Qin Yufen

Qin Yufen (*1954 in Shandong, lives in Beijing and Berlin) is one of the leading Chinese artists of her generation. In her large-scale installations, she works with barbed wire, bamboo, silk, and clothes hangers--a collection of materials that has since come to be her trademark. In her work she often reflects on political and social concerns, yet not in a conspicuous way. In her earlier installations, she preferred to focus on the cultural past of China and, against this background, her own influences and identity; today she is primarily concerned with the global increase of victimization. This catalog presents, for the first time, a concise insight into her artistic development over the past 25 years, with the main focus on the two installations realized in 2018 for the exhibition at Schwartzsche Villa in Berlin. The spaces and the works enter into a compositional relationship that may be described as an aesthetic state of tension between emptiness and intervention. The result are 'images' of a reality in which, to name just two of the materials used, the contrast of silk and barbed wire represent the contradictions that tend to determine modern life.