What can a cat teach us about art – and the afterlife?

It’s been a long-held dream of Candice Lin’s to have a cat lead an exhibition tour, and it’s finally happening in Melbourne.

“I never thought anybody would take it seriously and make it happen,” the Chinese-American artist says. We’re speaking a day before the preview of her new show, The Sex Life of Stone, at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA). Over two weekends in July, the exhibition will be led by a cat named Kovu.

Candice Lin with Kovu, the cat who will lead tours of the artist’s exhibition at the Monash University Museum of Art. Credit: Simon Schluter

The cat-led tour is both an experiment and an extension of the themes Lin explores in her work: the creatures feature in The Animal Husband and The Blueness, video works narrated respectively by Lin’s cat, Roger, and Roger’s feral uncle, White-n-Gray, as they ruminate on life and death. Both consider the power dynamics between humans and animals. “A lot of my work tries to think about what a non-human-centred view of the world would look like,” Lin says.

The artist took inspiration from the way Roger interacts with and observes her art practice, as well as the spiritual life of cats. “My work is often dealing with things in history that, I think, are a little bit haunted,” she says. “There might be demons or other spiritual aspects of the work that allow you to be able to feel the content of what the piece is about, even though you’re just looking at physical objects.”

To make the tour happen, MUMA had to research animal welfare codes of practice, then find a cat who was up to the task.

“A lot of my work tries to think about what a non-human-centred view of the world would look like,” says artist Candice Lin.Credit: Simon Schluter

An animal talent agency led them to Kovu, a local professional feline actor. For this show, he received no specific training – his instruction is simply to walk through the space as he pleases, and his actions, or lack thereof, will hopefully answer Lin’s central question: “If we look at what Kovu is looking at or avoiding, will we see something about the exhibition that maybe we wouldn’t look at that way if we just came into it with the expectations of what an art exhibition is?”

Are there any predictions on how it will go? “I don’t have any specific thing I’m hoping for,” Lin says. “Kovu may be indifferent, which is OK – my feelings won’t be hurt.”

The next day I go into the gallery, and out trots Kovu. He’s a beautiful creature, all fluff and big blue eyes. I wonder what we’ll see through his eyes. But when we get to the first gallery space, the animal walks in, then walks straight back out. He never returns.

I’m left to explore the exhibition through my own eyes. I Breathe Through My Anus (Night Stone), co-commissioned with the Biennale of Sydney, is mesmerising: a large boat floating atop manganese-glazed ceramics making a distorted map above a circular sculpture. A song narrated by a sea cucumber plays ethereally as water drips around the edges. This is Lin’s commentary on early trade relationships and environmental concerns, telling an abstract story about sea cucumbers becoming toxified from manganese pigment polluting the ocean.

Lithium Sex Demons in the Factory is a chaotic installation of three laboratory-like stations covered with whirring objects, chemicals and colonial trade objects such as cochineal. Each station depicts a stage in the life of a fictional demon working in the factory. It’s a typical Lin work, imbuing inanimate objects with cursed speculative histories and wicked humour.

The Sex Life of Stone by Candice Lin is open at the Monash University Museum of Art.Credit: Simon Schluter

Then, in the last room, those two video works. The haunting is present here in these unsettling animals with almost human bodies, speaking with human voices about the beginning, and the end, of everything. The rotating screen – one video ends and the other immediately begins – compounds the cyclical nature of it all.

Perhaps Kovu was telling us something when he walked out of the tour. Perhaps he was proving Lin’s point: humans wield too much power over animals, and this is what we deserve. Or perhaps he’s just a cat who got bored.

I return home to my own cat and wonder what he would make of any of this – if he’d think about art at all. As Lin says, “My interest in trying to inhabit a view that’s not human is about rethinking power, to see what that reveals.”

Candice Lin’s The Sex Life of Stone is on at MUMA until September 7. Kovu will be leading tours on July 6 and July 20.

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