林天苗1961年出生于山西太原，现居住和工作在北京。
1984年研修于首都师范大学美术系。1988年赴美，1989年于纽约艺术学生联盟学院学习，后以设计师的身份在纽约工作了近7年时间。1995年林天苗从纽约回国，在“开放工作室”的艺术活动中展出了 “缠的扩散”、“圣德蕾娜的诱惑”、“裤子”、“树” 等作品，奠定了她从事实验性艺术的重要性地位，同时也是第一批获得国际关注和认可的中国女性艺术家之一。以90年代在北京、上海等地发生的 “公寓艺术” 概念，林的艺术实践被囊获其中。在她早期作品中，她以线缠绕的习惯而闻名，她将丝绸、头发、棉花等材料紧紧缠绕在她发现和制造的物体表面，其行为源于林幼年协助母亲收集整理棉线、毛线缠绕习惯的记忆。林的工作从研究自身处境的体验感悟出发，兼顾社会角色身份与社会背景之间的关系，质疑女性单一社会角色的传统观念。1998年创建了 “北京藏酷新媒体艺术空间”，从基建、内部装修做设计、监工、设备管理、协调等事务；1999年协调有关 “北京藏酷新媒体艺术空间” 组织、赞助、宣传、策划等等活动，为 “北京藏酷新媒体艺术空间” 举办上百场次的各种文化活动做最基础的幕后工作。2012年，成功在亚洲协会美术馆举办了《林天苗：缠了，再剪开》个展，此展览是林首次在美国美术馆举办的展览。1997年土耳其的伊斯坦布尔双年展；2002年上海双年展和爱尔兰双年展，2003年越后妻友三年展；2002年和2004年两届的韩国光州双年展；2016年日本濑户三年展。2015年林以告别女性话题为主线的个展 “1.62M”，在昊美术馆举办。
近年来林试图摆脱女性主义话题的困顿，以开放的姿态游走于大型装置、雕塑、摄影、视频及各种其他媒介实践的工作中。林的作品被很多中外美术馆收藏：纽约的布鲁克林美术馆、纽约的MoMA、澳大利亚国家美术馆、旧金山MoMA、香港的M+、西雅图当代美术馆、新加坡美术馆和蓬皮杜美术馆等等。
Lin Tianmiao was born in 1961 in Taiyuan, China. She now lives and works in Beijing, China.
Lin Tianmiao studied in the Fine Art department of Capital Normal University, Beijing in 1984. She then went to the US in 1988. After graduating from the Art Students League in New York in 1989, she worked as a designer in New York for almost seven years. In 1995, Lin Tianmiao returned to China from New York. Presenting The Temptation of St. Teresa, The Proliferation of Thread Winding, Pants, Trees, among others in an open studio, she thus laid out the important positions of her engagement in experimental art; during the same time, she became known as one of the first Chinese female artists to gain international recognition. During the 1990s, when “apartment art” was a phenomenon in Beijing and Shanghai, Lin gained a great deal of experience. Lin’s early works are known for her practice of thread-winding where she binds the material—usually silk, hair, cotton, or felt—tightly around found and manufactured objects. Initially tasked by her mother to spool cotton as a young girl, Lin later reclaimed this act. Lin’s work studies her own social role and the relationship between identity and social context, questioning women’s identity. In 1998, Lin and Wang Gongxin created the Loft Media Center. She had done everything from infrastructure and interior decoration to design, supervision, equipment management, organization, etc. It laid the foundation for holding hundreds of cultural events in the future. In 2012, the Asia Society Museum in New York presented Bound Unbound, the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition in the U.S.
She has participated in the Istanbul Biennale, Turkey (1997); the Shanghai Biennale, China (2002); the Ireland Biennale (2002); the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2002, 2004); and the Setouchi Triennale, Japan (2016). In 2015, Lin had a solo show as a farewell for feminine themes entitled “1.62M” which was held in HOW Art Museum. In recent years, Lin has come out of the predicament of feminism, and has created large-scale installations, sculptures, photography, videos and various other media practices with an open mind.
