Artist and Works

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Miki Akiko

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LIN Yilin is known for works made by stacking bricks. Originally trained as a sculptor, he later became interested in architecture and found brick walls an expressive means through which to explore the relationship between sculpture and architecture.  

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Part of the Big Tailed Elephant (meaning an elephant with lots of expenses), a group pursuing problems related to the high speed of change in Chinese cities, LIN has examined the relationship  between human beings and architecture, the materialization of the body, and the complex relationship between human beings and nature. From Guangzhou, the earliest region of China to be opened to the outside, LIN's work clearly reflects the problems caused by the ongoing transformation of the large southern cities, commercial prosperity, and the resulting chaos and disorder.

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Among his wide variety of installations and performances, the most interesting was perhaps a performance in which the artist moved a wall from one side of a road to the other, one brick at a time. The performance took place during rush hour in one of the most crowded thoroughfares inGuangzhou and called attention to physical labor and exercise, time, and process. It caused traffic to stop, inconveniencing drivers whilst giving them a renewed awareness of their environment and illuminating the problem of the traffic jam, a new phenomenon in China. The movement of the wall, with its references to larger architectural  structures,  made  people more conscious  of  the  reality  of  their  society  and  its incessant