Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen at Chambers Fine Art - New York

Art in America, May, 2003 by Eleanor Heartney

This exhibition by two Chinese artists who have previously only worked solo was a team effort. Their show addressed the radical social and physical changes currently under way in Beijing (where they live), Western stereotypes about China, and the multiple meanings of food and dining in their native country. But even more, it was a celebration of the artists' first 10 years of marriage.

Intimacy between man and woman was a recurring theme here. The exhibition was titled "Chopsticks," and as one of the many gallery labels explained, chopsticks symbolize the close relationship of husband and wife. These Asian eating implements recurred throughout the show. A pair of huge chopsticks, one made by each artist, represents their different genders. The "male" chopstick, by Song Dong, is made of metal and covered with dragon and landscape motifs, while Yin Xiuzhen's feminine counterpart has a fabric cover that unzips to reveal an assortment of small objects and toiletry items. In United Hands, two 78-inch arms clad in striped sleeves emerge from separate flowerpots; the arms each terminate in a hand (cast from each artist) holding a single chopstick. A small video monitor showing scenes from a bicycle trip the two artists took through Beijing is suspended at the point where the chopsticks cross.

Moving on from the chopstick metaphor, Life presented a 360-degree panoramic view of Beijing photographed from an adjacent mountain and printed in a series of floor-to-ceiling C-prints on synthetic silk. Images of both artists in various poses are repeated throughout the work. The label noted that Yin was seven months pregnant when the shots were taken (fruit of another collaboration). Self Shot is a video taken on the day of their 10th anniversary. For this piece, they filmed each other in their small modern home, and the results were projected side by side.

There were also several works on view that did not touch on the artists' relationship so directly. Yin contributed a solo work that plays off the ping-pong diplomacy that brought China and the West together in the '70s, and Song included a series of edible pieces in which traditional-looking Chinese landscapes are created out of cookies, broccoli and carrots.

The artists' celebration of their intimacy in this show is expressed with an unembarrassed sentimentality. Remarkably distant from their more hard-bitten Western counterparts, their view is literally worlds away from the veiled violence of Ulay and Marina Abramovic's work recently on view at P.S. 1, or even the arch romanticism of Jeff Koons and Cicciolina's pornographic encounters. In the end, "Chopsticks" offers a take on love that is touchingly sincere.