Mel Chin

Mel Chin (born 1951 in Houston, Texas, USA) is a conceptual visual artist. Motivated largely by political, cultural, and social circumstances, Chin works in a variety of art media to calculate meaning in modern life. Chin places art in landscapes, in public spaces, and in gallery and museum exhibitions, but his work is not limited to specific venues. Chin once stated: “Making objects and marks is also about making possibilities, making choices—and that is one of the last freedoms we have. To provide that is one of the functions of art.”

In 1975, Chin graduated from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee. Shortly after, in 1976, Chin created See/Saw: The Earthworks for Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, where the artist manipulated two sections of the park’s surface to create a kinetic, minimalist earthwork. In this mimic of a childhood pastime, Chin altered the landscape with an underground hydraulic device that allowed the participant to shift large sections of earth with their body weight. The title also questions psychological perception of what is above and below an objects surface. This piece addressed three of the major art trends of the time: minimalism, conceptualism, and earthworks.