
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