Candice Lin: Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping

Los Angeles–based artist Candice Lin (b. 1979) investigates the legacies of colonialism, racism, and sexism by mapping the trade routes and material histories of a range of colonial goods. Often taking shape as DIY apparatuses, or what have been described as “flayed circulatory systems,” her multilayered and sensorial installations combine commodities such as sugar, cochineal, and tea into liquid distillates that circumnavigate the space of the gallery. Lin’s sculptures manifest as tangible inquiries into histories of exoticism, Western degradation of and desire for the “Other,” and the logic and legacy of oppressive structures and systems.

Co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Candice Lin: Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping is composed of elements the artist created while sheltering at her home studio during the pandemic. Anchored by a nomadic tent structure—simultaneously a temporary shelter and a quasi-religious temple—the exhibition includes hand-drawn and hand-printed indigo textiles, hand-built ceramic sculptures, plaster and concrete “tactile theaters,” and a video animation that leads visitors through qigong breathing and movement exercises.  

Cats abound in the gallery. From ceramic cats that can be found curled up inside the tent to the video’s animated cat demon, the exhibition invites us into a space where humans no longer play a central role and animals and other nonhuman actors reign. Ultimately, Lin encourages us to question our present, reenvision our futures, and embrace new ways of understanding the world.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue documenting the artist’s research materials and process, copublished by the Walker and the Carpenter Center, and with contributions by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Mel Y. Chen, Liv Porte, and the exhibition’s curators. 

About Candice Lin
Candice Lin is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installation, drawing, video, and living materials and processes such as mold, mushrooms, bacteria, fermentation, and stains. She addresses themes of race, gender, and sexuality in relationship to material histories of colonialism, slavery, and diaspora. Lin has had recent solo exhibitions at the Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China; Pitzer Galleries, Claremont, CA; Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; Ludlow 38, New York; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago; Portikus, Frankfurt; Bétonsalon, Paris; and Gasworks, London; as well as group exhibitions and biennials at the ICA, London (2019); Para Site, Hong Kong (2019); Beirut Art Center (2019); the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2017); the New Museum, New York (2017); and SculptureCenter, New York (2017). She is the recipient of several residencies, grants, and fellowships, including a Painters & Writers Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019), the Davidoff Art Residency (2018), the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2017), a Delfina Foundation residency (2014), a Fine Arts Work Center residency (2012), and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2009). She is Assistant Professor of Art at UCLA and lives and works in Los Angeles.

Curatorial team
Victoria Sung, associate curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center; and Dan Byers, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University.

Candice Lin: Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping is co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University. Support for the Walker’s presentation is provided by the Edward R. Bazinet Foundation, the Martin and Brown Foundation, and RBC Wealth Management.