New York
Christian Duvernois Landscape/Gallery
Barbara Edelstein has spent the last few years living in Shanghai, where she teaches American and Chinese students and shares a studio with her husband, artist Jian-Jun Zhang. She has acclimated quite well and is now known as a Shanghai artist, if not a Chinese one. Coming from America to China, she reverses the familiar direction of movement in the international art world; we are used to Chinese artists attending school in the U.S. and often establishing careers in New York. Though Edelstein has made a successful go of building a career in a foreign country with a markedly different aesthetic, she is influenced to some extent by her contact with Chinese culture. For instance, a major public piece in Shanghai (2010)—a fountain of tangled steel tubes spouting water, along with a towering leaf—looks Asian in its organic intricacies and is highly appreciated by park visitors. …see the entire review in the print version of November’s Sculpture magazine.
