Candice Lin. A Hard White Body

This pub­li­ca­tion show­cases A Hard White Body, an evolving pro­ject by Candice Lin pre­sented at Bétonsalon—centre d’art et de recherche, Paris; at Portikus, Frankfurt/Main; and at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago. A Hard White Body  weaves together mate­rial and non­human his­to­ries alongside the life and work of three his­tor­ical fig­ures: American writer James Baldwin (1924–1987); French explorer and global trav­eler Jeanne Baret (1740–1807); and artist and nat­u­ralist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717). Lin uses porce­lain, a mate­rial whose his­tory includes nine­teenth-cen­tury impe­rial and sci­en­tific uses, to high­light fan­tasies sur­rounding white­ness and purity, only to sub­ject her porce­lain assem­blages to pun­gent organic mate­rials. She thus stages pro­cesses of con­tam­i­na­tion between organic and inor­ganic mate­rials, cre­ating an unstable sculp­tural ecosystem. In addi­tion to an essay by curator Lotte Arndt that dis­cusses the var­ious iter­a­tions of Lin’s pro­ject, the pub­li­ca­tion fea­tures an essay by Rizvana Bradley; a con­ver­sa­tion between Jih-Fei Cheng and Mel Y. Chen; and a con­ver­sa­tion between the artist and C. Riley Snorton. These texts are accom­pa­nied by a visual essay by the artist and a selec­tion of exhi­bi­tion views.

Direction: Alyssa Brubaker et Katja Rivera

Texts by Mélanie Bouteloup, Bill Michel and Philippe Pirotte, Lotte Arndt and Yesomi Umolu, Lotte Arndt, Rizvana Bradley, Mel Y. Chen and Jih-Fei Cheng, Candice Lin
Graphic design : Studio ELLA

Edited by Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, with the sup­port of Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and Hessische Kulturstiftung. This pub­li­ca­tion wouldn’t have been pos­sible without François Ghebably, Los Angeles.
Distribution: The University of Chicago Press

Publication: 2019

English edi­tion

14.5 x 23 cm 

160 pages 

ISBN 978-0-692-13836-6
 

35 €

The pub­li­ca­tion can be pur­chased at Bétonsalon - Center for Art and research, and is avail­able for mail order (cost of the book + postage).