iInstitute of Contemporary Art, PhiladelphiaUniversity City
The Condition of Being Near
Group exhibition on solidarity across Black, African and Chinese diasporic networks, with video, installation, prints and archival works by nine artists.
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Candice Lin's Swamp Fat is a cluster of ceramic frogs, snakes and lizards, made from clay collected near Saint Malo, Louisiana, and filled with a solid perfume of animal lard scented with rot. Saint Malo is tied to Black maroon history and was home to the first permanent Asian community in the United States, and the whole show is built from meeting points like that one.
Ten artists, among them Wifredo Lam, Yinka Shonibare and Ming Wong, trace how Black, African and Chinese diasporas ended up living and working side by side, from the Caribbean and West Africa to Taiwan and the US. You follow three themes, which the curators call "acupuncture points", posted around the gallery from work to work. At the centre is an interactive Welcome Center by Penn music-technology professor Eugene Lew, built from archival, everyday and pop-culture material.
Entry is free, Wednesday to Sunday 11am to 6pm and until 8pm on Thursdays, through 21 February 2027.
Editor's pick
Candice Lin's ceramic frogs and snakes are made from Louisiana swamp clay and filled with a lard perfume that smells of rot. Ten artists including Wifredo Lam and Yinka Shonibare trace where Black, African and Chinese diasporas met.
Look for
Candice Lin's Swamp Fat
Ceramic frogs, snakes and lizards made from Louisiana swamp clay, each holding a solid perfume of animal lard that smells of rot.
Pok Chi Lau's altar lightboxes
Photographs of small rooms and syncretic family altars kept by Cuba's Chinese diaspora, among them the Jose Joa family altar, shown as lightboxes.
Eugene Lew's Welcome Center
An interactive station at the core of the gallery where archival, everyday and pop-culture threads behind the show can be explored.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
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Image credits
7
- The Condition of Being NearCourtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
- Marketing Medicine: The Art of Selling a CureCourtesy of Mütter Museum
- Creative Processing: Art in TherapyCourtesy of Mütter Museum
- Creating a City of MedicineCourtesy of Mütter Museum
- Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphiaajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Penn Museumajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Mütter Museum颐园居 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0