Michael Lin

Michael Lin creates monumental painting installations that reimagine and transform public spaces.

Biography of Michael Lin

Michael Lin was born in 1964 in Tokyo, Japan, and is a prominent Taiwanese contemporary painter and conceptual artist. He currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium, and Taipei, Taiwan. Lin's family moved from Taiwan to Los Angeles in 1973 due to political uncertainties in Taiwan.

Lin graduated from Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, in 1990 and earned an MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, in 1993. Influences on his work include artists such as Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, and Franz West, as well as essayist Elaine Scarry and Taiwanese New Wave Cinema directors Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, and Edward Yang.

Throughout his career, Lin has worked in various cities, including Taipei, Paris, Brussels, and Shanghai. His notable exhibitions include solo shows at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Rogaland School of Art in Stavanger, Norway, and several international biennials, including the Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, and Gwangju Biennale. Lin has also been featured in group shows at MoMA PS1 in New York and Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna.

Recent solo exhibitions include "Onsenbouquet" at Beppu Project in Beppu City (2023), "Macule" at Southbank Center, Hayward Gallery in London (2023), "Pentachrome" at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2022), "Archipelago" at Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto (2020), and many more. 

Michael Lin's Art Style

Lin shifts the focus of painting from being an object of contemplation to a bounded, physical space that we can enter and inhabit (Vivian Rehberg). He creates monumental painting installations that reimagine and transform public spaces, using patterns and designs inspired by traditional Taiwanese textiles. 

By altering the institutional architecture of the public museum, his unconventional paintings encourage visitors to rethink their usual perception of these spaces. They invite viewers to become an integral part of the work, enhancing its potential as a space for interaction, engagement, and re-creation.

Lin is connected with a generation of artists engaged in the philosophy of Relational Aesthetics, but he also focuses on regional cultural contexts and local vernacular. His repetitive and seemingly simple floral landscapes, deeply rooted in Taiwanese visual language, have become the most politically and culturally resonant aspects of his work.

Lin has also collaborated with several luxury fashion, furniture, and tableware brands. He has worked with the Italian furniture manufacturer Moroso, and the fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, and designed store interiors for Louis Vuitton.