Lin Aojie: From an Art Student to an Artist

中文

Lin Aojie: From an Art Student to an Artist
Solo Exhibition TC101 SPACE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Date: 08.23, 2023 - 10.10, 2023

Artists: LIN Aojie 林奥劼

Seven Little Things Between an Artist and a Curator

1 Entering the Art Industry

In 2015, I graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a degree in curating. Five years of living abroad having come to an end, I decided to return to China and study to become an independent curator and writer. My first article, “Independent for Whom?” was published in Artforum, which featured the founders, curators, and artists of the second session of “Independent Art Spaces Beijing”, sharing their views on the local art ecosystem with me.

2 First Acquaintance

On November 10th, 2016, I met Lin Aojie at the opening of the Shanghai where he handed me a business card from the Canton Gallery. In December of the same year, I flew to Art Sanya to learn about artists' current practices and researchers' concerns through“Huayu Youth Award”and“Huayu Forum of Art”. Interestingly, the artists I worked with for the experimental project that I curated in Beijing 2 years later all happened to have been selected for this fiercely competitive Youth Award.

3 Exhibition Collaborations

From March 23rd to July 24th in 2018, I invited Yunyu Ayo Shih & Lin Aojie & Richard Kuan to realize the series of curatorial projects“Shared Narrative(s)”at ShanghART Beijing S-Space, exploring how the form of exhibition itself can become a clue or an obstacle accompanying each other's work. In Chapter 1, Lin Aojie broke the structure of c & A that I had initially envisioned. He commissioned me in Chapter 2 to create a piece of writing, We Lost the War before the Battle Began that wasn't an exhibition review. The artist rated and commented on the curator's work in Chapter 3. In the final chapter, I commissioned Lin Aojie to create something with the keyword“Quick Response”.

4 Self-Institutionalized

On December 13th, 2018, the Light Pavilion Project“The Comfort Zone At A Distance”, which was realized at Taikang Space, posted 3 fictitious exhibition posters of Lin Aojie, including Poster of Light Pavilion, Poster of 51 Square Metres and Video Bureau Archive, exploring the criteria of selecting artists in non-profit art institutions. In the spring of the following year, I joined Taikang Space and logged out from the account of independent curator.

5 Writing a Recommendation Letter

On December 13th, 2019, I asked Lin Aojie and Liu Xinyi to write recommendation letters for the“Asymmetry Art Foundation Visiting Curators Program”. One of the letters reads as follows:

MIAO Zijin is a curator from the younger generation in contemporary Chinese art scene. She is honest, considerate, diligent, academic and professional. To put it in another way, she is reputable for having both curatorial skills and morals.

LIN Aojie
Artist, Director of Canton Gallery

6 Curator as Actor

From 2019, I have been making an annual friendly appearance in Lin Aojie's video series——Why I Want to Be an Artist, which simulates television talk shows. We explore the artist's path to learning art, enigmatic social and current events, and the relationship between art ecology and economy. This summer, we took on the roles of students or tutors to ask each other questions and answer them for an extra episode on the theme of art education.

7 Curator as Collector

In the early hours of February 22nd, 2023, I decided to collect Lin Aojie's mouse-drawn painting, Museum Directors and Livers, at Canton Bar. The most moving episode of each trip to the Greater Bay Area was not the museum directors wining and dining with sponsors for the development of the art museum, but the fact that we met here to exchange our true feelings about the art industry. Similarly, I hope viewers of“from an Art Student to an Artist”can harvest some real stuff.

As stated above, are seven little things between an artist and a curator.

By/Miao Zijin