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 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 not-for-profit cultural center, in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Yellin's work has been exhibited worldwide.

Psychogeographies at Lincoln Center, 2015

Notable American locations include Lincoln Center,[2] the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and a permanent public installation on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.[3]

Since 2016, Yellin has been working with Google to develop creative, user-directed virtual reality technology.[4]

In 2017, Yellin assembled 10 Parts at GRIMM Gallery in Amsterdam.[5]



Early life

Yellin was born in Los Angeles in 1975. When he was five years old, he and his mother, a real estate entrepreneur, moved to Telluride, Colorado.[6] A "congenital outsider,"[7] he attended high school in Colorado, but left before graduation because "I wasn’t learning about what I wanted to do".[8] He spent a year studying with a physics instructor, absorbing both the scientific method and an eccentric approach to knowledge. At the physicist's urging, Yellin experimented with hallucinogens. "I felt like I had exploded through the universe—like I had been reduced to a single cell.”[9] Yellin believes this experience helped shape his artistic worldview and commitment to social change.[10] Science and consciousness became pivotal themes. His education was rounded by extensive travel to remote places, trips which revealed the bizarre and eccentric in the everyday.[11]

Yellin arrived in New York City in 1995. A complete stranger to the area, he took to break dancing on sidewalks to help make ends meet.[12] Within months, he met a broad range of creative, talented individuals who influenced and informed his work.[13] In 2005, His first solo exhibition was at James Fuentes.[14]

Early Works

Eratoid, 2007

Yellin began working with paint and collage. His early work, described as "psycho-repetitious drawings of multi-cellular entities", reveals a preoccupation with the patterned diversity of the natural world.[15]

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 forgiven by a friendly peace-keeping force.[16] Subsequently, a video of the incident appeared, "a total psychotic break captured on film."[17]

Process

Technique

In 2002, Yellin was working outdoors on a collage, attaching natural materials to canvas with resin, when a bee landed on the center of the piece. Immediately, he poured enough resin to quiet the insect, capturing it entirely.[18] Once the resin dried, Yellin continued to embellish the piece.[19] This apparently mundane accident was a breakthrough, spurring Yellin to further develop the possibilities of resin. He began to pour successive layers to render transparent, multidimensional forms by stacking flat planes of images, one on top of another, to create the effect the bee inspired, of a "hologram trapped in amber."[20]

Subject Matter

Yellin cites Jean Dubuffet, Joseph Beuys, and Joseph Cornell as artistic influences. His early work is a phantasmagoric extension of the taxonomic art of the 19th century, focusing on otherworldly mutations of living things, especially plants and insects. Later, larger-scale works translate the mythic, monumental lyricism of ancient cities like Petra, Machu Picchu, and Angkor Wat into a premonitory vernacular.[21] Yellin describes his anthropomorphic Psychogeographies as products of the imagistic DNA of cultural myth that harmonize with magical reality.[22]


Materials

Yellin's work pushes the boundaries of his materials. To construct larger pieces, Yellin enlisted architect and engineer Tony Durazzo. Soon he was using a forklift in his production process.[23] In 2011, Gabriel Florenz, Yellin’s Director of Operations, was injured during transport of a piece when it fell and nearly severed two fingers of his hand.

The use of resin allowed Yellin to immerse found objects in layered planes of collage. "This was great," says Yellin in his 2015 TED talk, "except for one thing: I was going to die."[24] The poisonous resin forced Yellin to wear a hazmat suit for protection from the vapors. This danger led Yellin to shift from resin to glass panels.[25] The flatness of the glass changed the work. Yelling could edit, rearrange, and better plan compositions. He culled clippings from mid-twentieth century reference texts and scientific materials, assembling them into images both recognizable (an animal's torso, a human body) and imaginary (a monstrous bird pinioned to a battleship).[26]

Works

10 Parts (2017) is an oracle of hallucinatory apocalypse, a cautionary tale of chaos and crisis charting humanity's fall from mountainous height to oceanic hollow in an entomological twenty-foot cascade of panels.

The Triptych (2014) is Yellin’s largest sculpture, a massive 12-ton, three-paneled meditation upon the world and human consciousness.


Psychogeographies (2012–present) are a series of life-size humanoids of reanimated cultural detritus whose DNA is, in Yellin's words, the "captured and frozen 'dynamism' of a culture."[27]

Little Grandfather (2007-2014) is a documentary film Yellin co-directed with photographer Charlotte Kidd. The film depicts the shamanistic healing practice of the Achuar, a once-cannibalistic Amazonian tribe with a shamanistic, polygamous culture.[28] The film was given limited release in 2014.

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

Pioneer Works

Yellin moved his studio to Red Hook, Brooklyn in 2005. He occupied several increasingly larger buildings, beginning with a single story site on the corner of Van Brunt and Commerce Streets. Larger works spurred a move to 133 Imlay Street, a sprawling space that hosted both his studio and a joint venture between Yellin and Charlotte Kidd, The Kidd Yellin Gallery.[29]

In 2011, Yellin purchased the three-story brick warehouse structure originally built as Pioneer Iron Works in 1866.[30] The building required renovation and restoration. With the aid of architect Sam Trimble and Gabriel Florenz, Yellin created a ground floor exhibition space with a forty-foot ceiling, offices, and nearly a dozen studios on the second and third floors. Half of the acre site, originally a concrete slab and junkyard, became a garden.[31]

Pioneer Works is an independent, not-for-profit cultural and educational resource unlike traditional institutions.[32] Yellin leased another large space nearby to serve as his studio.[33] Yellin is Founder and Director and Florenz, his longtime right-hand, is Director. Pioneer Works holds public exhibitions, screenings, concerts, readings, as well as lectures and courses on a range of artistic, scientific, and social topics. Pioneer also awards multiple no-cost arts and science residencies each year.[34] Yellin leased another large space nearby to serve as his studio.[35]

As a working artist, Yellin is considered unusual for founding and supporting a community where emerging artists collaborate with creatives from diverse disciplines to inspire social change.[36] At the TED Conference in Vancouver in 2015, Yellin was invited to speak about both his own design methods and his belief in the revolutionary potential of collaboration. He is often asked to speak and write on cultural, scientific, and environmental issues for a range of audiences.[37]

Selected Solo Exhibitions

  • 2017 10 Parts, GRIMM Gallery, Amsterdam
  • 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[38]
  • 2011 Osiris on the Table 20 Hoxton Square Projects, February – March 2011[39]
  • 2010 Nightshades Independent Ideas Studio, October 19 – October 30, 2010[40]
  • 2010 Eden Disorder Samuel Freeman Gallery, March- April 2010[41]
  • 2009 Dust in the Brain Attic Robert Miller Gallery, April – July 2009 [42]
  • 2008 Unnatural Selections Patricia Faure Gallery, January – March 2008 [43]
  • 2008 Permutations Haines Gallery, January – February 2008 [44]
  • 2007 Suspended Animations Robert Miller Gallery, May – August 2007 [45]
  • 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

  1. ↑ http://www.artnet.com/artist/424196448/dustin-yellin.html ARTNET
  2. ↑ http://www.nycballet.com/NYCB/media/NYCBMediaLibrary/PDFs/Press/2015-NYCB-Art-Series-Featuring-Dustin-Yellin.pdf
  3. ↑ "Dustin Yellin adds his mark in L.A. with art that's a 'missile for social change'". latimes.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  4. ↑ "One Celebrated Brooklyn Artist's Futuristic New Practice". nytimes.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  5. ↑ "10 Parts". grimmgallery.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  6. ↑ An Artist’s Big, Big Plans for Red Hook
  7. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  8. ↑ An Artist’s Big, Big Plans for Red Hook
  9. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  10. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  11. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  12. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  13. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  14. ↑ http://www.jamesfuentes.com
  15. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  16. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  17. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  18. ↑ "Robertmiller Gallery". www.robertmillergallery.com. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  19. ↑ Shuster, Robert (6 May 2009). "Dustin Yellin's 'Dust in the Brain Attic'; Coke Wisdom O'Neal at Mixed Greens; Sophie Calle's 'Take Care of Yourself'". www.villagevoice.com. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  20. ↑ "A Red Hook Tale of Domesticity". NYMag.com. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  21. ↑ "Dustin Yellin adds his mark in L.A. with art that's a 'missile for social change'". latimes.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  22. ↑ "Artist Dustin Yellin Opens His First Permanent Installation On Sunset Boulevard". architecturaldigest.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  23. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  24. ↑ "Dustin Yellin, A Journey Through The Mind Of An Artist". ted.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  25. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  26. ↑ "Artist Dustin Yellin Opens His First Permanent Installation On Sunset Boulevard". architecturaldigest.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  27. ↑ "Psychogeographies: 3D Collages Encased in Layers of Glass by Dustin Yellin". thisiscolossal.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  28. ↑ http://imdb.com/title/tt3016638/
  29. ↑ http://foundationcenter.org/grantmakers/fundersforum/endeavorfoundation_2014.html?_ga=1.84963161.1541933999.1462188077%5Bdead+link%5D
  30. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  31. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  32. ↑ "Dustin Yellin's Modern Community-Building". newyorktimes.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  33. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  34. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  35. ↑ "Inside Dustin Yellin's Brooklyn Factory of Delights". vanityfair.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  36. ↑ "Dustin Yellin's Modern Community-Building". newyorktimes.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  37. ↑ "It's About Time". edge.org. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  38. ↑ http://halfgallery.com/Dustin.html
  39. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 5, 2015. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  40. ↑ http://www.dustinyellin.com/exhibition/nightshades Nightshades
  41. ↑ Eden Disorder
  42. ↑ Dust in the Brain Attic
  43. ↑ Unnatural Selections
  44. ↑ Permutations
  45. ↑ Suspended Animations
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