Candice Lin in “Realms of the Reals” – Season 12 | Art21
Candice Lin, visual artist and UCLA professor, uses sculptural installations to turn everyday and historically loaded materials into immersive, often non‑visual experiences that engage smell, sound and touch. Her work interrogates the colonial histories of pigments and ceramics—cochineal, yellow ochre, bone black, porcelain—by researching their origins and then subverting their traditional meanings. In “A Hard White Body” she misted unfired porcelain with distilled urine, allowing mold and cracks to form, later re‑firing fragments into island‑like sculptures; a Chicago iteration flooded the gallery with porcelain slip, underscoring the precariousness of cultural preservation. Lin recalls a childhood fascination with a chicken head in a Chinese restaurant, noting that “as an adult I finally get to misuse things the way I wanted to.” She also describes the pandemic‑era shift to indigo‑dyed textiles and animated cat narratives, while students praise her as a “generous teacher” who turns research into collaborative discovery. By foregrounding material instability and speculative storytelling, Lin challenges museums to reconsider preservation of volatile works and invites audiences to confront hidden histories of trade, labor and white supremacy, expanding contemporary discourse on art, ecology and decolonization.
Artist Decides to Be Relentless. #MirandaJuly #Art21Archive
The video captures an artist reflecting on the psychological barrier that kept her from fully committing to projects, describing how early attempts felt exciting yet were cut short by fear of reaching 100 percent. She likens the hesitation to a car...
Artist Creates Portals Within Her Work #NjidekaAkunyiliCrosby
In a recent interview, Nigerian‑American artist Njideka Akunyili‑Crosby explains how she builds “portals” into her paintings, using layered collage to turn visual noise into a controlled, immersive experience. She describes the cacophony of overlapping images—family photographs, CD covers, television screens, posters—as...
Ragnar Kjartansson in “Realms of the Real” – Season 12 | Art21
The Art21 interview spotlights Icelandic visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson, exploring his belief that visual art is essentially a word for freedom—a concept inherited from early 20th‑century innovators like Marcel Duchamp. He frames his practice as a way of living, creating moments...