Yin Xiuzhen

Yin Xiuzhen (born 1963 in Beijing) is a Chinese sculpture and installation artist.

She incorporates used textiles and keepsakes from her childhood in Beijing to show the connection between memory and cultural identity.

She has also employed pots and pans, wooden chests, suitcases and cement in her work.

Yin's art has been greatly influenced by her impoverished upbringing during the time of the Cultural Revolution, a socio-political movement from 1966 to 1976.

In an interview, she states, “the CR (Cultural Revolution) created more “hardships” and “bitterness” and regret” for the generations before us, it left me—young and naïve—with memories of “ideals,” “magnificence,” “collectivity”...(creating) contradictions and conflicts between isolation and openness, dictatorship and democracy became a new motivation, and as rapid changes cultivated in me an attitude of calm and quiet (Joo, Keehn, Ham-Roberts, 232).” As a child in the Cultural Revolution, Yin Xiuzhen found a creative outlet in the act of sewing, which has become a monumental component in her artistic practices.

She studied oil painting in the Fine Arts Department of Capital Normal University, then called Beijing Normal Academy, in Beijing from 1985 to 1989.

After graduation, Yin taught at the high school attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, until her exhibition schedule became too demanding.

Her work has been described by Phyllis Teo as “possessing human warmth, intimacy, and a sense of nostalgia which propels introspection of one's self—traditions, emotions, and beliefs.

Yin has stated the ‘85 Art New Wave Movement going on in China at the time along with a 1985 Robert Rauschenberg exhibition at the National Art Museum as turning her towards more contemporary styles and influencing her use of different mediums for her art.

Xiuzhen's utilization of the various mediums such as fabric, found objects, and concrete added to the tactile interest and depth to her politically and socially charged works.

It consolidated her position as a female master in experimental, avant-garde art which, at the time, was dominated by male artists like Gu Wenda, Xu Bing, and Ai Wei Wei.

Yin spoke to Phaidon about how the Robert Rauschenberg exhibition inspired her, saying “I realized that the language of art should no longer be restricted to mediums and tools of painting and sculpture, which were what we had studied.

Rather, it should be free and open, and should be used to express free and open messages.” She incorporates used textiles and keepsakes from her childhood in Beijing to show the connection between memory and cultural identity.

Yin has participated in group exhibitions such as Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World at the Guggenheim Museum (2017), and China 8, an exhibition of Chinese contemporary art in eight cities and nine museums in the Rhine-Ruhr region, Germany (2015), the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2013), the 4th Yokohama Triennale (2011), the 7th Shanghai Biennale (2008), the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), the 14th Biennale of Sydney (2004) and the 26th São Paulo Art Biennial (2004).

The two met at University in 1992, and collaborate on a multi-year project called Chopsticks, a format in which each artist prepares half of a sculptural project separately.

They have also collaborated with choreographer Wen Hui and filmmaker Wu Wenguang on dance theatre.

Their ubiquity, ordinariness, and practicality are critical to the overall meaning of the collaboration.

Yin Xiuzhen's Suitcase, 1995 was an installation created in a time that women in China were producing works that conveyed their frustrations and emotional distress in times of immense political pressure after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Yin's works in this period referred to the lives of women in village and traditional China.

Her Suitcase installation preserves her pink, childhood clothing in concrete to literally preserve her memories as a youth.

In premodern China, women upon marriage would pack their suitcases and were forced to abandon her family and village in order to fulfill her duties as an obedient wife.

She is well known for Portable City, a series of sculptures created from clothing collected in different cities shaped into building-like forms and arranged inside suitcases.

Yin had made over 40 Portable City suitcases for various cities around the world to express her perceptions about the many places she's visited in this era of globalization.

In an interview with Phaidon, Yin discusses her inspiration for the Portable City series and states, “I place emphasis on difference, but no matter how I emphasize it, it's always covered over by sameness”.

In 1995, as part of a public art event called "Keepers of the Waters" in Chengdu organized by American ecofeminist artist Betsy Damon, Yin created Washing the River, a performance piece involving ten cubic meters of frozen river water that she invited the public to wash until they melted away.

These installations sought to raise awareness about the conflicting relationships between the social and natural in world in China during the time of global post modernization.

All of these works reference the destruction of the environment brought by industrialization.

Yin Xiuzhen's works convey tensions other Chinese people were facing in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution.

Yin has staged the river washing artwork in multiple locations around the world, including Australia and Germany, stating that the performance piece is relevant at each location it is performed at since environmental concerns are a global issue.

For example, in one piece entitled Ruined City constructed at the Capital Normal University in 1996, Yin took 1,400 grey roof tiles, rubble, and objects directly from the site of a demolished building in Beijing and she used personal possessions such as a set of four wooden chairs from her marriage with Song Dong; transformed it into an installation piece that commemorated the essence of a city that was lost in the process of modernization.

Her work is also notable for its early engagement with environmental concerns.

In 2000 she was the recipient of the China Contemporary Art Award and the UNESCO/ASCHBERG Bursary for artists.

Yin is married to fellow artist Song Dong and currently lives and works in Beijing.

Suitcases and clothing are a popular medium for Yin, and she uses them in other works such as Fashion Terrorism (2004–05) to address global issues such as trust and security.

In Fashion Terrorism, Yin used clothing to construct weapons and other objects forbidden on a plane, then packed them up in a suitcase.

In addition, Yin's work consistently demonstrates a concern for the relationship between the individual and the artist, with a particular interest in her home city of Beijing.

Her works explored the issues brought by globalization and homogenization.

She began working during a time when little attention was paid to environmental degradation in China, and her signature materials are used clothing, cement, and discarded building materials.

Her work has been the subject of solo presentation at the Groninger Museum, the Netherlands (2012) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010).

Thus, creating of a sense of community and belonging within the audience (Teo 2016, 205).”