Best Booths at NADA Miami’s 21st Edition: A Handful of Galleries Make Leaving the Beach Worthwhile
DANIEL CASSADY
December 7, 2023
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Ye Qin Zhu at Dimin
Ye Qin Zhu, Pure Without Being Precious, 2023
With three artists on view, the booth of downtown New York gallery Dimin is remarkably cohesive. The works are all tactile, from Erik Dalzen’s steel and expanded polyurethane foam sculptures to Jillian Mayer’s glass chandelier. Ye Qin Zhu’s mixed media panels stand out, however, for their archaeological nature. Through a mixture of found objects, religious iconography, and mass market toys and trinkets, Zhu’s assemblage Pure Without Being Precious (2023) shows the artist grappling with his identity as both immigrant and New Yorker. Bits of jewelry are covered, painted over and made to look disposable while bits of twig and leaf are emblazoned with gold. Despite the deep colors and glossy veneer the work feels organic, like a slab of petrified wood covered in a pictographic language that explains the culture of some long-forgotten society.