Large-scale and Loving Tribute to Song Dong's Mother Installed in MoMA's Marron Atrium, ArtDaily.org

Left) Song Hui and (Right) Yin Xiuzhen. Installing Projects 90: Song Dong. The Museum of Modern Art, NY. Photo credit: Scott Rudd.(web image)
NEW YORK, NY.- As part of its ongoing Elaine Dannheisser Projects series, The Museum of Modern Art presents Projects 90: Song Dong, featuring the large scale installation Waste Not (2005) by the Beijing-based artist, on view for the first time in the United States. Initially a collaboration with his mother, Zhao Xiang Yuan (1938-2009), the installation—which covers nearly 3,000 square feet of The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium—comprises all the contents of her home, amassed over the course of 50 years during which the concept of “waste not” (wu jin qi yong in Chinese) was a requisite guideline for survival for the generation that lived through the hardships of the Cultural Revolution (1966 1969/76). Song Dong (b. 1966) initiated the collaboration with his mother in an attempt to wrest her from her grief following the death of his father in 2002. The installation includes the house itself, countless cups, pots, basins, folded and piled up shirts, buttons, ballpoint pens, bottle caps, bags, tubs, toothpaste tubes, neckties, 10-liter oil flasks, handbags, skipping ropes, stuffed animals, and dolls. Sorted by type, the materials are lined up alongside one another, forming a miniature cityscape that viewers can navigate around and through. In the process of organizing and arranging the goods, the baggage of the past was unpacked and his mother’s intended goal of waste not was fulfilled as these materials now have another life in the work. Tragically, Zhao died unexpectedly earlier this year, adding poignancy to the neon sign hanging in the installation that reads “Dad, don’t worry, mum and we are fine.” It remains a family project as the artist is assisted in the installation by his sister, Song Hui, and his wife Yin Xiuzhen. ...

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