TIMOTHY HORN
ROCK SUGAR

Sweet Power: The Dark History of Sugared Opulence

Imagine being in a grocery store in Albuquerque, New Mexico when someone next to you gets stuck in a turnstile with three grocery carts filled with rock sugar. That person is not baking a large cake or making barrels of rum. No, this is the artist Timothy Horn, a man fueled by an artistic vision for the de Young Museum in San Francisco. And the bags of rock sugar? Those are for his grand rock sugar carriage—yes, you read that right.

Five years later Tim’s embarrassing experience at the grocery store would give way to a masterpiece. The 9 ft by 6 ft imperial carriage, Mother Load, drew inspiration from San Francisco’s high-society Spreckels family who shaped the Golden City through their wealth in the sugar industry.  Inspired by Queen Victoria’s Westminster carriage, the rococo/ baroque style seems perfect for someone like Alma Spreckels—a wealthy socialite who had her own version of a royal procession, gliding through Union Square in a similar carriage.

But one should not be deceived by the brilliance and detail of Horn’s work. The elaborate decoration and imposing scale of the piece reference the splendor of the sugar industry’s heyday in the 1890s, while also implicitly commenting on its dark imperialistic history—namely, the exploitation that built much of the wealth surrounding sugar, from colonial plantations to the horrors of the slave trade. Horn’s style is a provocative juxtaposition: crystalline beauty and the unsettling reflection on the costs of luxury and empire.

Next time you're wandering the aisles, you might think twice about the weight of a bag of sugar, or perhaps you’ll decide to make art out of something so simple. And if you do happen to get an odd look while shopping, just remember: some things take years to crystallize.