Yuemin Huang

Yuemin Huang is an interdisciplinary artist working with new media, sculpture and performance. She was granted a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Art from East China Normal University in 2015, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Art and Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. As an artist, Yuemin concerns about blurring the boundaries between art and life. She abstract our emotions from real life experience, which are private but also ubiquitous since they are the production from our age.

In the work Brushing, I set a toothbrush on the pedestal, which slowly rotated by a servo motor, and brushing the charcoal embedded in the corner of the exhibition room. As time goes on, the toothbrush would be raised and returning the charcoal it was stained with back to the clear white wall. It’s about exploring our relationship to the objects we create. The toothbrush as the only props in the works, available everywhere, cheap but at the same time with our relationship is so intimate. Man created it, determined the length of its limitation. In the meantime, it projects our desire to resist nature’s rules of life, a necessary victim of our struggle for our own time. But even so, things don’t work out as we’d wish, like the dust in the deep depths of bristle, like a toothbrush that fails in cleaning itself. As bristle slowly wore off, it mechanically fulfilled its mission under the control of a motor. But at the same time, I hope it also completes a demonstration of the poetic nature of his life in that slow but firm rhythm.

Part of the reason for making this work is to answer one of my confusion. In the context of contemporary art, which pursues sensory stimulation and visual impact, how could we discuss if we can not make use of the impressive experience deliberately created by “large size” and “large quantity”? What is it left for me? I try to find a way to create the inconspicuous installation. Instead of asking for the attention, it feels more like discovering when you encounter it. Only if you would like to spend some time with it, it would show the hidden power inside this tiny body for you. Why use a toothbrush? It’s so ordinary and cheap, but it’s also so personal to our relationship. When it stands in the corner, funny in some lonely way, I gradually see myself in it. I decided to exhibit it as my graduation project with more than 100 other graduates, not only because it is the best voice for my own small but determined attitude, but more importantly, I saw in it human’s understanding of their own life, the resistance, and reconstruction of natural rules. I believe all these desires of changing would demonstrate the reason that makes us human.

The work is divided into two parts, a pedestal with a triangular column on which stands a toothbrush rotating left and right. The toothbrush attached to the servo motor hidden inside the pedestal. There is also a linear motor hidden in the pedestal. When the toothbrush in situ rotating for three days, the linear motor pushes the base under the brush up to 3cm (the distance from the toothbrush’s head). Then the toothbrush to rotate in the new for another three days, and repeat. The length of time the toothbrush rotates in a fixed position is determined by the length of the exhibition. But the total distance up is fixed. From the beginning to the end of the exhibition, the toothbrush needs to rise a toothbrush’s distance.

https://www.yueminh.com/brushing