Joseph Clark Collection
Tai Shani – Haunted by a Million Small Suns (Cardinal) (2025)
A candlestick that has lost its shape: a winding cardinal-red form crowned with a glowing glass flame, from Tai Shani's recent body of light sculptures.
Held in The Joseph Clark Collection, which follows a younger generation of artists alongside Louise Bourgeois, Phyllida Barlow and Glenn Ligon.
About the artist
Tai Shani (born 1976, London) works across performance, film, photography, sculptural installation and experimental text. Her work recovers forgotten histories and imagines feminist futures. In 2019 she shared the Turner Prize with Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock and Oscar Murillo, after the four asked the jury to award it to them jointly. (Wikipedia)
Her project DC: Semiramis, drawn from Christine de Pizan's 15th-century The Book of the City of Ladies, was shown at Glasgow International and The Tetley, Leeds, in 2018, and at Turner Contemporary in 2019. In 2025 she showed The Spell or The Dream at Somerset House, London. (Wikipedia)
More on Tai ShaniAbout the artwork
A deep red form winds low across its base like a melted candle, with drips gathering where it rises. At its tip sits a hand-shaped glass flame, lit from within, shading from blue at the root to pale lilac.
Candlesticks recur across Shani's work. From April 2025 to March 2026 the High Line in New York showed her commission The Sun Is a Flame That Haunts The Night: three candlestick sculptures, each with a glass flame that glows at night. Haunted by a Million Small Suns (Cardinal) brings that motif indoors, at domestic scale. (The High Line)
Provenance and attribution
- © Tai Shani. Courtesy of the Joseph Clark Collection.