Use Value by Chang Yuchen

June 12, 2016
4 pm
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Please join us for a “runway show” to launch the brand Use Value. Use Value is a conceptual (and real) brand which produces useful handmade commodities, founded by Chang Yuchen in 2016. Here, the labor of hands is measured with money, the act of possessing is considered love. The price of each product, the exchange value, is calculated by the hourly rate that Yuchen earned as a hostess working in a restaurant, multiplied by how many hours she has spent on this product, in addition to the cost of the raw materials.

The idea of artwork coming out of the museum or the gallery and entering into people’s everyday life, as well as the practice of artists adapting themselves to the common rules of economic reality are greatly inspired by the history of Printed Matter and by the artist book as a medium. The first line of products are various embroidered bags. Each of them is a meticulous drawing made with silk thread, a portable piece of artwork with the function of carrying, and a proxy through which time and labor are transformed into use value.

On June 12, Use Value’s friends will showcase the first season’s products in the form of walking, and will explore the possibility of walking as a mode of exhibition, which points at the broader experience of being seen, and the brief communication that occurs at the moment of encounter.

A newly finished artists’ book by Chang Yuchen, Rain Album, will also be available.

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