Artist Reflection of Jason S. Yi

Earlier this month, visiting artist Jason Yi from Milwaukee, Wisconsin came to Lawrence University to do a new, cooperatively made public project at the Wriston Art Center and held an exhibition of some of his work at the Wriston Art Gallery. In my sculpture class, he had us work with zip-ties at the Wriston Art Center to create the new public work for him, and I was not particularly keen on it because it seemed he was giving little direction as to what to do with it. Yi also held a lecture at the Wriston Auditorium, detailing the origins and inspiration of his art career. Yi’s primary medium for his work are zip-ties, small plastic binds normally used for general maintenance. Yi incorporates the zip-ties to make what he calls in his official statement on his website a “…subversion…of natural landscapes…enough to…dissociate reality and perception.”

As Yi revealed in his lecture, he is very much interested in defying one’s presumption of physical impossibility, with such works as chairs held up at a precarious angle with only zip-ties and spaces large enough to enter that look like they will apart at any time. Yi credits much of his ambition and success to his father, who was a painter and landscape artist, and their interaction together made Yi fascinated with the idea of altering perception. I personally found Yi’s story to be interesting, but not all that revealing. He never really explained what truly drove him to be an artist or why he really does it. Much of what he spoke about mainly revolved around his successes, but never really reached out to aspiring artist about what art should be or the importance of art.

Yi was very long-winded about his parents and some of his works, and did a plug-in for his new art show back in Milwaukee, but he never really explained the purpose of zip-ties or for what reason he uses them, how they can be palatable as any other art medium. I was however, somewhat impressed by his gallery work, especially the mountain of chairs tightly bound in zip-ties. That being said, I felt that he cheated himself a bit by wrapping the chairs in plastic wrap because it defeats the whole purpose of using zip-ties in the first place.

 

I assumed he was trying to impress upon us the palatability of zip-ties, but it seems he doesn’t take full advantage of them there. It is interesting to see young artists come with different backgrounds and reasons as to why they entered the art field, but I would at least prefer one who is not so busy patting themselves behind the back and one who actually offers advice to those interested in pursuing an art-related career.

Link to Jason S. Yi's Official Website:

http://www.jasonyi.com