Dustin Yellin

Dustin Yellin

Dustin Yellin
Born July 22, 1975
Los Angeles, California, USA
Known for Contemporary Art

Dustin Yellin (born July 22, 1975 in Los Angeles, California) is a contemporary artist living in Brooklyn, New York.[1] He is best known for his sculptural paintings that use multiple layers of glass, each covered in detailed imagery, to create a single intricate, three-dimensional collage. His work is notable both for its massive scale and its fantastic, dystopian themes. Yellin is the founder of Pioneer Works, a non-profit institute for art and innovation in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Yellin's work has been exhibited at S2, and Lincoln Center [2] and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C..

Early life

Yellin was born in Los Angeles in 1975. When he was five years old, he and his mother, a real estate developer and entrepreneur, moved to Telluride, Colorado.[3] He attended high school in Colorado, but left before graduation because "’I wasn’t learning about what I wanted to do.’."[4] He spent a year studying with a physics instructor, absorbing the rigors of the scientific method. Later, scientific knowledge, its possibilities and its limits, became one of the pivotal themes of his art. His education was rounded by extensive travel to remote places, trips which revealed the bizarre and eccentric in the everyday. .

Yellin arrived in New York City in 1995. He was a complete stranger to the area and took to break dancing on sidewalks to help make ends meet. Within months, he had met a broad range of creative, talented individuals who influenced and informed his work.. In 2005, He had his first solo exhibition at James Fuentes.[5]

Early works

"Eratoid" 2007

Yellin began working with paint and collage. These works hint at Yellin's focus on the natural world. In 1998, Yellin was apprehended by police for trespassing on a Central Park monument. He had become convinced "everybody knew each other" and believed his hi-jinks would be easily forgiven by a friendly peace-keeping force. He was brought to Roosevelt Hospital and was released shortly after his arrest.. Subsequently, a video of the incident appeared.[6]

Process

Technique

In 2002 Yellin was working outdoors on a collage, attaching materials from nature to canvas with a sticky resin, when a bee landed on the center of the piece. Immediately, Yellin poured enough resin to quiet the insect’s helpless wriggling, capturing it entirely. Once the resin dried, Yellin continued to embellish the piece.[7] During this period, Yellin developed a technique that used successive layers of transparent resin and stacking the flat images on top of one another, to render multidimensional forms.[8] These works give the effect of "holograms trapped in amber."[9]

Subject Matter

Yellin focuses on otherworldly mutations of living things, especially plants and insects.

"Black Tree"; 2011

His work references taxonomic art of the 19th century, especially that of Ernst Haekel while infusing these historical scientific models with fantasy and imagination.

Materials

Yellin's work pushes the boundaries of the Materials he works with. He has had to work with Tony Durazzo an architect and engineer in order to make larger pieces, as well as employ a forklift in his production process. In 2011 Gabriel Florenz, Yellin’s Director of Operations, was injured after a piece crushed his hand, nearly severing two fingers.

The resin required a hazmat suit for protection from the vapors, leading Yellin to shift from resin to glass panels. The flatness of the glass changed the work, leading to an incorporation of collage of found paper clippings culled from mid-twentieth century reference texts or scientific materials. These clippings were assembled to resemble recognizable images such as a human face or an animal’s torso.

Works

Arboreum (2009) featured a forest of eight to nine-feet-tall, glowing trees and multiple twelve-foot-long sections of a wildflower field.

The Triptych (2012) is Yellin’s largest work, a massive 12-ton, three-paneled work whose subject matter is the world and human consciousness.

Little Grandfather (2007-2014) is a documentary film about the Achuar, a once-cannibalistic native tribe with a shamanistic, polygamous culture. The film depicts the shamanistic healing practice of the Achuar as well as the purgative wayusa ceremony, blowgun hunting, polygamous marriage and the brewing of the staple manioc liquor. The uses no voice-over narration, and required special special permission from the Ecuadoran and Achuar governments to film. All equipment, including generators, had to be flown in to the remote villages. The resulting film, ‘Little Grandfather’, was given limited release in 2014.

Pioneer Works

Yellin moved his studio to Red Hook, Brooklyn in 2005. He occupied several increasingly larger buildings including building on the corner of Van Brunt and Commerce Streets which he purchased, and 133 Imlay Street where he and his then-girlfriend, photographer Charlotte Kidd, operated the The Kidd Yellin Gallery]]. Kidd and Yellin separated in 2009.[10]

In 2011 Yellin purchased the three-story brick warehouse 1866 structure originally built as Pioneer Iron Works in 1866. The building required extensive renovation before Yellin could move in, led by architect Sam Trimble and Gabriel Florenz. The renovations created a ground floor exhibition space with a forty-foot ceiling, and offices and nearly a dozen studios on the second and third floors. Half of the 1 acre site is a garden, which was originally a concrete slab.

Pioneer Works has become an independently functioning not-for-profit institution, and Yellin has leased another large space nearby as his studio. Yellin remains the Founder & Director, and Gabriel Florenz is the Director. Pioneer Works holds public exhibitions, runs Arts and Science Residencies, and offers courses on a range of artistic, scientific, and social topics.

Selected solo exhibitions

Dustin Yellin
Installation view from 'Eden Disorder' at Samuel Freeman Gallery, 2010
  • 2015 Psychogeographies (Permanent Public Art Commission), 6121 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California
    New York City Ballet Art Series, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC.; New York City Ballet Art Series, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York
  • 2015 Selv ab twact hums, The Fireplace Project, New York
  • 2014 $50,000, Two Parachutes, and A Crab’s Suit, Richard Heller Gallery, California
  • 2014 The Triptych, Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, Georgia
  • 2013 Investigations of a Dog Half Gallery, March 20—April 22, 2012[11]
  • 2011 Osiris on the Table 20 Hoxton Square Projects, February – March 2011[12]
  • 2010 Nightshades Independent Ideas Studio, October 19 – October 30, 2010[13]
  • 2010 Eden Disorder Samuel Freeman Gallery, March- April 2010[14]
  • 2009 Dust in the Brain Attic Robert Miller Gallery, April – July 2009 [15]
  • 2008 Unnatural Selections Patricia Faure Gallery, January – March 2008 [16]
  • 2008 Permutations Haines Gallery, January – February 2008 [17]
  • 2007 Suspended Animations Robert Miller Gallery, May – August 2007 [18]
  • 2005 Dustin Yellin Robert Miller Gallery, New York, January – February 2005
  • 2002 Previous Works James Fuentes Project Space, New York, May 2002

Selected group exhibitions

  • 2015 Diverse Works: Director's Choice, 1997–2015, Brooklyn Museum, New York; Behold! The Blob, Richard Heller Gallery, California
  • 2014 Hot Chicks, The Hole, New York; Environmental Impact, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, California
  • 2013 Come Together: Surviving Sandy, New York
  • 2013 Jew York Zach Feuer, New York, June 2013
  • 2013 I Killed My Father, I Ate Human Flesh, I Quiver With Joy | An Obsession with Pier Paolo Pasolini Allegra LaViola, New York, February 2013
  • 2012 Brucennial 2012 Harderer. Betterer. Fasterer. Strongerer."" Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York, February 2012
  • 2010 Brucennial 2010 Miseducation Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York, February 2010
  • 2010 Conversations II Travesía Cuatro, Madrid, February – March 2010
  • 2010 Kings County Biennial Kidd Yellin, New York, December 2009 – February 2010
  • 2009 STAGES Deitch Projects, New York, October – November 2009
  • 2009 One From Here Guild & Greyshkul, New York, February 2009
  • 2008 Geometry As Image Robert Miller Gallery, New York, May – July 2008
  • 2009 Without Walls Museum52, New York, December 2008 t- January 2009
  • 2007 Conversations I Travesía Cuatro, Madrid, April – May 2007
  • 2006 Earth and Other Things: Dustin Yellin and Johanna St. Clair Lincart, San Francisco, January – February 2006
  • 2006 Among the Trees New Jersey Center of Visual Arts, New Jersey, April – June 2006
  • 2006 Black and Blue Robert Miller Gallery, New York, June – July 2006
  • 2005 Nostalgia Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, September 2005 – May 2006
  • 2005 Landings Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, January – February 2005
  • 2004 First Annual Watercolor Show: Ten Times the Space Between Night and Day Guild & Greyshkul Gallery, New York, New York, July 2004

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, September 23, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.