Heji Shin: The Big Nudes

Heji Shin’s photographic practice pushes boundaries and challenges societal ideals surrounding fashion, celebrity, and sexuality.

＂The German artist . . . is one of the wildest experimentalists working in photography today.＂ --Interview magazine

Shin’s practice oscillates fluidly between the commercial and fine-art realms, and the work she exhibits in gallery and museum contexts is strongly influenced by the editorial work she produces. For THE BIG NUDES, a title that reappropriates Helmut Newton’s series of the same name, Shin photographed pigs at close range, employing the vernacular of fashion photography to transform the pigs into models who appear to flirt with and pose for the camera. The photographs are paired with MRI scans and a holographic model of Shin’s brain--an impression of the self that troubles and transforms our foundational ideas of what constitutes a portrait.

Alongside a curator’s note from Ebony L. Haynes, this publication features a text by Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle that explores the interplay between Shin’s commercial and fine-art practices. This insightful analysis provides a deeper understanding of Shin’s work, shedding light on the nuances of her artistic choices.

Born in Seoul, Heji Shin (b. 1976) lives and works in New York. She has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as at KAT_A, Bad Honnef, Germany (2022); Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2021); and Kunsthalle Zürich (2018). Shin has had several solo presentations at galleries worldwide, most recently at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York (2018 and 2020); Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (2019); Gaga & Reena Spaulings, Los Angeles (2019); Galerie Bernhard, Zurich (2016); Real Fine Arts, New York (2013 and 2016); and Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Berlin (2010).

Ebony L. Haynes is a writer and curator from Toronto. She is based in New York, where she is a senior director at David Zwirner and curator of 52 Walker. Haynes was a visiting curator and critic at the Yale School of Art in the painting and printmaking class of 2021. She also runs an online ＂school＂ that offers free professional practice classes to Black students worldwide.