Lin Yilin: NOxxxxxxxxHATRED

SPURS Gallery presents NOxxxxxxxxHATRED, a solo exhibition of recent works by Lin Yilin. This is the artist’s second solo presentation with the gallery since The Departure from Her Feet in 2017. Featuring three new films, three sculptures and one wall installation, the exhibition shows relativity to current events and are works created during the past two years in New York since the outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19. Also included are Typhoon (2019), commissioned by M+, Hong Kong and performance work xxxxxxxx (2017), commissioned by the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Shenzhen and presented here as a video installation.

A leading figure of Chinese contemporary art since the 1990s, Lin Yilin’s practice makes use of a range of creative methodologies and thinking. Through bodily experience and intervening the current moment in substantial ways, his works respond to and critique major social issues. Born in the 60s, the artist has experienced changes in societies and people’s ways of life. His current environment has undoubtedly led him into a new state regarding both his creative practice and personal life; “NOxxxxxxxxHATRED” dissects the indefinite emotions into layers of meaning and reflects the artist’s thoughts and perception amid racial conflicts following the outbreak of COVID-19.

Upon entering the exhibition space, viewers first meet Real News (2021). A swarm of scribbled digital graphics drowns out a disproportionately small crime scene photo of an attack on a Chinese scavenger. The sculpture Of x Use (2022) freezes the soundwaves of violence and perturbation, which still rings like a particular whistle. Sweet (2022) pays formal homage to Félix Gonzáles-Torres and resists and scoffs at power structure. It engages with the heated discussions around race in the United States by using numbers symbolizing the artist’s own identity. Sculpture 20220201 (2022) is also titled after the artist’s identity number, reflecting the convergence of the locality of culture, race, and individual fate. The black and white video work 20200313 (2020) represents a key moment for people in the United States. The overall atmosphere of the society can be seen on the artist’s face, a foreboding of the ensuing tragedies. Dual-channel video Un-colored (2021) shows Eric Adams, the current mayor of New York city, and the head of a Chinese-American association exclaiming “Stop Asian Hate,” while Eric Adams had previously insinuated in an election campaign that Chinese were “un-colored.” Four-channel video Non-news (2021) documents two protests led by tens of thousands of Chinese people denouncing anti-Asian hate and two demonstrations protesting against the elimination of the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which former mayor Bill de Blasio strongly advocated. However, as minorities took to the streets to defend themselves against the encroachment of their survival and future, mainstream media barely covered the demonstrations.

Dual-channel 3D video Typhoon is set in a separate space on the first floor. The video shows Lin Yilin in pajamas walking on stilts, clumsily roving around old qilou in Guangzhou, his home city. Were a typhoon to hit, he would have no other solution but to continue to hide away in a tumbling structure. The action refracts the helplessness of the individual, as the sudden fall testifies. On the second floor is the performance work xxxxxxxx, presented as a three-channel video. On one of the small screens, the artist and assistants calculatingly buy vegetables, fish, meat, and other goods from each shop along the road. Another screen shows them lining up their purchase one by one in the middle of the same road, forming a 300-meter line stretching from the east gate of the village of Nantou Old Town to the historical site of the former Xin’an county government. Goods are grouped so that the total length of each group matches the width of each shopfront. Sections without shops on either side have people lying on the road. The large screen at the end of the gallery space silently shows a complete view of this “long line.”