Jean Shin July 6, 2009

Jean Shin's Everyday Monuments

If you're walking through a city, say New York or Washington D.C., you may want to have Jean Shin by your side. You may know your way around familiar streets, but through Shin's eyes you'll be able to look at the overlooked and see how the ordinary can rise to the level of art.

Her exhibition, Jean Shin: Common Threads, is currently up at the American Art Museum. It is made up of half a dozen or so installations, including Everyday Monuments, which was commissioned by the museum. Many of the works have a sense of cityscape to them, or an architectural element that keeps the works grounded. Even Everyday Monuments, composed of more than 2000 altered trophies, is based on the scale of the National Mall.

In Common Threads there's a video of Penumbra, her installation at the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York. Shin removed the fabric from the metal of discarded umbrellas and wove the nylon pieces together. Chance City, another work in the exhibition, is a literal house of cards. It is composed of thousands of losing and discarded lottery tickets that have been assembled without the use of any adhesives. So many unrealized dreams seem to waft from that handmade city's skyline.

Shin has taken everyday objects and helped us to see them as if for the first time. The element of social exchange runs through many of her pieces, particularly because she often asks for donations of materials from family, friends, and related communities. I think the exchange continues when you visit the exhibition and engage with Shin's vision.

On Tuesday, July 7, at 6:00 pm, Jean Shin will hold a conversation with Joanna Marsh, curator of contemporary art, and Hugh Shockey, museum conservator, about the challenges of creating--and conserving--artworks made of ephemeral materials. (American Art Museum, McEvoy Auditorium, Lower Level)

• Jean Shin, Contemporary Art, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum