Candice Lin creates a beast-filled world that riffs on colonialism — and internet cats
We all need recession specials, so I’m currently working my way through the list of The Times’ most affordable restaurants from the 101 List. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, arts and urban design columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and I’m here for manakeesh and tacos dorados — as well as all of the essential arts news.
I didn’t take notes, but I remember a dance and a sculptural washbasin made to look like a gutted pig-monster. I also remember a fleshly feast that included grilled octopus and chicharrones, all lubricated by a robust amount of booze. What I most recall from that night, however, was a ceramic sculpture by L.A. artist Candice Lin that looked like a hybrid of sea creature and the torso of a woman’s body. Viewers could peer through a labial fold in the sculpture at an illuminated scene contained within. (Sorry, don’t remember the scene — too much feasting.)
Ever since that experience, I’ve always found myself enthralled whenever I stumble into Lin’s work. A 2017 exhibition at LACE featured watercolors from her “Sexual Lives of Savages” series, which showed feral barbarous women cavorting amid lush landscapes — work inspired, in part, by colonial art and European chronicles of the so-called New World. In 2018, a room-sized piece by Lin featuring an earthen mound planted with seeds and bearing the imprint of a human body materialized at the Hammer Museum’s “Made in L.A.” biennial.
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Los Angeles Times website. Read more about Candice Lin.
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