Genius/Genus Bar

Genius/Genus Bar highlights ‘genius’ as a superficial language unit that legitimizes resource investment into people, entities and practices which have gained attention and desirability via historic, inherited and obfuscated means. It is the first in a series of soap-on-a-rope sculptures in the shape of words which I view as being applied so broadly and weaponized so frequently that their meanings have not only evaporated but have become equivalent to toxic gasses harming human potential.  ‘Genus’—adding context that the state of being elevated can only exist within hierarchy—is a rank within biological taxonomy, whose 18th century origins include the concept of four “varieties” of humans, thus playing a foundational role in the creation of race. 

The color and material (soap with glutathione which is the main ingredient in skin-whitening products) have been chosen to reinforce the racial and hierarchical aspects entangled in every capitalist embodiment—the “conjoined twins,” Ibram X. Kendi’s description of the relationship between capitalism and racism. As a person of Asian descent, I am both intimately familiar with the colonialist and assimilationist-driven ideals of femininity and cleanliness, while, at the same time, have had many run-ins with the pedestal of smart, which often equates to high status, high salary, and ultimately safety into old age.