Mel Chin- Visiting Artist Lecture #1

Mel Chin is Chinese, born in American, and was raised in a poor neighborhood in Houston, TX. He is a conceptual artist using mixed media as a basis of his work. He has done sculptures and installations, made clothing, images, animations, etc. Chin stated that he “places art in strange places” like popular television shows and abandoned houses. Most of his work had a lot of political views that took him time and years of research. The first image he showed was from 1989, a sculptural piece of two large columns replicated and scaled from the White House with the horn of plenty sandwiched in between which represented “crushing policy.” He also did work as homage to people whom stories impacted him in some way. During the lecture he said “work can be made a tribute to people.” I think that Mel Chin’s goals with his work is to help out the community, to make an impression, to get people thinking and involved. He works to have meaning even if the viewer has to dig a little deeper to figure it out. One of the comments that Chin said during the presentation is “its time to critique myself” I found it to be a strong and honest statement. Even though this man is obviously talented and known, he still wants to take time to regard his work and be hard on himself. I honestly had never heard of this artist before today. I really did not feel like going tonight because I had a really long day, but I am very happy I did. I thought that the lecture was informative. He was really engaging with us and he kept things interesting by cracking jokes, singing, and changing clothes. He was well organized and if he slipped up he just cracked a joke. It seemed like he really loves what he does and completely appreciates every single day.