P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents the New York debut of Taiwanese artist Michael Ming Hong Lin (b. 1964, Tokyo, Japan). For the P.S.1 Café, Michael Lin has created a large-scale site-specific installation entitled Grind.
Lin's floor slides from the wall and ceiling, creating an alternate way to experience the space. As in classical Chinese painting, the perspective of the café is suspended, and the viewer can no longer determine where the floor ends and the wall begins. Transforming a communal space, creating an illusion of depth, and erasing spatial borders, Lin alters our perception of volume by producing an effect of infinitude. The quotidian becomes spectacle.
In a continuous investigation of ornamentation and its relationship to architecture, Lin creates architectural interventions using patterns from traditional textiles and decorative arts. Utilizing, among others, armchairs, beds, floors, walls, and cushions to support his surfaces, which are decorated with a profusion of brightly colored patterns, Lin blurs all borders between surface and structure, function and ornamentation, architecture and interior design.
Lin has created monumental installations for sites such as the large public halls of the Taipei Biennial; the atrium of the City Hall in Den Haag, Holland; and Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Michael Lin, who lives and works in Paris and Taiwan, has also exhibited in international exhibitions such as the Istanbul Biennial (2001), Liverpool Biennial (2002), and the Venice Biennial (2001).
This exhibition is curated by P.S.1 Curator Jimena Blazquez.