Candice Lin: The Agnotology of Tigers
LSU Museum of Art 100 Lafayette Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly Gallery, Photography by Ian Byer-Gamber
Candice Lin, La Charada China (Tobacco Version), 2019, cement with casein paint, welded steel table frame, tobacco, ceramics, distillation system (distilling a tincture of tobacco, sugar, tea, and poppy), poppy pod putty, sugarcane, white sugar, cacao, sage, ackee, oak gall, Anadenanthera, dong quai, California clay, Dominican Republic clay, metal parts, bucket, pumps, tubing, dried indigo, glass slides, bottles, drawings, tile, rubber, wood.
In a special installation exhibited at the LSU Museum of Art, sculpture artist Candice Lin presents her project La Charada China, a study of the indentured Chinese labor trade. Made of pressed tobacco leaves, a stereotypical "coolie" figure holds various plants and materials associated with the labor trade in a style derived from a divination-type gambling game practiced by Chinese laborers in the Caribbean. The installation features a distillation system that drips a tincture of tobacco, tea, sugar, and poppy—all valuable colonial commodities—onto an unfired porcelain sculpture, eroding it. Metaphorically, these herbal medicines also erode the presumed associations of whiteness with purity, superiority, and hardness.
As an LSU Visiting Artist, Lin will work with students at the university to create the porcelain sculpture destined to be destroyed in the installation's process. Alongside La Charada China are also recent works of Lin's that are based on archival images from LSU football's "Chinese bandits" and cheerleaders who dressed as coolie laborers.
On October 13, Lin will present her Visiting Artist Lecture to the LSU School of Art. Learn more about that event, here.
On October 20, the LSU Museum of Art will host a special opening reception for the exhibition from 6 pm–8 pm.
