Artist in conversation: Yan Jin
Yan Jin is an artist born in Shanghai, China. She is currently based in New York where she obtained her Master of Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts, Photography, Video and Related Media department. Her works include photography, video, sculpture, and multi-media installations. She constantly redefines the found photo and found objects by various procedures including scanning, retouching, erasing etc; blurs the gaps between facts and fiction, presence and absence, brings disparate binaries in dialogue with one another. She received Paula Rhodes Memorial Award for exceptional achievement from the School of Visual Arts in 2021.
Follow the artist here.
- Welcome to The Holy Art. Could you tell us a little more about your background, and how did you begin creating art?
I was born in China where I have a bachelor's degree in French as a foreign language. During my undergraduate, I went to France as an exchange student and spent a semester there. I lived with a friend who was very keen on photography at that point. She had a certain influence on me and after I came back, I started shooting with a film camera, for a whole five or six years I shot with a Bronica sq-ai until it broke during a trip in Iran.
- What art do you most identify with?
I am always interested in ready-made and found objects, which often connect with conceptual art. I’m obsessed with artworks that keep posing questions and challenging the notions we take for granted. I applaud photographic works by artists such as Thomas Demand, Penelope Umbrico, Lucas Blalock. All these artists interrogate the nature of photography in their own respective ways.
- Can you describe one artwork or series from your oeuvre that you feel was pivotal in your career?
I would say the pivotal one is yet to come. Although I always hold an interest in art, I started my art career many years later when I was enrolled in the graduate program of the School of Visual Arts, New York. It feels a little bit early to look back. I’m usually fond of the works I just finished, but I think for making art sometimes you need to pause for a second and then revisit it in the future so as to know how to get to your destination.
- Which other great artists inspire you and why?
Apart from the photographic artist I mentioned, I like to name a few multi-media artists whose works are more installation-based. I am constantly inspired by Christian Boltanski, who sadly passed away last year. He did poignant installations exploring life, death, holocaust memories. And also Hans Haacke, an incredible contemporary artist, his later works are research-based installations on Institution Critique.
- Can you talk about the process of creating your work?
I frequently think about the function of photography, its presence as a sign, as representation, as constructed consciousness. I redefine the photos from my personal archive and introduce various procedures including scanning, retouching, erasing, etc. I like to blur the gaps between facts and fiction, presence and absence, bring disparate binaries in dialogue with one another, and maintain the objecthood of a photograph.
- What do you hope that the public takes away from your art?
Since the birth of photography, it has been through all kinds of criticism. Some considered it not art because you can make copies of a photograph and there’s no original. But no way one can ignore it nowadays. Everyone is a photographer with a cell phone. Press the shutter, that’s it. It’s too easy a process for people to forget what is photography, what is the thing we are dealing with. As Wittgenstein said, the aspects of things that are most important for us a hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. For me, I’d like to reveal that with my work and make people aware and think again.
- What is your dream project?
I hope one day I can collaborate with the artist I admire and together we do an installation. I believe through conversations with others I can walk out of my safe zone and think out of the box, thus ideas will come out naturally and strikingly.
- Finally, are there any projects you are currently working on and able to speak about?
I’m currently working on a site-specific sculptural installation. The show will happen from the beginning of Mar 2022 and will last a month in Washington D.C. I’m so excited about it! Follow me on Instagram for my latest update!
