Event
It's Going to Rain
Tielin Ding
Real Art Ways presents It’s Going to Rain, a solo exhibition by Real Art Award winner Tielin Ding
Before a storm comes,
swirling vortices of air,
bring leaves floating and in motion.
Brooms, fans, umbrellas；
gathering, murmuring；
It’s a party with flickering lights.
Yes, it‘s going to rain.
It’s Going to Rain is a multimedia exhibition that reflects on the relationships between objects, environments, and their shared states of uncertainty.
John Cage asked, “When a truck passes by a music school or a factory, which is more musical?” Tielin Ding approaches his exhibition It’s Going to Rain, with a similar spirit; pondering the buildup of energy before a storm and the tension that precedes a natural eruption. When does the storm truly begin?
The umbrella, a common motif in this exhibition, symbolizes protection and faith. The color yellow recurs throughout his practice. He considers the yellow lines on roads suggesting a sense of both continuation and separation. By focusing on the friction and pulse between things and their environments It’s Going to Rain presents a look at the moments between safety and uncertainty, logic and whimsy.
About the Artist
Tielin is a wanderer, observer and mixed-media process-based artist interested in repetition of forms and movements; operation of chances and metaphors. In his installation works, he likes displacing objects, shifting their scales and relocating their context, aiming for building its own constellation with a leap of thought and a slow surprise.
He holds the belief that “At the center of a mirage, is its transformation”. “Chance favors a prepared mind.” A lot of times, inspiration comes from his observation while wandering, while playing, while living. Sometimes, it can be mystic and improvisational. He has been very interested in drifting in the field of language and space, risking getting lost from point A to point B.
Born in 1996 in Chongqing, China. Tielin Ding is a wanderer, observer and mixed-media artist currently based in New York and Shanghai. He graduated from MFA in photography and related media at Parsons School of Design, The New School in NYC with a bachelor’s background in architecture engineering at Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. He exhibited his works at Site Santa Fe in New Mexico, Brand Library in California, Garrison Art Center/BAU Gallery/The FLAG Art Foundation in New York, Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival in the Netherlands and Reclaim Award in Germany. Past residency he attended includes Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, Abbott Watts Photography Residency at Monson Arts, Nars Foundation Satellite Residency on Governors Island, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation residency, Millay Arts, VCCA and Volland Foundation.
To read Jared Quinton‘s essay on “Its Going to Rain” please click HERE
Jared Quinton is a curator, writer, and currently the Emily Hall Tremaine Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT, where he oversees the pioneering MATRIX exhibition series and the museum’s postwar and contemporary collection and galleries. He has organized exhibitions and programs at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Kitchen (New York), Terremoto La Postal (Mexico City), Ely Center of Contemporary Art (New Haven), Gallery 44 (Toronto), Abrons Art Center (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Chicago Artists Coalition, Institute of Fine Arts (New York), Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago, and the Williams College Museum of Art (Williamstown, MA). He has written for Artforum, BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, and e-flux, and has contributed to exhibition catalogues for the Hammer Museum, Blanton Museum, MCA Chicago, and Prospect New Orleans. He has held the Marcia Reid Marsted and Jeffrey G. Marsted Curatorial Fellowship at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellowship at the MCA Chicago, and the Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellowship at the Whitney Independent Study Program, been a guest critic at Hartford Art School / University of Hartford, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and juried prizes for Provincetown Art Association and Museum and Holy Cross University. He holds art history degrees from Williams College and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.
