JEAN SHIN: HOME BASE

September 10 – December 11, 2022 / South Lawn

2022 Visiting artist in residence

New York state-based artist Jean Shin, Laumeier’s 2022 Visiting Artist in Residence, describes her work as “giving new form to life’s leftovers.” Her sculptures and installations transform familiar objects into compelling meditations on collective memory, desires, and failures. Recently, Shin has been using fallen trees as raw material for installations that touch on life cycles and the impacts of climate change. Shin’s engagement with Laumeier focuses on North American ash trees, which are under threat from the Emerald Ash Borer, an insect whose populations have increased exponentially due to global warming. She aims to draw awareness to this issue, as well as related topics around climate change and conservation, by highlighting their connection to the all-American sport of baseball. 

Shin's site-responsive installation Home Base figures an alternate baseball diamond, one where a salvaged stump of a dead ash tree from Laumeier Sculpture Park is fashioned into the shape and size of a home plate. First, second, and third bases are reimagined as sculptural seats or benches created from the same ash tree and blemished bats donated by Rawlings, the sports manufacturer who supplies baseball bats to the St. Louis Cardinals. The artist endeavors to foreground the connection between nature and culture, specifically between a nationally treasured game and our beautiful forests, observing: "What affects the game, affects the environment, and more importantly, what affects the environment, affects the game."

Sited at Laumeier’s South Lawn, Home Base is situated around a lone ash tree; a path of wood pavers will guide visitors to each “base.” Together, they show the progression from stump to custom wood seating, which provides rest points for contemplation and conversation. 

Upon closer reflection, Home Base also reveals the interconnectedness of environmental justice issues with those of race, gender, class, etc. Born in South Korea, Shin’s work often subtly inflects notions of home, belonging, and displacement or references the immigrant experience. Through this project, she was struck by the demonization of an insect from Asia that, upon further investigation, has actually been in the United States for many years, but that has earned the designation of "invasive" because of climate-related issues. Ultimately, Home Base ventures to show viewers that, regardless of racialized rhetoric, propaganda, or denial, all living species share one biological home, planet earth--an intricately complex and not yet fully understood ecosystem, whose inhabitants’ ability to thrive is precariously hinged upon one another’s actions.

Public Programs

EXHIBITION OPENING
Saturday, September 10 / 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. / Opening day programs will take place in the South Lawn near Laumeier’s west entrance parking lot.

• ARTIST TALK / 11:30 a.m. / FREE
  Join Laumeier’s 2022 Visiting Artist In Residence Jean Shin for a meet and greet at her new installation Home Base, 2022 on view in Laumeier’s South Lawn.

• DEMONSTRATION / Wood Turning / 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. / FREE
  Learn about the process of wood turning with an on-site demonstrate from artist Jeff Hornung, who is also a wood turning instructor at Craft Alliance and a 2022 Laumeier Art Fair award winner.

CONVERSATION SERIES / Virtual Artist Talk with Jean Shin
Thursday, November 17 / 6:30 p.m. via Zoom / All Ages / FREE
Join Laumeier’s 2022 Visiting Artist In Residence, Jean Shin, for an artist talk to learn about her artistic practice and her current installation Home Base at Laumeier. RSVP here.

Laumeier Sculpture Park’s ongoing operations and programs are generously supported by St. Louis County Parks; Regional Arts Commission; Missouri Arts Council; among other corporations, foundations, individual donors and members. 

Additional funding related to COVID-19 relief has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Windgate Foundation, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the St. Louis County Small Business Relief Program. 

2022 Exhibitions are supported by Alison and John Ferring, Ken and Nancy Kranzberg, Joan and Mitchell Markow and Two Sisters Foundation, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Mary Ann and Andy Srenco.

Jean Shin and the Visiting Artist In Residence Program are supported by the Whitaker Foundation, the Windgate Foundation, and the Vilcek Foundation. In-kind support has been provided by Rawlings. Fabrication by Goebel & Co. Furniture.

Artist Biography

Born in Seoul, South Korea (1971) and raised in the United States, Shin attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999 and received a BFA and MS from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She also received an honorary doctorate from New York Academy of Art. Shin’s work has been widely exhibited including solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Washington D.C.; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ; Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY and Storm King Art Center, NY. Her works have been on view at the New Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Asia Society Museum, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Museum of Art and Design, NY; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, among many others. She has received numerous awards, including two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, Korea Arts Foundation of America, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Asian Cultural Council, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Art Award. Shin is a tenured Adjunct Professor of Fine Art at Pratt Institute. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York State.