ART CITIES:N.York-Sydney Shen

Sydney Shen is an artist of countless obsessions. Scents, video games, torture devices, gore movies, necropastoral literature, history of epidemics, conceptions of the purgatory, are amongst some of the subjects she manipulates and fields she evolves within; through a practice that comes across as both opulent and deadly: a lethal parade.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: New Museum Archive

Sydney Shen creates sculptures and installations that evoke a sense of abject dread. Informed by a range of historical and contemporary sources, including Peking opera, supernatural horror fiction, and the darkest recesses of the web, Shen frankensteins organic and synthetic materials such as Chinese and Western medicinal aromatics, 3-D-printed plastic, and biological specimens to produce uncanny environments. Sydney Shen’s installation “Onion Master” on view in our Storefront Window space, reimagines an arcade claw machine with a bizarre prize of artificial onions. Combining the spirit of an amusement park with morbid cues from funeral parlors, the installation highlights the macabre within carnivalesque and Gothic imagery.  “Onion Master” reimagines an arcade claw machine with a bizarre prize: artificial onions. The lowly vegetable emits tear-inducing gas when sliced, to tragicomic effect. Scattered alongside the onions, solar-powered toys, which the artist sees as captive performers, are encased within clear acrylic balls. Shen has lined the window with lyrical excerpts from a song by English Renaissance musician John Dowland, whose compositions often ruminate on melancholy. Combining the spirit of an amusement park with morbid cues from funeral parlors, the installation highlights the macabre within carnivalesque and Gothic imagery. The claw machine, also known as a skill crane, is at once enticing and deceptively simple; it is designed to give the false impression that a player may be able to claim the prize. Shen’s version amplifies this frustration by presenting a game with no way to play and no prize to collect. “Onion Master” performs its Sisyphean task and in the end, no one wins. Sydney Shen is living and working in New York, in 2015 she held her first solo exhibition at Interstate Projects in Brooklyn and has been a part of group exhibitions at venues including Lock-Up International, Frankfurt; Springsteen, Baltimore; and KnowMoreGames, Brooklyn. Shen is the coauthor of Perfume Area, a book of prose published by Ambient Works. Her video game, Master’s Chambers, is available to download and play on multiple platforms.

Info: Curator:  Francesca Altamura, New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York,, Duration 30/4-1/9/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.newmuseum.org