His work invites us to stroll over, sit upon, even dance on top of its richly painted surface. Her work instructs us to fold paper boats and hang them in an ever-growing curtain of color.
Drawing from Asian imagery and practice, Taiwanese contemporary artists Michael Lin and Wu Mali have created spaces of repose, reflection and generous beauty in Spaces Within at the Asian Art Museum. However, once drawn in, we realize that their works are also playfully subversive — blurring our traditional distinctions between private and public spaces, and fine art and folk craft.
Lin, who was born in Japan in 1964, has created a set of floor paintings displaying brilliantly colored, giant-sized peonies, bellflowers and plum blossoms. The panels are arranged in a seamless fashion, stretching to cover a 25-foot-by-65-foot area of the Asian Art Museum’s North Court. The overall effect is that of a luxurious area carpet, awash in springtime pinks, reds and yellows.
In his signature manner, Lin selected a location in the museum where visitors convene, so that his art would be used by the public. Lin also has recently installed a set of paintings that serve as floor and wall coverings at PS1 Contemporary Art Museum’s cafe in New York. In another exhibit at the St. Louis Contemporary, a lottery-winning couple conducted their wedding ceremony on top of Lin’s work.
Not to be outdone, the Asian Art Museum hosted its opening night party on June 12 with his floral paintings serving as the dance floor. I asked Pauline Yao, the curator of the exhibition, what happens when someone spills a drink or tracks a dirty sneaker print onto the surface. “The works are as durable as a hardwood floor. We expect to clean the paintings every few days,” she says.
Lin intends for visitors to feel as comfortable sitting, standing or dancing on his work as they would in the private surroundings of their own homes. In fact, he draws his subject matter from floral patterns found in the Taiwanese textiles of bedspreads and pillow covers, thus dissolving the distinctions between form and function, and fine art and folk craft.
In “Follow the Dreamboat,” Mali, who was born in Taiwan in 1957, has created an otherworldly environment in which visitors are invited to contemplate their personal and social trajectories. They are then encouraged to write down their dreams on colored paper, fold them into paper boats, and attach them to filaments. The ongoing work is a suspended cloud of pixellated color, bathed in aquatic light and punctuated by an off-centered fishing boat that looks like it is in motion.
Like Lin, Wu uses folk craft — in this case, Japanese origami — to bring meaning to her work. Visitors are given a means of participation, and Wu facilitates a kind of social interaction across time. By creating a space in which private thoughts are made into objects, “Follow the Dreamboat” is a powerful visual display of collective desire.
| Spaces WithinJune 12 – Aug. 22
Asian Art Museum 200 Larkin St., San Francisco |
Wu originally conceived of “Follow the Dreamboat” in 1996 while in Hong Kong, the year before its handover to China. “I saw miles of people lining up in front of the British consulate to apply for visas,” she explains. “It occurred to me that these people wanted to leave because they have dreams to pursue.”
She connected these dreams to the image of boats, vehicles of cross-national transportation prevalent in the harbor landscape of Hong Kong and her Taiwanese homeland. Previously shown at the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the Kiaoshung Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei, Wu’s work resonates with viewers, especially those who can remember their family’s immigration history.
Visitors expecting a traditional museum experience — that is, to appreciate but not touch or make art — will be surprised by Spaces Within. Yao says, “Part of what we want to do is break down stereotypes of what contemporary fine art, and especially contemporary Asian art, can be.”