The Armory Show: Jean Shin

September 7 – 10, 2023

Praise Shadows is honored to present Jean Shin in the Platform section of The Armory Show in September 2023. The Platform section of the fair, curated by Eva Respini, features large-scale installations and site-specific works. To request more information about the presentation, please email gallery@praiseshadows.com.

The three sculptures in Huddled Masses are made of discarded cell phones, reminiscent of irregular rough-hewn Chinese scholar's rocks. Shin emplys these forms that capture nature's essence while also exposing the tension between nature and hardware. Embedded like fossils, this collection of obsolete technologies serves as. an archive of twenty years of tech hisory, mapping our ever-growing digital footprint in the Anthropocene age, the geologic period defined by humankind's impact on the planet.
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Adam Reich for Praise Shadows Art Gallery
Miles of old computer cables on the floor encircle the scholar's rocks, suggesting ocean waves or the raked gravel of Zen gardens. Surrounding the entire "landscape" are Shin's E-Bundles, seats for contemplation created using donated data devices entombed by cords. The installation aims to create a place to reflect on toxic e-waste's impact on the environment, on the planned obsolescence central to our consumer cullture, and on ways to reclaim ourselves in today's attention economy.
Jean Shin's E-Bundle series serve as a stationary seating for visitors to connect and contemplate. The sculptures also function as a kind of reliquary, a container for a holy item preserved for safekeeping. In this case, many of the donations of data storage devices, like laptops and hard drives, come from individuals who have made contributions to early cyberculture, currently working in the tech industry, or use technology as a tool to create positive change. The hardware, a kind of data portrait of its donor, is then entombed by the specific cables used by each device. E-Bundles serve as a reminder of our utopian desires, which imagine how technological innovation might make our world better. Like with any relic, it requires faith in its power and authenticity.
- Jean Shin
  E-Bundle (Red G. Q.), 2019
- Jean Shin
  E-Bundle (Yellow L.M and S.M.), 2019
- Jean Shin
  E-Bundle (Black AAM), 2020
  
  Inquire
  
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- Jean Shin
  E-Bundle (Blue G.D.) , 2020
Huddled Masses and E-Bundles have been featured in the following press (partial list)
Photograph by Joseph Hu for the Philadelphia Museum

Jean Shin

Known for her large-scale installations and public sculptures, artist Jean Shin transforms accumulations of discarded objects into powerful monuments that interrogate our complex relationship between material consumption, collective identity and community engagement. Often working cooperatively within a community or region, Shin amasses vast collections of an everyday object or material—Mountain Dew soda bottles, mobile phones, 35mm slides—while researching its history of use, circulation and environmental impact. Distinguished by this labor-intensive and participatory process, Shin’s poetic yet epic creations become catalysts for communities to confront social and ecological challenges. As such, her body of work includes several permanent public artworks commissioned by major agencies and municipalities, most recently a landmark commission for the MTA’s Second Ave Subway in NYC.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the US, Shin works in Brooklyn and Hudson Valley, New York. She is a tenured Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute and holds an honorary doctorate from New York Academy of Art. Shin’s work has been widely exhibited and collected in over 150 major museums and cultural institutions, including solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, and Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where in 2020 she was the first Korean-American woman artist featured in a solo exhibition. Shin has received numerous awards, including the Frederic Church Award for her contributions to American art and culture. Her works have been highlighted in The New York Times and Sculpture Magazine, among others.