Rediscovering Reality: David Zink Yi & Contemporary Clay
In the group exhibition, Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, curated by Cliff Lauson at The Hayward Gallery, David Zink Yi’s tactile ceramics works explore the possibilities of thinking through making. This Peruvian-born, Berlin-based artist explores the relationship between myth-making and identity construction.
David Zink Yi. Photo credit: Wolfgang Stahr.
Situated alongside twenty-two talented international contemporary ceramicists, Zink Yi’s work stands out inexplicably. The show focuses on the fantastical, the uncanny and the abstract through the varied possibilities of ceramics. Varying in scale, texture, finish and theme, the exhibition seeks to demonstrate the power of a previously diminished artistic medium.
Zink Yi's interest in ceramics was influenced by his Chinese grandfather's collection of Chinese ceramics from an early age. Inspired by his upbringing and mixed culture, Zink Yi adapts personal elements such as language, identity, and exoticism and manipulates them through various media to form a unique style. He has a unique understanding of form, colour and material and continues experimenting and exploring. In the process, both the familiarity of the unfamiliar and the strangeness of the trivial are given a sense of place.
David Zink Yi, Untitled (Architeuthis), 2010 and All My Colours, 2019-2022. Installation video courtesy of The Hayward Gallery on Instagram (@hayward.gallery). Posted on 18 November, 2022.
Within this exhibition, Zink Yi presents two works: Untitled (Architeuthis) (2010) and All my Colours (2019-2022).
Undoubtedly the artist’s exhibition masterpiece, Untitled (Architeuthis) is the product of a four-month-long residency in the Netherlands in 2010. The sculpture simulates a scene of a squid’s dead body washed up on the beach by ocean currents. Spanning over 4.8 metres across the floor, the work spreads into the visitors’ space, particularly intruding through the broad tentacles stretching out from its body.
Its lighter-coloured body, blended with the faint pinks, creamy whites and navy blues, establishes a sharp contrast with this haunting narrative. Furthermore, to physically realise the squid in such a life-like manner, the artist also imbued its oily-looking flesh with copper and lead-coating, which only further demonstrates Zink Yi’s innovativeness when recreating natural sights. Contributing to this further, underneath, a puddle of sticky and glossy ink made from syrup and other compounds oozes on the floor. This detail presents a striking vision: the squid is gasping for life as it bleeds ink onto its final resting place.
This intention of stumbling upon deep-sea creatures is incredibly unusual in a gallery setting, provoking humans' innate curiosity and desire to explore - a central facet of Zink Yi’s practice. In this instance, this theme is paradoxically hidden yet exposed through the artists’ expressive and organic sculptural style and vibrant colours and designs. What is particularly exciting about the work is Zink Yi’s incredible ability to represent the appearance of such rare, unseen and unimaginably indeterminate creatures in such an authentic yet implausible place.
David Zink Yi, Untitled (Architeuthis), 2010. Installation view at The Hayward Gallery. Glazed ceramic, 29 x 580 x 117 cm.
All My Colours continues this theme of experimentation. In this installation work, comprised of over 300 pieces in total, Zink Yi plays with colours, glazes and materials to create unexpected surfaces on his ceramic works. Hung on the wall, as a painting would be, the installation blurs the boundaries between painting and object, fine art and craft. Whilst not every object in the series has been displayed at The Hayward Gallery, the selection of different colours, patinas, and textures provide a flavour of Zink Yi’s sophistication and innovativeness as a modern craftsman. Moreover, in presenting a range of his experiments, he invites spectators to engage with each stele on a different level and decide which appeals to them most. In doing so, Zink Yi comments on how various forms of ceramics are present throughout people’s lives. Therefore, his practices are more relatable to the viewer and stimulate more nuanced attention and understanding of the connotation underneath the work.
David Zink Yi, All My Colours, 2019-2022. Varying size and medium. Courtesy of David Zink Yi Instagram.
Imperfections that are part of the production and firing process give a performative component to the sculptures. Both works exude something open, raw, and consciously unfinished. By working in the ceramic tradition, inspired by the clarity and intuitiveness of Minimalism, these elusive groups of ceramic media all exude something that is consciously unfinished him. In this way, he continuously explores identity construction, our perception of natural forms, myths, history and modernity. Beneath the eye-catching glossy surfaces of his sculptures is the true symbolic power of the artwork that Zink Yi envisioned: humans’ perception of the natural world.
Through this display of unique visual talent, the exhibition brings together the culmination of his talents and sets them before a stage set by his contemporaries. More importantly, Zink Yi provides a meaningful opportunity for visitors to explore their definitions of the natural world told through a medium that is so inherently connected to our planet.
Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art at The Hayward Gallery is currently on view until 8 January 2023.
To read more about David Zink Yi’s practice, check out his Instagram and Website.
Shuchang Ke
Features Co-Editor, MADE IN BED