Courtesy of Rachel Youn
Rachel Youn
Two green palm fronds dance around each another. At times, it's graceful. Others, it’s a struggle, as one becomes entangled with the other. They bend and sway, slapping each other, as the motor to which they are attached moves them around in a continual circle.
“They are a little clumsy and maybe a little perverse,” says local artist Rachel Youn of their pieces, which are displayed on the floor in preparation of Open Studios STL, October 19 and 20. Organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, more than 120 artists will open up their studios to the public.
Next to the dancing fronds, another palm leaf, when turned on, moves back and forth as if it’s scrubbing the floor.
Youn has always been fascinated with faux objects. “I’m really intrigued by cheap objects," they say. "A lot of home décor goods are fake. They’re pretending to be bronze or marble or stone, but they’re actually plastic. I think it’s endearing that these objects want to pretend that they are something better than what they are.”
Of late, Youn’s interests focus heavily on artificial plants and electric massagers. “I got into massagers because they are supposed to simulate human touch,” they say. There are also many available on Facebook Marketplace, which is where Youn does most of their material sourcing. The fact that massagers are purchased to offer some sort of relief but then are so easily discarded intrigues Youn, who sometimes drives 40 minutes to the outskirts of St. Louis to pick up their findings.
Youn gets inspiration from walking through stores but prefers sourcing objects from Marketplace. “The objects have a history to them," they say. "They were purchased but are no longer wanted. It builds on that narrative that sometimes something that was more affordable doesn’t have the same kind of lasting power that a real object would have."
Youn is carefully selecting the pieces that they will display at Open Studios STL. This year will be the third that they have participated. “I really look forward to it every year; it’s a great way for me to summarize what I’ve done in the past year.”
It also provides an opportunity to not only see finished pieces but also where artists create them, which provides insight into how they work. “It’s very intimate and a little vulnerable to show the lab where I’m experimenting in,” they say.
Preparing their studio for the weekend’s open house isn’t dissimilar to what you’d do at home before expecting company: clean and organize. “I want to be able to show people the way I organize and think because some people are more loose and organic with the way that they work, and I try to be a little bit more constructed and organized,” says Youn.
Youn was recently selected as one of the three winners of the 2020 Great Rivers Biennial, a collaborative exhibition program presented by CAM and the Gateway Foundation. They wrote a proposal for what the exhibit will look like but says that the space will ultimately determine what pieces they bring. “I like letting my work grow up into a space,” they say.
While Youn might not know exactly what work they will show in the exhibit, they have a shelf full of massagers that await their disassembling and repurposing into something new.
Open Studios STL takes place on October 19 and 20 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Find more at openstudios-stl.org.
