Yin Xiuzhen, Groninger Museum, Groningen

Yin Xiuzhen

Groninger Museum, Groningen

17 June - 18 September 2012

The Groninger Museum presents the first large-scale solo exhibition of the work of Yin Xiuzhen. Yin Xiuzhen (1963) is one of the most prominent artists of her generation. Especially for this exhibition, Yin is currently working on the cityscape of Groningen, which is composed of clothes worn by citizens of Groningen.

In addition to recent work, the presentation also contains key works such as Collective Subconscious (2007), Thought (2009) and Waves (2009-2010). The Weapon installation (2003-2007) will also be on display. This consists of twenty horizontally suspended spear-shaped objects that seem to fly as darts toward their target. This installation was purchased in 2008 and was exhibited during the Biennial in Venice in 2007.

Yin Xiuzhen is most famous for her installations that are made of second-hand clothes. These installations can be regarded as a reflection on the mega-makeover that cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are currently undergoing. In her work, she combines individual experience with these enormous societal changes. ‘In this rapidly changing China it seems as if, of all items, memories are the things that are vanishing most quickly. Storing memories is a kind of voice of opposition’, according to Yin. About her favourite material, Yin comments: ‘Clothes say a lot about a person. At a single glance they recount how big a person is, his or her age, style, gender and income. But they also narrate invisible information such as the memory of a certain period when the piece was worn, and the reason why it was kept.’

In 1995, Yin Xiuzhen created her most personal work, Dress Box, for which she collected her own childhood clothes in an old clothes chest. She then cast cement in the chest, forever petrifying her precious memories. This action was a new beginning for her. It also occurred at the time that Beijing started out on its huge and radical transformation. Traditional quarters of the city, the so-called ‘hutongs’, were demolished to make way for high-rise blocks. In a very short time, whole areas of the city were littered with ruins. Yin: ‘I had exhibitions abroad and was on the road much of the time. At airports I saw the luggage that all those people from all over the world were carrying, and I imagined that these suitcases represented their homes in a certain way.’ On the basis of these deliberations, Yin created the series Portable Cities (2002-2003), consisting of opened suitcases that reveal mini-cities made of textile. Shanghai (2002), New York (2005), Berlin (2006) and Melbourne (2009) are works that she made for this presentation. This year, the city of Groningen will be added to this series.

The work of Yin Xiuzhen was first shown in the Groninger Museum during the exhibition entitled New World Order in 2008. Her work has been displayed in countless exhibitions in and outside China.

The Yin Xiuzhen exhibition has been compiled by head curator Mark Wilson and the curator of present-day visual art, design and fashion Sue-an van der Zijpp.

A catalogue accompanies this exhibition. Curators Mark Wilson and Sue-an van der Zijpp have both written an essay for this book.

GRONINGER MUSEUM

Museumeiland 1, 9711 ME Groningen, The Netherlands

www.groningermuseum.nl

Hussein Chalayan, Groninger Museum - 10 years’ work

Hussein Chalayan, 10 years’ work
Groninger Museum
17 April - 4 September 2005

The Groningen Museum will display the first large-scale solo exhibition of the work of the British based Turkish Cypriot fashion designer Hussein Chalayan (Nicosia, 1970). In the past ten years Hussein Chalayan has created more than twenty collections of which the most important will be shown in the form of outfits, installations, photographic work, and video work. In conjunction with NAi Publishers, the first monograph on the work of Hussein Chalayan will be issued to accompany the exhibition, celebrating his tenth anniversary as a professional designer.

Hussein Chalayan belongs to the most innovative, experimental and conceptual fashion designers of the present day. With inspiration coming from various and assorted disciplines such as architecture, philosophy and anthropology, his oeuvre can be located at the interface between fashion and art. His themes often have a socio-cultural streak relating back to Hussein Chalayan’s personal history as someone who owes his identity to different cultures.

In 1993, Hussein Chalayan graduated from Central St Martins College of Art and Design in London with an eye-catching presentation for which he had first buried the garments. His use of innovative, unusual materials and unorthodox techniques, in combination with the conceptual wealth of his presentations, won him the title of Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards of 1999 and 2000. From 2001 onward, he has held his shows during the Prêt à Porter fashion weeks in Paris. He launched his first menswear collection in 2002, and since then he has participated in countless exhibitions worldwide, including Radical Fashion in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Fashion in the Kyoto Costume Institute in Japan, Airmail Clothing in Musée de la Mode Palais du Louvre in Paris, and the Biennale in Istanbul. In 2001/2002 he was Artist in Residence at the Wexner Center (State University of Ohio). In April 2004 Hussein Chalayan opened his first flagship store in Tokyo, which submerges customers in the Mediterranean atmosphere of Northern Cyprus.

In the exhibition, which will be held on two floors of the Museum, the much-discussed collection Afterwords (AW 2000-2001) will be shown. This collection refers to the reality of the refugee. In this, the upholstery is transformed into dresses, the chairs into suitcases, and the coffee table unfolds to become a skirt. Ambimorphous (AW 2002-2003), a project that covers cultural change, can be seen in the (fashion) show as a kind of journey from one culture to another, both geographically and temporally. The presentation begins with a model dressed in a completely ‘ethnic’ costume, and this is followed by models who gradually change clothes, piece by piece, ending with a modernist black outfit. A collection of photos has been made of these different outfits by Marcus Tomlinson, a video artist with whom Hussein Chalayan has often worked. Recent creations – the video work Place to Passage (2004), whose theme covers a(n) (internal) journey from London to Istanbul, and his latest work Anaesthetics (2004) – will also be on show in this first large-scale solo exhibition.

A monograph on the work of Hussein Chalayan has been published in conjunction with NAi Publishers Rotterdam. Authors: Caroline Evans, Suzy Menkes, Bradley Quinn, and Ted Polhemus. 176 pages, paperback, edited by Barbera van Kooij and Sue-an van der Zijpp, price Euro 29.50

Curator of the exhibition: Sue-an van der Zijpp 

GRONINGER MUSEUM
Museumeiland 1 - 9711 ME Groningen, The Netherlands
www.groningermuseum.nl