Monika Lin

Monika Lin was born in Manhattan NY, USA. She has been living in Shanghai since 2006. As an artist and writer, Lin has looked critically at intersections of race, gender, labor and culture through metaphorical and narrative forms. She has an interdisciplinary practice that includes drawing, printmaking, painting, sculpture, animation, social art practice and public installation.
 
Lin has attended residencies in San Francisco, Jindezhen, and Vermont.  Exhibitions include shows at the Power Station of Art, Art Labor Gallery, the Shanghai World Financial Center, OV Gallery, and the Shanghai Fine Art Museum in Shanghai; the San Francisco Performance Art Institute and Toomey Tourell Fine Art in San Francisco; Central Booking Gallery, NYC; the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Taibei; the Richmond Art Center in California; and the Asia Arts Initiative in Philadelphia. In May, 2018 she completed a site specific public art installation in Nanjing.

Previous to NYU Shanghai in 2017, she taught drawing, painting, and book arts at the Kansas City Art Institute; printing and painting at the San Francisco Art Institute; and conducted lectures and workshops at the Minsheng Museum and the Rockbund Museum in Shanghai. She currently gives lectures and workshops at the Power Station of Art.  Lin is represented by galleries in NY, San Francisco, and Shanghai.
 
www.monikalin.com

Monika Lin Previous Classes
 
ART-SHU 211
Foundations in Painting: Painting in Practice and Theory
Fall 2017
 
This course addresses Chinese contemporary painting in the context of the larger global conversation. Students become familiar with artists such as Ding Yi, Mark Bradford, Li Shurui, Liang Yuan Wei, Beatriz Milhazes, Shahzia Sikander, Wangechi Mutu, Yang Yongliang, Yao Lu, and Yu Hong and concerns regarding the history of painting (from a national as well as global perspective); the nature of material and technique; the realities of vast urbanization and globalization; and what role the artists themselves potentially play in cross-cultural communication.
 
Students learn or revisit foundational techniques, modes, forms, and applications – composition, color, form, space, surface, and texture using materials such as acrylic and watercolor, various mediums, ink, collage and transfer techniques, and reductive methods.
 
ART-SHU 274 Woodblock Printmaking in Practice and Theory
Fall 2017, January term 2018, January term 2019
 
Students are introduced to woodblock printmaking techniques in conjunction with its history, starting with the origins –wood block printmaking in China. From this starting point, they trace the global history of relief printing as it crossed China’s borders into Japan and elsewhere in Asia and South East Asia and, finally, the West. Students become familiar with this history and technique through practical application as well as an historical and theoretical lens. In order to contextualize the forms, functions and representations therein, students consider contemporary Chinese artists working with woodblock prints in relation to artists from elsewhere around the globe.
 
Students learn foundational techniques, modes, forms, and applications of relief prints (stamps and woodcuts) and, through this hands-on experience, gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the art form.
 
ART-SHU 250 Visual Culture and Social Art Practice: Collaborations and Community Interactions
Spring 2018, Fall 2018
 
What role does art play in our contemporary society?  Who is it for, what does it represent, and why? How can we, as visual culture participants and producers, ensure that we are relevant, engaged, engaging, and inclusive? How does locality and culture play a part in how we think about and present what we are making?
 
The purpose of this course is two-fold. Students will gain an understanding of Social Art Practice in China (including projects such as Social Sensibility, The China Rural Reconstruction Academy, and Grass Stage) and engage directly with Shanghai through outreach and collaborative projects. This is an opportunity for students to interact artistically and directly with Chinese communities as well as consider themselves in relation to those communities. Through the lens of social and relational art practices, they will develop and realize projects specific to various communities in Shanghai.
 
ART-SHU 255 Printmaking in an Expanded Field
Spring 2018, Fall 2018
 
In the tradition of printmaking, the matrix, or mould, from which to make replicable images could be made from wood block, copper or zinc plate, lithographic stone, silk or synthetic screen, acrylic sheeting, in negative or positive form.
 
However, a matrix is also the cultural, social, or political environment in which something develops. In this comparative course students will consider complex issues such as appropriation versus translation; authenticity; and artistic cultural identity and ownership as they relate to art making and exhibition practices around the globe.
 
Students will revisit techniques, modes, forms, and applications of printmaking – monotypes (transfers and rubbings), relief prints (stamps and wood cuts), intaglio (dry point engraving), stencils, and mixed media technique – in a conceptual framework of global visual culture through a semester-long project.