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goes around in circles, til very, very dizzy
2025
site-specific installation
2025
site-specific installation
This project sees the artist tackling relevant themes at an ambitious scale, transforming the gallery into a deconstructed, human-scale version of the dressmaking scene in Cinderella (1950), wherein a relatively gargantuan gown is crafted for the princess by her only friends, the mice and birds.
To this end, visitors to the space will first notice a giant sewing needle, which hangs from the ceiling on a thread-like chain. This is supported by the deft, four-fingered hands of the animated rodent seamstresses, disembodied here but instantly reminiscent of the extremities that populate the intellectual property of the Disney corporation.
The artist learned English from bootleg DVDs of classic Disney films like Cinderella, which began to proliferate in Chengdu in the '90s. Since childhood, she has been drawn to the scene where the animals make Cinderella's dress for her, and as an adult came to see it as an idealization of marginalized labor, especially when juxtaposed with the later scene in which the princess's fairy godmother conjures a new one for her out of thin air.
The hem of the hypothetical dress rides low along the wall, as does a shelf of tiny hats reminiscent of the ones the rodent workers wear in the film. These are rendered strange and eternal by aluminum alloy, like much of the rest of the show. Elsewhere in the room, disembodied hands from the film merge with the needle itself, following dotted lines along the floor and wall space. The rodents' efforts are beautiful, precise, and otherworldly — but where is the tailor?
The two-dimensional pieces in the show remove the movie characters from hand-engraved wooden scenes of sewing, and become borderline abstract in their ghostly depiction of enthusiastic work. Like the rest of the show, these seek to make explicit the often invisible efforts that fuel consumption.
This installation emerges from her research into the history of YveYANG’s rear gallery, which is unfinished and in conversation with the more traditional "white cube" feel that one experiences upon entry. Rich with old wood, generous windows and a metal ceiling, the space evokes Tribeca's industrial history. In the 20th century the gallery's address housed a sewing machine factory, which Xiang considered alongside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, located just nine blocks north.
01/10/2025 - 03/01/2025
site-specific installation created for solo exhibition “goes around in circles, til very, very dizzy” at YveYANG
