mel chin

  • Spin Control

    Spin Control


    1994
    gun-blued steel, aluminum, motor and electric wiring, wood, glass, surgical silk, plastic
    box: 22 3/4 x 22 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches

    Spin Control is a work about the tenuous stability of inner city race relations. Riots most often occur during the sweltering heat of summer and in neighborhoods where the average resident can only sit close to a window fan to escape the heat. In this installation, the fan is severed along the lines of the city plans of neighborhoods in Detroit, MI, Miami, FL, (Crown Heights) Brooklyn, NY and (South Central) Los Angeles, CA–all sites of major race riots. The blades have been sutured back together, like a wound, creating the appearance of cohesion. Should the heat rise and the fan be plugged in; however, the object could spin out of control and explode into razor sharp shrapnel, revealing the inherent menace of this monstrous, beaten icon. Spin Control is loaded with references to the battered condition of urban neighborhoods, the broken spirit of weary inhabitants, and the lack of fiscal attention to the special needs of our cities.

  • I See (… the insurgent mechanics of infection)

    I See (… the insurgent mechanics of infection)


    1993
    Performance for Eco-Tec Conference at Dia Center for the Arts, New York City
    Publication of directions and script printed by Quonset Hut Press in edition of 1500









  • Combo Club


    Combo Club
    1993
    two colors with a shaped copper plate embossed in heavy Indian handmade paper, printed by Etching Studio, Houston, TX
    23 x 30 1/2 inches
    edition of 50

    This print illustrates the sculpture Night Rap, an actual enforcement officer’s night stick (MONADNOCK PR-24) beheaded and disemboweled, then reanimated and retrofitted with the electronic intestinal circuitry of a professional entertainer’s wireless transmitting microphone (Audio Technica ATW-32). A hand-formed, nickel-plated microphone head of perforated steel recaps the severed six inches of black polycarbide and protects the new brain, thus returning full enforcement function to the stick. As a weapon/tool hybrid, this object brings instruments of power into a new formation. The policeman’s nightstick is a symbol of authoritarian force loaded with potential for brutality and physical control. The wireless microphone is the entertainer’s choice, which arms the voice with amplification and offers physical freedom to the user. This combined option destabilizes the single-minded path that specialized tools can offer.

    Night Rap is a symbiotic mutation that can reaffirm a condition of choice.

  • The Elementary Object

    The Elementary Object


    1993
    Corsican briarwood, steel, plastic, concrete/vermiculite, excelsior packing material, flannel, paper tag, fuse cord, triple F blasting powder
    3 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches
    multiple of 13

    The Elementary Object is a commentary on the responsibility of the intellectual, the use of theory and critique to transform society, and the occasional unintended negative results of such words and opinions.

    This work is fashioned from European briarwood, loaded with triple F superfine blasting powder, nestled in a bed of excelsior, surrounded by vermiculite/concrete, and encased in a locked steel attaché case. Sardonic humor and the potential for tragic destruction meet at the point of the fuse.
    In The Elementary Object, Chin utilizes an image that has been reproduced in art and literature, a reference to the history of tobacco and colonial expansion, one that has come to signify aspects of power, leisure, pleasure, and contemplation. This version loads an actual source for physical harm into the benign pipe in order to bring forward new fodder for explosive contemplation. “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” but is a bomb.

  • Green Bag

    Green Bag


    1993
    gold-plated aluminum ingot on plastic bag, foam packing, bottle with label and landfill samples, can with drawing, document papers in folders
    non-rigid shape, with contents inside bag, approximately 12 x 23 x 12 inches
    contents inside variable
    edition of 13

    The Green Bag documents the installation Landscape. Components include source materials and notations such as: an ingot (a to-scale relief section of the Sierra Madre Mountains) cast in aluminum, plated in 24K gold, fixed to a GLAD® “3 ply Stressflex II” trash bag lined with linen commonly used for Western oil painting; a transcript, derived from an interview with the artist, presented with the reproduction of eight selected notes and drawings that reveal particular aspects of the Landscape conceptualization and installation; one bottle of landfill collected by the artist, tagged and identified; a hand-printed 14 foot variation of the working stencil used to create the “Chinese” wall of the installation represents a topographic cross-section of the northern 30th parallel from 60o East to 150o East; and a to-scale photographic “pop-up” of the installation. The Green Bag informs the viewer of the nuances and processes of creating the installation.

  • Study for Revival Field: Netherlands Brassica napus

    Study for Revival Field: Netherlands Brassica napus


    1993
    zinc metal point on modeling paste, blotter paper ground, zinc/cadmium button, drilled plexi-glass frame
    27 1/2 x 27 1/2 x 4 inches

    A series of drawings, in zinc/cadmium metal point on specially saturated and prepared ground on heavyweight white blotter paper, were executed as botanical studies for the Revival Field project. The cast zinc/cadmium buttons attached to the drawings indicate the metal targets of the plant accumulators. The choice of blotter paper gives further association to the context of absorption. In this case, Brassica napus, a plant used in the test sites, is a known metal-tolerant species. The frame is specially designed for the drawing by the artist. Holes are drilled into the Plexiglass® box to accommodate “breathing/oxidation” of the drawing.