Curated by Nikita Yingqian Cai
Michel Foucault believed that sexual minoritarians have the power to lay “diagonal lines . . . in the social fabric,” thereby recovering buried forms of feeling and relating. The same might be said of this major survey of Candice Lin’s work, which promises to put similar operations into action. Featuring dense and intricately researched installations as well as paintings, drawings, and VR films, this show will rejigger the warp and weft of what holds us all purportedly in common. For Lin to pull this off with even a modicum of success will require a viewer’s patience with her rigorous study of the racialized histories of virology and indentured labor (to name just two areas of her inquiry). Such historical exegeses point to the artist’s curiosity about the world. There is pleasure in following Lin’s diagonal lines—that is . . . if you’re into that kind of thing. Travels to Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, August 8–November 22; Spike Island, Bristol, UK, January 16–March 21, 2021.
