Mel Chin was born in Houston
to Chinese parents in 1951, the first of his family born in the
United States, and was reared in a predominantly African-American
and Latino neighborhood. He worked in his family’s grocery
store, and began making art at an early age. Though he is classically
trained, Chin’s art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades
easy classification. Alchemy, botany, and
ecology
are but a few of the disciplines that intersect in his work. He
insinuates art into unlikely places, including destroyed homes,
toxic landfills, and even popular television, investigating how
art can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility. Unconventional
and politically engaged, his projects also challenge the idea of
the artist as the exclusive creative force behind an artwork. “The
survival of my own ideas may not be as important as a condition
I might create for others’ ideas to be realized,” says
Chin, who often enlists entire neighborhoods or groups of students
in
creative
partnerships. In “KNOWMAD,” Chin worked with software
engineers to create a video game based on rug patterns of nomadic
peoples facing persecution. Chin also promotes “works of art”
that have the ultimate effect of benefiting science or rejuvenating
the economies of inner-city neighborhoods. In “Revival Field,”
Chin worked with scientists to create sculpted gardens of hyperaccumulators—plants
that can draw heavy metals from contaminated areas—in some
of the most polluted sites in the world. Chin received a BA from
Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1975, and fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988 and 1990. He lives
in North Carolina.
For additional biographic & bibliographic information:
Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York | Wikipedia
Mel Chin on the Art21 blog |
