Jean Shin, Annual Rings SC, 2015

This poignant graphite rubbing on rice paper was donated by the artist, in collaboration Cristin Tierney Gallery to the Sculpture Center, from where it was acquired. It is accompanied by the original purchase and donation paperwork. This work is part of Shin's Annual Rings series -- a group of works related to another series - The Grafted Settings - which explored the sculptural possibilities of metal flatware, carefully polished, bent, and welded, into the form of young trees. The Annual Rings series, to which the present work belongs, traces the
development of another sculpture created with donated flatware from the community around the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey: a tree stump with annual rings that were assembled in concentric, organic forms. The paper placed over the “growing” sculpture was rubbed with graphite, revealing drawings that both call to mind the passage of time and also show the particularities of each carefully selected utensil.
New York-based contemporary artist Jean Shin works in video, installation, sculpture, photography, and mixed media. She is known for the inclusive nature of her artistic practice, which relies heavily on accumulating large quantities of material or objects that would otherwise be considered useless remnants and usually go entirely unnoticed. Shin is particularly interested in deconstructing and recombining the cast-off objects in our everyday lives in unusual and unexpected ways by shifting our perspectives and revisiting subjects in different contexts. Jean Shin has also been commissioned to create work for the new Second Avenue Subway in NYC. For her installation, Elevated, Shin dived into the past - specifically the past that was supposed to bequeath New York the Second Avenue subway generations ago, and that led her to the idea of illustrating the demolition of the Second Avenue and Third Avenue elevated lines in the 1940s and 1950s

Unframed and in excellent condition.

Signed in graphite on the recto

Provenance: The Artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery

The Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York

Exhibited at the Sculpture Center's fundraising sale, 2016