Artist Song Dong's "Waste Not"

--> -->I haven't done a post in a while, but thought this was worth sharing. (Thanks Ariane Benefit for sending a note about this!) It's an Art Exhibition that's up in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) - and there are links to more on this story later in this blog. --> Compulsive hoarding is usually a private matter. Individuals shut their doors and keep the public away from the mounds of stuff they've collected. But over the past few years, some artists, all children of apparent hoarders, are taking a public look at the little-understood psychological condition. They're using documentary, paintings and large-scale installations like Song's to explore our relationship to stuff, and why we can't let it go.
-->

Projects 90: Song Dong June 24, 2009–September 7, 2009 The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, second floor

The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019 (212) 708-9400

Beijing-based artist Song Dong (b. 1966) explores notions of transience and impermanence with installations that combine aspects of performance, video, photography, and sculpture. Projects 90, his first solo U.S. museum show, presents his recent work Waste Not. A collaboration first conceived of with the artist's mother, the installation consists of the complete contents of her home, amassed over fifty years during which the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, or "waste not," was a prerequisite for survival. The assembled materials, ranging from pots and basins to blankets, oil flasks, and legless dolls, form a miniature cityscape that viewers can navigate around and through.

---

Organized by Barbara London, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, and Sarah Suzuki, The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr., Assistant Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books.

The Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series is made possible in part by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art and the JA Endowment Committee. Additional support for this exhibition is provided by the Annie Wong Art Foundation.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/961

Chinese Artist Song Dong created this exhibit of things his mother hoarded to help him and his family process their mother's need to keep so many things which to most people are trash or have no value. He was able to help his mother release the things by honoring the meaning they held for her and turning them into art. What an amazing way to use Meaning and Art as therapy for his mother's pain.

More at:

-->http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/07/20/the-things-we-carry-modern-artists-confront-compulsive-hoarding.aspx