Beautiful Violence 2012

Qin Yufen made this installation, "Beautiful Violence" out of wire and balloons. There's something about walking into this space, right? It’s almost like you’re entering a giant drawing made in three dimensions. The silver wire creates a kind of shimmering surface, a dense field that vibrates visually. Then, these bright blue balloons are trapped in the wire. I think it's a great contrast; they shouldn't be together! There is a tension between what is airy, light and happy, and what is prickly, linear and hard. It gives the work this great feeling of something being slightly off, slightly unsettling, like a dream that’s just a little too real. When I look at the wire I'm reminded of drawings by Fred Sandback; the American artist who explored sculpture as a drawing in space, often only using yarn. Perhaps Qin Yufen is asking us to consider the beautiful tension that art can create when there is both something inviting and something resistant.