Public Artwork
Love Stories
Artwork creator(s):
Tsang, Henry
Text author(s):
Tsang, Henry
Installation year:
1992
Remarks on location:
On one of the sides of Burrard Inlet
Description:
Billboard poster installed at the seabus terminal.
Text of the artwork:
She doesn’t desire White Boys
over anyone else. But they keep
gravitating towards her.
Other men just can’t
Turn Her On
in the same way.
Her skin was Silky Smooth
to the touch. So is yours, she said :
From then on, I began looking
at Asian women,
something I never
before could do.
Text theme:
Anecdotes of interacial desire
Artwork theme:
Racial identity, sexual identity, desire, sexual (inter)racial preference.
History:
Poster on a billboard (2001), installed at the seabus terminal, North Vancouver. Order Presentation House Gallery.
Event: Facing History Poster Project, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, BC. Curator: Karen Love.
September 8-October 28, 2001.
Also presented in Toronto in 1992
Event date(s):
2001 Note(s):
Text version of the work presented at Gallery 44, Toronto, 1992:
I commented on how difficult it
seemed for some men of
Chinese ancestry to
consider Chinese
women as
beautiful,
or if
beautiful,
then as desirable.
Martin, whose wife is
of German descent, admitted
that he still had that problem.
Cornelio was surprised. In Hawaii,
where he grew up, Asians were
always thought of as
more beautiful.
He said
this with a
certain sadness,
for although he was a
good-looking guy, it was never
Asians who found him attractive.
The very
thought disgusted her.
Why would she ever want to
do anything like that, she demanded.
Kissing one would be like kissing her
brother. And going out with
a Chinese guy would
feel, simply put,
incestuous.
I caught her
staring at me. She
looked so Chinese to me, too.
I was surprised by the touch of her
skin-it was true, it was so smooth. So
was mine, she said. And after awhile I
began to look at Asian women,
something that I never before
could bring myself
to do.
I asked her about her preferences.
She said that although she didn’t
exactly prefer white men over
anybody else, they seemed
to gravitate towards her.
Besides, she couldn’t
find any other men
who could turn
her on in the
same way.
He was relatively open-minded, he
said, for someone who grew up in
Winnipeg 50 years ago. For
instance, he didn’t mind
his daughter going out
with anyone non-
Chinese, as
long as he
wasn’t
white.
Artist's biography:
Henry Tsang Document(s):
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