Join us for a talk with Mel Chin, a conceptual artist renowned for his research-based approach that encourages greater awareness of and dialogue around social and environmental issues. The National Gallery recently acquired Chin’s Landscape (1990), which addresses idealized representations of nature in the past and the reality of our ecosystem in the present. A pivotal work in Chin’s career, Landscape comprises a 14-by-14-foot room featuring three works of art, each referencing specific cultures with strong historical painting and philosophical traditions relating to the landscape.
About the presenter
Mel Chin (b. 1951, Houston, Texas) currently lives and works in Burnsville, North Carolina. He earned a BA from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in 1975. Chin uses technology, collage, sculpture, and large-scale installations to create a body of work centered around environmental, political, and social issues. He inserts art into unlikely places and forms, including video games, destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and popular television. Chin’s work has been exhibited widely, including at the recent Prospect 6, New Orleans (2024-2025), and has been the subject of major surveys at the Queens Museum (2018) and the New Orleans Museum of Art (2014). Chin has been a visiting professor and fellow at a number of institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology CoLab, George Washington University, the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, and the University of Georgia. Chin was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2019) and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Sign-language interpreters and guides for visitors who are blind or have low vision are available for programs. Please call (202) 842-6905 or email [email protected] three weeks in advance for an appointment. Learn more about accessibility.