顾问策展人：亚历山德拉•孟璐

助理策展人：朱晓瑞

展览时间：2018.6.26-2018.8.26

地点：上海外滩美术馆

主办：上海外滩美术馆

协办：上海玻璃博物馆

Consulting Curator: Alexandra Munroe 

Assistant Curator: Xiaorui Zhu-Nowell

Duration: June 26 – August 26, 2018

Venue: Rockbund Art Museum Shanghai

Organizer: Rockbund Art Museum

In collaboration with: Shanghai Museum of Glass

2018年6月26日至8月26日，上海外滩美术馆隆重迎来了林天苗的上海首场个人专题展览“体•统”，由美国纽约古根海姆美术馆亚洲艺术部三星资深策展人亚历山德拉•孟璐担任本展的顾问策展人，朱晓瑞担任助理策展人。艺术家视整个展览为一个特定场域的项目，展开四部分概念的探究：“个体意识”、“群体意识”、“公共意识”、“终极意识”，概念与楼层相呼应，依次从美术馆二楼展厅纵向延伸到六楼，为观者带来一场心理和感官上的“意识”之旅。作品涵盖她二十余年创作脉络中极具代表性的装置作品，以及艺术家自2017年起制作且从未向公众展出的数件玻璃材质的大型交互装置，届时，具有文献意义的手稿也将一并展出。

九十年代初，作为中国首批尝试装置和录像制作的女性艺术家之一，她不断尝试各种创作媒介，通过具有女性生活痕迹和符号意义的材料如针、棉、线、丝、布，将这些材料加工、缠绕、覆盖于日常物件上，透露着对日常生活和传统手工艺的关注和反思，以一种独到的想象力及视野形成了鲜明、敏感且细腻的个人风格。从早年的旧作《白日梦》、《嗨!!!》和《失与得》，观众都不难体会到艺术家注重材料和方法的选择，充斥着手作的质感与生活的温度。2017年，创作二十余年的她却突破一贯使用的传统媒介，选择广泛应用在现代领域需人工合成的玻璃材料，尝试前所未有的创作挑战。林天苗开始与上海玻璃博物馆合作，从最初掌握玻璃的特性，逐步研究工艺技术，提取“机械”运动等更具有社会化识别标志进行装置实验，寻找科技与艺术之间的平衡点，介入到更丰富的层次和多维度的探索。正是由于材质、创作方法及视觉语言的转换往往是同步的，了解林天苗作品的观众，会因为其材质的转换获得一次全新的体验。

展览名称“体•统”，概念原生于人体系统，从一系列的现代批判、政治理论及当代心理学出发，正如顾问策展人亚历山德拉•孟璐所说：“林天苗创建并提出‘系统’和‘体系’的检测，揭露和重新塑造自我在社会和技术现实变化中的运作方式。这些系统在物理上、精神上，甚至是诗意层面上都有一定作用，在她所涉足的所有工作中，人体是她的中心关注点，身份与社会环境的关系问题成为其思考和实验的内容，并贯穿于整个展览中。”

From 26th June to 26th August 2018, Rockbund Art Museum is very proud to present Systems, the first institutional solo exhibition in Shanghai by Lin Tianmiao, curated by Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator, Asian Art and Senior Advisor, Global Arts, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, with Xiaorui Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

The artist considers the exhibition to be a site-specific project exploring four key concepts: ‘individual consciousness’, ‘collective consciousness’, ‘public consciousness’, and ‘ultimate consciousness’. Each concept corresponds to a floor in the museum, from the second floor up to the sixth floor, as visitors embark on a sensorial journey of ‘consciousness’. The exhibition comprises a body of work representative of her practice over twenty years, together with several large-scale, interactive installations, which the artist has created recently in 2017, and have never been shown before to the public. Material of archival significance will also be exhibited at the same time.

Since the early 1990s, as one of the first female Chinese artists tackling installation and video production, Lin Tianmiao has continuously explored various media throughout her practice. Using materials that evoke the traces and symbolism of feminine life such as cotton, thread, silk, fabric, and needles— she works on these materials by wrapping these everyday objects and covering them, thereby revealing her interest and reflection on everyday life and traditional handicrafts. With a unique imagination and perspective, she has proceeded to develop a distinctive, sensitive, and intricate deeply personal style. From early works such as Day-Dreamer, High !!! and Loss and Gain, visitors can become aware of the value the artist places on material and method, as well as an artistic practice filled with a tactile deftness and vitality. In 2017, after a twenty year practice, she made a break from the traditional media she became associated with, instead choosing to use glass—a man-made material widely used in modern life—in order to take on challenges never attempted before. Lin Tianmiao began a collaboration with Shanghai Museum of Glass; starting from the initial stages of grasping the peculiarities of glass, to investigating artisanal techniques, and then dealing with scientific issues such as ‘mechanical motion’ as a way to experiment within her installations. She has sought to achieve a balance between art, science, and technology, by involving a richer and more multi-faceted method of exploration. Precisely due to these concurrent and frequent shifts in material, methodology, and visual language , visitors familiar with Lin Tianmiao’s work will gain a new perspective to experience her oeuvre.

Titled Systems, the concept originates from the system of the human body and draws from a range of modern critical and political theory, as well as from contemporary psychology. As consulting curator Alexandra Munroe describes, “Lin creates or poses ‘systems’ that examine, expose and reimagine the workings of the self in relation to shifting social and technological realities. These systems function on a physical as well as allegorical, even poetic, level. Throughout her immersive work in all media, the human body is her central concern.”