A Hard White Body: book presentation and performance

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31st, 2020
4:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Candice Lin, A Hard White Body, edited by Lotte Arndt and Yesomi Umolu, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2019.

Book pre­sen­ta­tion by Lotte Arndt and Lucas Morin
Performance: Paul Maheke, Taboo Durag

Following gov­ern­ment announce­ments, the launch of Candice Lin’s book, A Hard White Body, orig­i­nally planned as a face-to-face event, was pro­posed in an online format with Candice Lin, Paul Maheke, Lotte Arndt and Lucas Morin.

In text and images, the book Candice Lin: A Hard White Body gathers three exhi­bi­tions pre­sented between 2017 and 2019 at Bétonsalon – Center for art and research (Paris), Portikus (Francfort-sur-le-Main), Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (Chicago). 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.

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.

A Hard White Body com­poses a research made of mul­tiple voices and bodies. For the book launch, Paul Maheke was invited to extend the con­ver­sa­tions and exchanges, proposing a trail, the per­for­mance Taboo Durag. Thought as a danced stroll unfolding dif­ferent nar­ra­tive and chore­o­graphic reg­is­ters, this piece will explore porous inter­faces between vul­ner­a­bility and resilience. Due to the health con­text, a resched­uled per­for­mance is planned.

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Paul Maheke (b. 1985, Brive-la-Gaillarde, France) lives and works in London, UK. After studying at ENSA Paris-Cergy, Paris and Open School East, London, Paul Maheke’s works and per­for­mances have been shown at Tate Modern, London, the Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, Baltic Triennial 13, Tallinn, Manifesta 12, Palermo and Chisenhale Gallery, London, amongst others. With a focus on dance and through a varied and often col­lab­o­ra­tive body of work com­prising per­for­mance, instal­la­tion, sound and video, Paul Maheke con­siders the poten­tial of the body as an archive in order to examine how memory and iden­tity are formed and con­sti­tuted.

Lucas Morin (b. 1993, France) is a Paris-based con­tem­po­rary art curator. Working pri­marily with research-based prac­tices, his work high­lights the tan­gible mate­rial ves­tiges and less-tan­gible emo­tional affects of queer desire, colo­nial his­to­ries, labor rela­tions, and human-animal inter­ac­tions. Morin most recently held the posi­tion of curator at Bétonsalon, Paris from 2016-19, and was pre­vi­ously cura­to­rial assis­tant at the Sursock Museum, Beirut from 2014-15. At Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research he curated three com­mis­sions with solo artists (Candice Lin: A Hard White Body, 2017, cur. with Lotte Arndt; Gaëlle Choisne: TEMPLE OF LOVE, 2018; and Jean-Charles de Quillacq: Ma sys­tème repro­duc­tive, 2019) and one group exhi­bi­tion (Lateral Recovery Position, 2019, cur. with Guslagie Malanda). As an inde­pen­dent curator he has pro­duced an exhi­bi­tion and edu­ca­tion pro­gram titled Emotional Labor at ENSA Bourges, 2019-2020, cur. with Sasha Pevak, including the exhi­bi­tions: Emotional Labor, La Box, 2019, and to Thomas, La Box & Ygrec, 2020.

Writer and curator Lotte Arndt (Paris, France) lec­tures at École supérieure d’art et design Valence Grenoble, and accom­pa­nies the work of artists who crit­i­cally inter­ro­gate the post­colo­nial pre­sent and the blind spots of moder­nity. She co-curated Sammy Baloji: Extractive Landscapes (2019, with S. Rudolph) at Museumspavillon, Salzburg ; Candice Lin: A Hard White Body (2017, with Lucas Morin) at Bétonsalon, Paris, and Candice Lin: A Hard White Body, a Soft White Worm (2018, with Philippe Pirotte and Lucas Morin) at Portikus, Frankfurt/Main. With Malick Ndiaye, Marian Nur Goni and Emmanuelle Chérel she cur­rently works on a pro­ject on (post-)ethno­graphic col­lec­tions in dif­ferent African and European museums (2019-2021), and with the artist’s col­lec­tive On-Trade-Off on transna­tional artistic strate­gies to inves­ti­gate lithium mining. Recent pro­jects include: Summer Akademy Salzburg (July, 2019, with Sammy Baloji); L’intrus. Curatorial Intensive (with Natasha Marie Llorens, Tabakalera, Donostia, 2018) ; Tampered Emotions. Lust for Dust, Triangle France (2018); One Sentence Exhibition, Kadist (August 2018); and the research pro­gram The Vacation of the Museum. Decolonize Ethnographic Collections with Cinema (2016-2018). In 2016, she was Goethe fellow at Villa Vassilieff, Paris, and sub­se­quently guest editor of the online magazine Qalqalah (2017). Her PhD is ded­i­cated to post­colo­nial nego­ti­a­tions in Paris based cul­tural magazines related to Africa (2013). She is a member of the research group Global Art Prospective (INHA Paris), of the edi­to­rial com­mittee of art center La Criée, Rennes; pub­lishes on artistic strate­gies that aim to sub­vert euro­cen­tric nar­ra­tives and insti­tu­tions, and co-orga­nizes cul­tural pro­grams, screen­ings and dis­cus­sions in artistic and aca­demic spaces. Her pub­li­ca­tions include Magazines Do Culture! Postcolonial Negotiations in Paris Based Periodicals Relating to Africa (in French), WVT, 2016; Crawling Doubles. Colonial Collecting and Affect (with Mathieu K. Abonnenc and Catalina Lozano), B42, 2016; Hunting & Collecting. Sammy Baloji (with Asger Taiaksev), MuZEE, Galerie Imane Farès, 2016.

Zoom screen­shot, online con­ver­sa­tion between Candice Lin, Paul Maheke, Lotte Arndt and Lucas Morin around Candice Lin, A Hard White Body, October 31th, 2020.