Lin Tianmiao
Protruding Patterns, 2014
Wool thread, yarn, acrylic
Dimensions variable
Lin Tianmiao
Untitled (Bonsai Tree), 2012
Bonsai tree, threads, metal constructions
37.4 x 25.6 x 37.4 inches (95 x 65 x 95 cm)
Lin Tianmiao
More or Less the Same, 2011
Detail view
Lin Tianmiao
More or Less the Same, 2011
Polyurea, silk threads, and stainless steel
Dimensions variable
Installation view: Asia Society Museum, New York, 2012
Lin Tianmiao
Badges, 2011-12
White silk, colored silk thread, painted stainless steel embroidery frame, sound component
Dimensions variable
Installation view: Galerie Lelong, New York, 2012
Lin Tianmiao
Minty Blue, 2012
Threads, wood frame, synthetic bones
39 x 35 inches (99.1 x 88.9 cm)
Lin Tianmiao
Must Be the Same, 2011
Embroidery, linen cloth, cotton cloth, silk cloth, silk threads, polyurea
199.2 x 99.2 inches (506 x 252 cm)
Lin Tianmiao
Seeing Shadow No. F-13, 2009
C-Prints on canvas, silk threads, and cotton threads
72.1 x 72.1 inches (183 x 183 cm)
Lin Tianmiao
Mother's!!!, 2008
Polyurea, silk, cotton threads
Dimensions variable
Installation view: Asia Society Museum, New York, 2012
Lin Tianmiao
Mother's!!! (Sitting), 2008
Polyurea, silk, cotton threads
9.9 x 11 x 14.5 inches (25 x 28 x 37 cm)
Lin Tianmiao
Hand Signal No. 20, 2005
C-Print, felt, synthetic hairs
58.25 x 46.5 inches (148 x 118 cm)
Lin Tianmiao and Wang Gongxin
Here? or There?, 2002
Suite of 15 color photographs
15.75 inches x 13.75 (35 x 40 cm) each
Edition of 50
Part of the “apartment art” generation, Lin Tianmiao is one of the first contemporary Chinese artists to achieve international recognition. She is known for her practice of thread winding in which she binds the material – usually silk, hair, cotton, or felt – tightly around found and manufactured objects. Initially tasked by her mother to spool cotton as a young girl, Lin later reclaimed the act. Lin’s work studies her own social role and the relationship between identity and social context, questioning the identity of woman and the conventional idea of the social role of woman as mother. Best known for her large-scale installations, Lin also works in sculpture, photography, video, and a variety of other media.
Solo exhibitions of Lin’s work have been held in China, Europe, and the United States including Systems, Rockbund Museum, Shanghai, China (2018); 1.62M: Lin Tianmiao, How Art Museum,
Wenzhou, China (2015); and Bound Unbound, Asia Society Museum, New York City (2013). Her work was also part of Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, which travelled to the Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain. She has participated in the Istanbul Biennale, Turkey (1997); Shanghai Biennale, China (2002); Ireland Biennale (2002); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2002, 2004); and Setouchi Triennale, Japan (2016). Lin’s work can be found in the public collections of museums including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; M+, Hong Kong; and Singapore Art Museum.
Lin was born in in 1961 in Taiyuan, China. She now lives and works in Beijing, China.
Beijing Minsheng Art Museum
Beijing, China
Ongoing
Held on January 12, 2021
Watch recording here
by Ann Albritton
September 2017
by Karen Smith
by Barbara Pollack
by Madelein O'Dea