Lin Wang, Exotic Dreams
Tattoo Shop, Entrée. Photo: Bent René Synnevåg.
Lin Wang has
transformed Entrée into Exotic Dreams Tattoo Shop; reappropriating the
gallery to serve the purpose of offering real tattoos to audiences (note: in a limited
capacity due to current regulations). Through a new
series of experimental performances, Wang steps into (and literally wears!) her
work, becoming the protagonists of the show. The
exchange of tattoos for private stories is a new objective in her practice, one
which grew out of an obsession with sailors’ tattoos, which she initially transferred
onto blue-and-white porcelain wares.
The installation Exotic Dreams Tattoo Shop includes richly decorated porcelain pieces, rendered
in relation to the history of China’s export porcelain, to traditions within
the field of both porcelain and tattoo art, and to contemporary Western influences. Wang sheds light
on different aspects of cultural exchange, originating from the historical maritime trade routes between the East and the West,
and up until more recent times, from her own experience of being
Chinese in Norway.
Combining
and reinterpreting varied references, Wang makes visible poetic misunderstandings that have developed through cultural back and forth negotiation since ancient times until today. She utilizes her craft to bridge cultures and create dynamic conversations, and she suggests new understandings of our
contemporary condition.
Lin Wang
(b. 1985, Shandong, China) lives and works between Oslo, Norway and Jingde Zhen,
China. Wang is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with porcelain
installations and performance. Her practice explores how art can use innovative
angles and platforms to penetrate contemporary personal and social spheres in a
simple manner. Solo exhibitions include Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings - The Silk Roads, at The Vigeland Museum, Oslo and Kunsthall Grenland, Porsgrunn; Exotic
Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings (Performance Dinner), KODE Art Museum,
Bergen; Exotic Dreams and Poetic
Misunderstanding, BWA Wrocław Galleries of Contemporary Art; and Storyteller, PYO Gallery, Beijing. Group
exhibitions include The World’s Most
Northern Chinatown, Barents Spektakel, Kirkenes; 125 Objects, Choices, Stories and True Blue, National Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Trondheim; and
the 7th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial. Her work is
part of the permanent collection of The National Museum of Art, Architecture
and Design (Norway).
