Estrogen and Melanin in the Art of Jes Fan

• In Event: The Edible, the Moldy, and the Weedy: Speculative and Materialist Interventions into (Evading) Capitalist Capture

Abstract

Advancements in science and in art go hand in hand. In _Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body_, I dissect the figure of the medically or artistically commodified body in Chinese cultures and popular science, focusing on examples like the use of cadaverous materials by Chinese experimental artists in the early 2000s; Hong Kong independent films featuring plotlines about organ transplant; and the global reception of the controversial yet wildly successful plastinated human body exhibits. Today I will outline some of the highlights of this new material, and then introduce a recent project on installations by Jes Fan, a Brooklyn-based artist from Canada and Hong Kong who uses materials like estrogen and melanin—fabricated in collaboration with a laboratory—to challenge conceptions about the immutability of race and gender.

Author

• Ari Heinrich, UCSD