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.