Qin Yufen

A Chinese artist who works between Beijing and Berlin, Qin Yufen produces sculpture and installation work that examines Chinese history and culture and fuses traditions of East and West. Often combining Eastern materials such as bamboo, rice paper, and silk, with Western techniques and forms, Qin creates large-scale structures that establish a dialogue between divergent cultures. For Beautiful Violence (2001), Yufen built an installation made from 5.75 miles of barbed wire looped into dense configurations, within which she positioned multicolored balloons. Small speakers played fragments of traditional Chinese flute music and the distorted sound of balloons rubbing together, while a memoir written by the artist hung on the wall, reminiscing on Qin’s childhood in socialist China and questioning its rationalization of violence and “just wars”.