Maya Lin | |
---|---|
Born | Maya Ying Lin October 5, 1959 Athens, Ohio, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Education | Yale University |
Known for | Land art, architecture, memorials |
Notable work | Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) Civil Rights Memorial (1989) |
Spouse | Daniel Wolf |
Children | 2 |
Awards | National Medal of Arts Presidential Medal of Freedom |
Website | mayalin |
Maya Lin | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 林瓔 | ||||||
Simplified Chinese | 林璎 | ||||||
|
Maya Ying Lin (born October 5,1959) is an American architect,designer and sculptor. Born in Athens,Ohio to Chinese immigrants,she attended Yale University to study architecture. In 1981,while still an undergraduate at Yale she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington,D.C. [1] The memorial was designed in the minimalist architectural style,and it attracted controversy upon its release but went on to become influential. [2] Lin has since designed numerous memorials,public and private buildings,landscapes,and sculptures. In 1989,she designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery,Alabama. She has an older brother,the poet Tan Lin.
Although best known for historical memorials,she is also known for environmentally themed works,which often address environmental decline. According to Lin,she draws inspiration from the architecture of nature but believes that nothing she creates can match its beauty. She also draws inspirations from "culturally diverse sources,including Japanese gardens,Hopewell Indian earthen mounds,and works by American earthworks artists of the 1960s and the 1970s". [3]
Maya Lin was born in Athens,Ohio. Her parents emigrated from China to the United States,her father in 1948 and her mother in 1949,and settled in Ohio before Lin was born. [4] Her father,Henry Huan Lin,born in Fuzhou,Fujian,was a ceramist and dean of the Ohio University College of Fine Arts. Her mother,Julia Chang Lin,born in Shanghai,was a poet and professor of literature at Ohio University. She is the "half" niece of Lin Huiyin,who was an American-educated artist and poet,and said to have been the first female architect in modern China. [5] Lin Juemin and Lin Yin Ming,both of whom were among the 72 martyrs of the Second Guangzhou uprising,were cousins of her grandfather. [6] Lin Chang-min,a Hanlin of Qing dynasty and the emperor's teacher,fathered Lin Huiyin with his wife,while Maya Lin's father Henry Huan Lin was Lin Chang-Min’s illegitimate son with his concubine. [7]
According to Lin,she "didn't even realize" she was ethnically Chinese until later in life,and that only in her 30s did she acquire an interest in her cultural background. [8]
Lin has said that she did not have many friends when growing up,stayed home a lot,loved to study,and loved school. While still in high school she took courses at Ohio University where she learned to cast bronze in the school's foundry. [9] She graduated in 1977 from Athens High School in The Plains,Ohio,after which she attended Yale University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1981 and a Master of Architecture in 1986. [10]
According to Lin,she has been concerned with environmental issues since she was very young,and dedicated much of her time at Yale University to environmental activism. [11] She attributes her interest in the environment to her upbringing in rural Ohio:the nearby Hopewell and Adena Native America burial mounds inspired her from an early age. [12] Noting that much of her later work has focused on the relationship people have with their environment,as expressed in her earthworks,sculptures,and installations,Lin said,"I'm very much a product of the growing awareness about ecology and the environmental movement...I am very drawn to landscape,and my work is about finding a balance in the landscape,respecting nature not trying to dominate it. Even the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is an earthwork. All of my work is about slipping things in,inserting an order or a structuring,yet making an interface so that in the end,rather than a hierarchy,there is a balance and tension between the man-made and the natural."
According to the scholar Susette Min,Lin's work uncovers "hidden histories" to bring attention to landscapes and environments that would otherwise be inaccessible to viewers and "deploys the concept to discuss the inextricable relationship between nature and the built environment". [13] Lin's focus on this relationship highlights the impact humanity has on the environment,and draws attention to issues such as global warming,endangered bodies of water,and animal extinction/endangerment. She has explored these issues in her recent memorial,called What Is Missing?
According to one commentator,Lin constructs her works to have a minimal effect on the environment by utilizing recycled and sustainable materials,by minimizing carbon emissions,and by attempting to avoid damaging the landscapes/ecosystems where she works. [14]
In addition to her other activities as an environmentalist,Lin has served on the Natural Resources Defense Council board of trustees.
In 1981, at 21 and still an undergraduate student, Lin won a public design competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to be built on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Her design, one of 1,422 submissions, [15] specified a black granite wall with the names of 57,939 fallen soldiers carved into its face (hundreds more have been added since the dedication), [16] [17] to be v-shaped, with one side pointing toward the Lincoln Memorial and the other toward the Washington Monument. [16] The memorial was designed in the minimalist architectural style, which was in contrast to previous war memorials. [2] The memorial was completed in late October 1982 and dedicated in November 1982. [18]
According to Lin, her intention was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the pain caused by the war and its many casualties. "I imagined taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up, and with the passage of time, that initial violence and pain would heal," she recalled. [19]
Her winning design was initially controversial for several reasons: its minimalist design, [20] her lack of professional experience, and her Asian ethnicity. [8] [21] [22] Some objected to the exclusion of the surviving veterans' names, while others complained about the dark complexion of the granite, claiming that it expressed a negative attitude towards the Vietnam War. Lin defended her design before the US Congress, and a compromise was reached: Three Soldiers , a bronze depiction of a group of soldiers and an American flag were placed to the side of Lin's design. [12]
Notwithstanding the initial controversy, the memorial has become an important pilgrimage site for relatives and friends of the dead soldiers, many of whom leave personal tokens and mementos in memory of their loved ones. [23] [24] In 2007, an American Institute of Architects poll ranked the memorial No. 10 on a list of America's Favorite Architecture, and it is now one of the most visited sites on the National Mall. [12] Furthermore, it now serves as a memorial for the veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. [12] There is a collection with items left since 2001 from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which includes handwritten letters and notes of those who lost loved ones during these wars. There is also a pair of combat boots and a note with it dedicated to the veterans of the Vietnam War, that reads "If your generation of Marines had not come home to jeers, insults, and protests, my generation would not come home to thanks, handshakes and hugs." [12]
Lin once said that if the competition had not been held "blind" (with designs submitted by name instead of number), she "never would have won" on account of her ethnicity. Her assertion is supported by the fact that she was harassed after her ethnicity was revealed, as when prominent businessman and later third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot called her an "egg roll." [25]
Lin, who now owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City, has designed numerous projects following the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989) and the Wave Field outdoor installation at the University of Michigan (1995). [26] Lin is represented by the Pace Gallery in New York City. [27]
Maya Lin calls herself a "designer," rather than an "architect". [56] Her vision and her focus are always on how space needs to be in the future, the balance and relationship with the nature and what it means to people. She has tried to focus less on how politics influences design and more on what emotions the space would create and what it would symbolize to the user. Her belief in a space being connected and the transition from inside to outside being fluid, coupled with what a space means, has led her to create some very memorable designs. She has also worked on sculptures and landscape installations, such as “Input” artwork at Ohio University. In doing so, Lin focuses on memorializing concepts of time periods instead of direct representations of figures, creating an abstract sculptures and installations.[ citation needed ]
Lin believes that art should be an act of any individual who is willing to say something that is new and not quite familiar. [57] In her own words, Lin's work "originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings, not just the physical world but also the psychological world we live in." [58] Lin describes her creative process as having a very important writing and verbal component. She first imagines an artwork verbally to understand its concepts and meanings. She believes that gathering ideas and information is especially vital in architecture, which focuses on humanity and life and requires a well-rounded mind. [59] When a project comes her way, she tries to "understand the definition (of the site) in a verbal before finding the form to understand what a piece is conceptually and what its nature should be even before visiting the site". [57] After she completely understands the definition of the site, Lin finalizes her designs by creating numerous renditions of her project in model form. [58] In her historical memorials, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Women's Table , and the Civil Rights Memorial, Lin tries to focus on the chronological aspect of what she is memorializing. That theme is shown in her art memorializing the changing environment and in charting the depletion of bodies of water. [60] Lin also explores themes of juxtaposing materials and a fusion of opposites: "I feel I exist on the boundaries. Somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west.... I am always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces, finding the place where opposites meet... existing not on either side but on the line that divides." [61]
Lin was married to Daniel Wolf (1955–2021), a photography dealer and collector. [62] Her sister-in-law was the philanthropist Diane R. Wolf (1954–2008). She has homes in New York and rural Colorado, and is the mother of two daughters, India and Rachel. [50] She has an older brother, the poet Tan Lin.
Lin has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Yale University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania,Williams College, and Smith College. [10] In 1987, she was among the youngest to be awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by Yale University. [57]
In 1994, she was the subject of the Academy Award-winning [63] documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision . Its title comes from an address she gave at Juniata College in which she spoke of the monument design process in the origin of her work; "My work originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings and this can include not just the physical but the psychological world that we live in." [57]
In 2002, Lin was elected Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University (upon whose campus sits another of Lin's designs, the Women's Table, designed to commemorate the role of women at Yale University), in an unusually public contest. Her opponent was W. David Lee, a local New Haven minister and graduate of the Yale Divinity School, who was running on a platform to build ties to the community with the support of Yale's unionized employees. Lin was supported by Yale President Richard Levin and other members of the Yale Corporation, and she was the officially endorsed candidate of the Association of Yale Alumni. [64] [65] [66]
In 2003, Lin was chosen to serve on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. A trend toward minimalism and abstraction was noted among the entrants and the finalists as well as in the chosen design for the World Trade Center Memorial.
In 2005, Lin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
President Barack Obama awarded Lin the National Medal of Arts in 2009 [67] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. [68]
In 2022, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. announced the first biographical exhibition, "One Life: Maya Lin", dedicated to Lin, noting her contributions as architect, sculptor, environmentalist, and designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. [69]
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, commonly called the Vietnam Memorial, is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The two-acre (8,100 m2) site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those service members who died or remain missing as a result of their service in Vietnam and South East Asia during the war. The Memorial Wall was designed by American architect Maya Lin and is an example of minimalist architecture. The Wall, completed in 1982, has since been supplemented with the statue Three Soldiers in 1984 and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in 1993.
Three Soldiers is a bronze statue by Frederick Hart. Unveiled on Veterans Day, November 11, 1984, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it is part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial commemorating the Vietnam War. It was the first representation of an African American on the National Mall.
The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art."
The Vietnam Women's Memorial is a memorial dedicated to the nurses and women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded male soldier to symbolize the support and caregiving roles that women played in the war as nurses and other specialists. It is part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a short distance south of the Wall and north of the Reflecting Pool. The statues are bronze and the base is made of granite. The United States Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission selected Glenna Goodacre to sculpt the memorial after previously rejecting the idea for a memorial to women.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Inc. (VVMF), is the non-profit organization established on April 27, 1979, by Jan Scruggs, a former Army Infantry in Vietnam. Others veterans joined including, Jack Wheeler, and several other graduates of West Point to finance the construction of a memorial to those Americans who served or died during the Vietnam War. The memorial was not designed to make a political statement about the war itself. From this fund came the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated on Veterans Day, 1982, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Alice Aycock is an American sculptor and installation artist. She was an early artist in the land art movement in the 1970s, and has created many large-scale metal sculptures around the world. Aycock's drawings and sculptures of architectural and mechanical fantasies combine logic, imagination, magical thinking and science.
Michael Robert Van Valkenburgh is an American landscape architect and educator. He has worked on a wide variety of projects – including public parks, college campuses, sculpture gardens, corporate landscapes, private gardens, and urban master plans – in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. He has taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design Since 1982 and served as chair of its Landscape Architecture Department from 1991 to 1996.
Sarah Sze is an American artist and professor of visual arts at Columbia University. Sze's work explores the role of technology, information, and memory with objects in contemporary life utilizing everyday materials. Her work often represents objects caught in suspension. Drawing from Modernist traditions, Sze confronts the relationship between low-value mass-produced objects in high-value institutions, creating the sense that everyday life objects can be art. She has exhibited internationally and her works are in the collections of several major museums.
Ann Hamilton is an American visual artist who emerged in the early 1980s known for her large-scale multimedia installations. After receiving her BFA in textile design from the University of Kansas in 1979, she lived in Banff, Alberta, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada before deciding to pursue an MFA in sculpture at Yale in 1983. From 1985 to 1991, she taught on the faculty of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Since 2001, Hamilton has served on the faculty of the Department of Art at the Ohio State University. She was appointed a Distinguished University Professor in 2011.
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision is a 1994 American documentary film made by Freida Lee Mock.
Mary Lucier is an American visual artist and pioneer in video art. Concentrating primarily on video and installation since 1973, she has produced numerous multiple- and single-channel pieces that have had a significant impact on the medium.
Chakaia Booker is an American sculptor known for creating monumental, abstract works for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. Booker’s works are contained in more than 40 public collections and have been exhibited across the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Booker was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Art in 2001. Booker has lived and worked in New York City’s East Village since the early 1980s and maintains a production studio in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Athena Tacha, is a multimedia visual artist. She is best known for her work in the fields of environmental public sculpture and conceptual art. She also worked in a wide array of materials including stone, brick, steel, water, plants, and L.E.D. lighting. photography, film, and artists’ books. Tacha's work focused on personal narratives, and often plays with geometry and form.
Judy Pfaff is an American artist known mainly for installation art and sculptures, though she also produces paintings and prints. Pfaff has received numerous awards for her work, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004 and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1983) and the National Endowment for the Arts. Major exhibitions of her work have been held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Denver Art Museum and Saint Louis Art Museum. In 2013 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Video interviews can be found on Art 21, Miles McEnery Gallery, MoMa, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and other sources.
Above and Below is an installation by American artist Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It is on display at and owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The artwork was inspired by underground water systems in Indiana.
Anti-monumentalism is a tendency in contemporary art that intentionally challenges every aspect of traditional public monuments. It has been defined as art designed "not to uphold but negate sacred values". Anti-monumentalism claims to deny the presence of any imposing, authoritative social force in public spaces.
John Angel was a British-born sculptor, architectural and ecclesiastical sculptor, medallist and lecturer. He emigrated to the United States where he created architectural sculpture. His work in the United Kingdom and the United States has been critically praised.
Mary Miss is an American artist and designer. Her work has crossed boundaries between architecture, landscape architecture, engineering and urban design. Her installations are collaborative in nature: she has worked with scientists, historians, designers, and public administrators. She is primarily interested in how to engage the public in decoding their surrounding environment.
Brooke Kamin Rapaport is Artistic Director and Martin Friedman Chief Curator at Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York City. She is responsible for the outdoor public sculpture program of commissioned work by contemporary artists. With an exhibition of Martin Puryear's work, Martin Puryear: Liberty/Libertà, Rapaport served as Commissioner and Curator of the United States Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Rapaport frequently speaks on and moderates programs on contemporary art and issues in public art. She also writes for Sculpture magazine where she is a contributing editor. She lives in New York City and is the mother of three sons.
Eleanor Carroll Munro was an American art critic, art historian, writer, and editor. She was known for her work on women artists. Some of her published books included The Encyclopedia of Art (1961), Originals: American Women Artists (1979); Memoirs of a Modernist's Daughter (1988), Through the Vermilion Gates (1971), and On Glory Roads: a Pilgrim's Book about Pilgrimage (1988). Munro was also known for her published interviews with women artists of note including Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Jennifer Bartlett, Julie Taymor, Louise Nevelson, Maya Lin, and Kiki Smith. Munro received the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature in 1988.
{{cite magazine}}
: Cite magazine requires |magazine=
(help){{cite magazine}}
: Cite magazine requires |magazine=
(help){{cite magazine}}
: Cite magazine requires |magazine=
(help){{cite magazine}}
: Cite magazine requires |magazine=
(help)