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In the frieze the poignancy of Shin’s enfranchisement and power, and title for the work—Crown—is made enchainment and ennoblement, are clearer. Whereas a crown is both also part of a great chain of being, the emblem of, and a metonym for, one we as humans author collec- royal power, the photographs depict tively about who and what deserves many instances of the subjugation freedom. As in Shin’s work, we move of animals and people. Around the from crown to chain, and back necks and legs of dogs, elephants, again. prisoners, or slaves, the chain is the These old songs are never going to most obvious indication of a condi- die out. This song is the whole hu- tion of captivity and lack of free- man race. I crossed the river, I fell fast dom. But chains in S&M bondage, or asleep, I woke up with shackles on my in fashion advertisements or runway feet. That’s everybody’s history. Across shows, indicate another, volun- the ocean we thought we solved all of tary aspect to their use—a touch our problems. You have that revolu- of tough that evokes biker gang’s tion. You get that home. You get that chains worn as potential weapons. job. You think you solved all of your Large, decorative chains can also be problems. You crossed that river and found you got shackles on your feet. an ostentatious display of wealth: And who’s the judge? Is it some old “bling.” guy, 74 years old, with black robes? It To return to Lakoff and Turner’s might be the young judging the old, or idea of the great chain metaphor, in the poor judging the rich. But no mat- ter what mistakes we ever made, still Shin’s Crown the chains themselves, got a last verse that holds out some and the photographic mural of a hope: continuous span of chain, inter- LINKS connect seemingly incompatible I looked down the track, just as far as elements of life: the corroded and I could see. Jean Shin the newly minted, leisure and labor, I looked down the track, just as far as luxury and misfortune. Such are I could see. Jean Shin’s exhibition Links includes a site-specific installation of the uses and fates of these links of A little bitty hand, was waving chains and a large photomontage, which explore the inherent 3 metal, always mixed in their conno- after me. contradictions of chains’ historical and contemporary use. Varying tations. In the “Worried Man Blues,” from industrial to artisanal, the chain at one scale is a precious the shackles the singer wakes up Eva Díaz is Assistant Professor in the History of Art and Design object, a delicate and refined accessory of fashion. Change the wearing with are each individu- material and the scale, and the joined links become heavy and take ally engraved with an initial of his Department at Pratt Institute. Her on the attributes of confinement, burden, and restraint. The project name, a kind of extravagance that book The Experimenters: Chance is as ominous as it is fateful (like the and Design at Black Mountain aims to engage these conflicts by incorporating both the decorative singer’s enigmatic claim that “I’m College, focusing on Josef Albers, and the ominous qualities of the material. A vast, diverse assortment worried now, but I won’t be worried John Cage, and R. Buckminster of metal chains have been collected and sourced from the Bethel long”). As Pete Seeger remarked of Fuller, was released in January by community and the public, connecting a multitude of personal this tune, its shifts between dis- the University of Chicago Press. experiences with collective concerns. The chains will be suspended in space using the four pillars of the Olson Gallery. 1 Lakoff and Turner, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 172. 2 Ibid. 161. 3 Pete Seeger on The Johnny Cash Show, March 4,1970. CROWN TO CHAIN, AND figures of speech related to “links” concept, it also functions as a meta- to size of the chain it depicts and BACK AGAIN in a chain. We connect things or metaphor, providing “instructions the proximity of the chain as it is people by “linking” them up; infor- for understanding the nature of our represented in the photograph. For EVA DÍAZ mation on the web is connected by being, the nature of people and situ- example, a photograph of a massive “hyperlinks.” We repeat the prov- ations we encounter, and our role in anchoring chain, taken from the per- 2 It takes a worried man to sing a erb, “A chain is only as strong as its the universe.” spective of the water near the hull weakest link.” of a giant ship, is printed as a nar- worried song, * * * It takes a worried man to sing a row vertical column, following the In linguistics and paremiology (the worried song, Jean Shin’s installation Crown links as they recede upward. Nearby, I’m worried now, but I won’t be study of proverbs and proverbial (2015) is fashioned from three main an image of a chain connected to a worried long. expressions), the function of ex- components. In the center of the padlock, seen from quite close up, pressions such as these idioms can Went across the river, I lay down gallery numerous metal chains are is printed at a diminutive postcard- to sleep, itself be understood using a concept strung from the four columns of the size scale. The interconnecting chain Went across the river, I lay down George Lakoff and Mark Turner have gallery. Thick and thin, rusty and recedes to a tiny filament in some to sleep, termed the “great chain metaphor.” When I woke up, had shackles on untarnished, industrial and decora- images, returning as giant hunks of In their 1989 book More than Cool my feet. tive, the dozens of chains dangle in metal in other parts of the work, but Reason, Lakoff and Turner posit that a dense weave of interconnected in all its twists and turns through Twenty-nine links of chain all around abstract reasoning is pervaded by my legs, threads that at times appears space it is represented in reflec- metaphorical mappings and pro- Twenty-nine links of chain all around merely a random tangle. Yet in their tive mylar material that creates a verbial language. Much of this kind my legs, mass the strands create the shape continuous surface throughout the And on each link, an initial of my of figurative speech makes connec- of a crown, each suspended section many photographs. A third ele- name. tions between animals and inani- poised like a finial on a tiara. The ment in the gallery is the complete mate objects, on the one hand, and I asked the judge, what might be current iteration of Crown grows out archive of the images submitted to my fine, the plight of humans, on the other. of a previous installation created for Shin, displayed on a monitor, ac- I asked the judge, what might be Derived from the platonic idea of a the BRIC Biennial in 2014 in which companied by the sound of chains my fine, “great chain of being” in which a hi- Twenty-one years on the R.C. Shin used chains sourced by way of rattling (audio that was recorded at erarchical structure of life is posited Mountain Line. the Brooklyn gallery’s membership the time that the central gallery’s as the “natural” order, descending network. Enlarging the project as it sculpture was being installed). It takes a worried man to sing a from God to angels to kings to men worried song, travels, Shin has solicited donations to animals to plants and finally to Images of nautical chains begin It takes a worried man to sing a of chains from the Bethel University worried song, mineral particles, Lakoff and Turn- the panel of images, the enormous community, adapting the piece to I’m worried now, but I won’t be er’s great chain metaphor attempts links tethering seafaring vessels. the architecture of the Olson Gallery. worried long. to understand why animals and The images transition to chains —Traditional, first recorded as “Worried inanimate objects are used figura- In the case of the expanded Bethel that demarcate space; in one case, Man Blues” by the Carter Family, 1930 tively with such frequency, and how version of Crown, Shin has de- an elevated seaside promenade is we come to understand the mean- veloped a second element of the shown cordoned off from the sandy It’s the substance of a nightmare, to ings of these proverbial uses. In work’s participatory nature. Ringing beach below. As the frieze contin- awake in chains. It’s also the stuff of humanity’s relentless anthropocen- the gallery walls is a frieze com- ues, the context of the chains in the a lot American history: The trans- trism, the great chain metaphor, ac- posed of 43 photographs portraying images changes, depicting those port of convicts to the colonies. The cording to Lakoff and Turner, “allows chains. Collaged from hundreds of used in carting and trucking, as slave trade and the treatment of us to comprehend general human images Shin sourced with help from well as those padlocking gates and bodies as chattel. Impressment and character traits in terms of well-un- Bethel University art history and securing spaces. Next come chains the shanghaiing of sailors. Chain derstood nonhuman attributes; and art practice students, the collaged fettering animals, followed by those gangs.

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