EVERYTHING MUST GOMartin WongDec. 10, 2009-Jan. 31, 2010PPOW Gallery, NYC

http://www.ppowgallery.com/exhibition.php?id=51

Martin Wong
Everything Must Go

Curated by Adam Putnam

Full color catalogue available

December 10, 2009– January 30, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 10, 6-8pm


P•P•O•W is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Martin Wong, curated by Adam Putnam. Martin Wong, who died in 1999 due to an AIDS related illness, was born in 1946 in Portland, Oregon and moved to New York City in 1978. He received a degree in ceramics, but decided to become a painter when he was thirty years old. He first started exhibiting at the Semaphore Gallery in New York. Martin Wong's last exhibition at P•P•O•W was in 2000.

For most of his time in NYC, Martin Wong stayed nestled in the Lower East Side, enmeshed in the fabric of his neighborhood and the people around him. His work has traditionally been described as a document of that time in the 1980's and 1990's, capturing a moment in the history of the city marked by vacant lots, graffiti and a burgeoning club culture.

This exhibition presents an intuitive ramble through the estate left by this unique and visionary artist. It offers a glimpse into a private world populated by crumbling tenements, vacant lots, prisoners (with those burning eyes), closed gates (and open legs), downtown poets, hustlers, and if we are lucky, perhaps an off-duty Fireman.

Martin Wong wanders through an urban landscape and refashions it into something new. His paintings take us inward, through a hidden, alternative landscape of longing and deeply felt subjectivity. Following this logic of desire, a crumbled brick tenement can become laced with the erotic or a painting of a single cactus can carry all the restrained passion of an unmet gaze from a sexy stranger.

Also on view are several rarely seen photo collages on loan from The Fales Library archives as well as drawings and sketches. These photos are remarkable for the fact that they not only exist as source material for some of the larger paintings but also as a rare document of the long walks the artist would take in and around the Lower East Side.

The vacant lots have long since been filled in, but don't let the glass facades fool you. There is always the torn seam or frayed edge... you just need to know where to look.

The exhibition is accompanied by a full color illustrated catalog with an essay by Carlo McCormick.

On January 26th there will be a panel discussion tentatively based upon the themes of secret languages in the work of Martin Wong. The event will be hosted by the NYU Steinhardt School of Art and Arts Professions.

Adam Putnam is an artist living and working in NYC. His work has been exhibited at P.S.1, Art Statements Basel, the 2008 Whitney Biennial and most recently, at Taxter and Spengemann Gallery. In 2006 Adam Putnam, with artist Shannon Ebner, curated the show Blow Both of Us at Participant Inc.

Where is Home? Chinese Artists and Community — Artists Panel Talk moderated by Lily Wei Saturday, Dec. 12th at MOCA, NYC

Where is Home? Chinese Artists and Community

Location: MOCA 215 Center St. NYC

Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009
Time: 3:00pm-4:30pm

MOCA presents curator, essayist and art critic Lily Wei in conversation with the artists of "Here and Now: Chinese Artists in New York, Chapter II: Crossing Boundaries" about home, community and the artistic process.

Lily Wei, moderator

Artists:
Long-Bin Chen
Ming Fay
Shiyi Sheng
Zhang Hongtu


Moderator Bio
Lilly Wei is a New York-based independent curator, essayist and critic who contributes to many publications in the United States and abroad. She has written regularly for Art in America since 1982 and is a contributing editor at ARTnews.

New Website for INDAARInternational Network for Diasporic Asian Art Research

http://indaar.asianaustralianstudies.org/

Art by artists of Asian descent in countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States is a significant cultural production, both in historical and contemporary terms. INDAAR offers a context to internationalise research on diasporic Asian art in these countries and others.

AIMS:

INDAAR is an international network for researchers interested in comparative and transnational studies of diasporic Asian art.

The network facilitates opportunities for initiating transnational dialogues and generating collaborative research projects.

ABOUT:
INDAAR was initiated by the founding convenor Dean Chan and launched in 2009.

The founding INDAAR Executive comprises Dean Chan, Margo Machida, Alexandra Chang and Jacqueline Lo.

This network is a special project of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN) and established in association with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project entitled “Being Asian in Australia and the United States”.

INDAAR is also supported by the School of Communications and Arts, Edith Cowan University, Australia.

INDIGO: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura KinaBaroda, New Delhi, Mumbai — India

INDIGO: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina

Baroda, New Delhi, Mumbai – India

“Not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood”, an Englishman in the Bengal Civil Service is said to have commented. In the 19th century, Bengal was the world’s biggest producer of indigo but today, the deep blue color of indigo is synthetically created in a lab and is associated, in the West, with blue jeans more than its torrid colonial past. But indigo holds a sustained presence in the post-colonial identity of India.

Employing fair trade embroidery artisans from women’s collectives in India and executing their works in indigo blue, Indian artist SHELLY JYOTI and US artist LAURA KINA’S new works draw upon India’s history, narratives of immigration and transnational economic interchanges.

Shelly Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives utilize traditional embroidery, embellishments, and azrak resist dye techniques along with heritage symbols belonging to traveling ethnic communities who settled in coastal Gujarat while Laura Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series focuses on a contemporary Desi/Jewish community in Chicago, IL.


Shelly Jyoti works in the exhibition and bio:
http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_works_in_exhibition.htm
http://www.shellyjyoti.com/about_us_biography.htm

Laura Kina works in the exhibition and bio:
http://www.laurakina.com/newwork.html
http://www.laurakina.com/statement.html

Catalogue Essays:
Murtaza Vali - The Dye That Binds : Indigo Iconographies -- http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_murtaza_vali.htm
JohnyML - Indigo Inscriptions -- http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_inscriptions_johnyml.htm
Michelle Yee - Moving Materials : Reclaiming Histories Of Migration -- http://www.shellyjyoti.com/indigo_michelle_yee.htm




Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Preview Red Earth Gallery Baroda, Gujarat
December 15-16, 2009
Reception: December 15, 2009 5:30-8:00 pm, artists will be present
Red Earth Art Galleries Pvt. Ltd.
ABS Towers, Old Padra Road Vadodara, India 390007
Tel: 91 265 3201526
http://www.redearthgalleries.com/

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
India Habitat Centre New Delhi
December 22-28, 2009
Opening Reception: December 23, 2009, 5:30-9:00 pm, artists will be present
Open Palm Court Gallery
India Habitat Centre Lodhi Road
New Delhi, India 110003
http://www.indiahabitat.org/

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Nehru Art Centre
January 12-18, 2010
Opening Reception: 12 January, 5:30-8:00 pm, Shelly Jyoti will be present
Dr. Annie Besant Road Worli, Mumbai, India 400018
Tel: 91 22 2496 4676-80
Fax: 91 22 2497 3827
http://www.nehru-centre.org/artgallery.html

Forum for Contemporary Theory
Laura Kina Artist Lecture - “Diaspora on Devon Ave: Stitching South Asian/Jewish Intersections”
Shelly Jyoti Artist Lecture - “The Politics of Indigo: Revisting India’s Torrid Colonial past”
December 31, 2009 4:00 pm
Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics
C-304 Siddhi Vinayak Complex
Framji Road, Baroda-390 007
Gujarat, India
Tel (0265) 2338067
http://fctworld.org

The New York Foundation for the Arts Annual Benefit Honoring Yun-Fei Ji & Anita Durst

SAVE THE DATE

February 25, 2010
6:30 - 9:00 pm

The New York Foundation for the Arts

Annual Benefit

Honoring

Yun-Fei Ji

1999 NYFA Fellow in Printmaking

&

Anita Durst

Artistic Director, chashama

The James Cohan Gallery
533 West 26th Street

Between 10th and 11th Avenues

Kenji Hirata and Ryan McLennanat Joshua Liner Gallery, NYC

Image: Kenji Hirata Gesture Without Motion Acrylic on canvas 2009

	Joshua Liner Gallery, NYC
	October 17 - November 14 2009
	548 W 28th Street 3rd Floor

Description

Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present 'The Way Out is the Way In', an exhibition of new paintings by the New York-based Japanese artist Kenji Hirata & 'The Strain of Inheritance', an exhibition of new mixed-media works on paper by the Richmond, Virginia-based artist Ryan McLennan.


Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present The Way Out is the Way In, an exhibition of new paintings by the New York-based Japanese artist Kenji Hirata. This is Hirata’s first solo show with the gallery.

Inspired by billboards, Southeast Asian signage, and the pop-cultural legacies of Futurism and Superflat, Kenji Hirata’s unique form of hard-edged abstraction celebrates the dynamic interplay of color and form. These small-to-medium-sized, acrylic-on-canvas works explode with the artist’s vocabulary of spaceship forms, overlapping organic lozenges, and stair-step effects, all activated by Hirata’s signature color-wheel gradations of complimentary hues. Eschewing overt statements, Hirata engages in a pure, personalized form of visual play. In his exuberant experimentation with bright color, form, and the suggestion of action, the artist enacts a childlike fantasy of free movement between states of being and imagination.

In Gesture Without Motion, the central image of whirling star shapes is made dense and frenetic with a shower of tiny boomerang forms in white and a stroboscopic staccato of overlaid, repeating edges in value-graded hues. The Way Out is the Way In contains Hirata’s zippy, elegant spaceship forms that suggest a hybrid of Verne’s Nautilus and the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. Here, the central image is even more abstract and diffuse, hovering in lovely contrast to the surrounding, shimmering “cloud” gradations of white and gray.

Kenji Hirata is a member of the Barnstormers collective, a group of New York/Tokyo-based artists who create large-scale collaborative paintings, films, and performances. The group formed in 1999 after a pilgrimage to the rural town of Cameron, North Carolina, where they painted barns, tractor-trailers, shacks, and farm equipment, and return often to paint new murals. A work by Hirata is featured as the cover of the book Envisioning Diaspora (Timezone 8, 2009), which discusses the post- ’90s wave of New York-based, Asian-American art collectives, including the Barnstormers.

Born in 1968 in Nagasaki, Japan, Kenji Hirata currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Solo exhibitions of his work include: Crystallized, Contemporary Art International, Hamburg, Germany (2006); Token 0.02, Arcus Projects, Tsukuba, Japan (2005); and Indivisible x 4, Reed Space, New York, NY (2005).. Selected group exhibitions include: SITEings, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston Salem, North Carolina (2007); Ten, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2005); Beautiful Losers, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2004); Dream So Much 02, Asian American Arts Centre, New York (2003); and No Condition is Permanent, Smack Melon, Brooklyn (2001).


Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present The Strain of Inheritance, an exhibition of new mixed-media works on paper by the Richmond, Virginia-based artist Ryan McLennan. This is McLennan’s first solo show with the gallery.

McLennan employs acrylic and graphite in this suite of medium-to-large paintings, each one contributing to an austere allegory on the state of the environment. In this jaundiced view of natural “inheritance,” the environment is reduced to sparse, worn-out remnants – once-majestic trees are gnarled trunks, overtaken by vestiges of bear-shaped topiary. Animal skulls are lashed to bare branches with these spindly vines, harbingers of doom for the moose and elk that wander through the haunted tableaux.

The fact that we so readily comprehend these intensely allegorical images is evidence of how deeply we fear and identify with the plight of the environment. Like the work of Walton Ford, The Strain of Inheritance evinces the competing interests surrounding the use and conservation of natural resources. Though McLennan shares Ford’s level of intricacy and beauty, his work contains a broader range of attitudes and critiques.

Work Ethic, for example, depicts several moose lashed by topiary vines to a tree trunk, circling aimlessly. The single moose of The Storyteller, with one leg missing and an antler of scavenged bones, gazes stoically at the viewer. Similarly, the ox of The Widower appears resigned to the topiary vines creeping down its back, the telltale skull of a dead animal nearby. (The artist has cited portrait photography masters Edward Curtis and Seydou Keita as poignant influences.)

Almost theatrical in their presentation, these images resemble stage settings or photo shoots, as though the animals are playing for sympathy. This gallows humor diffuses the sanctimony of today’s conservation rhetoric. Yet beyond references to the environment, McLennan suggests that the roles and work of society are built on little more than narratives of class, myth, and taboo, which turns out to be enough.

Born in 1980, Ryan McLennan received a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. Solo exhibitions of his work include: Lottery, Walker Contemporary, Boston (2009); From Fur to Bone, Kinsey/Desforges Gallery, Los Angeles (2008); and New Works, ADA Gallery, Richmond (2007). Selected group exhibitions include: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, 31 Grand, New York (2008); Anonymous III, Flashpoint Gallery, Washington, DC (2007); and Repressed-Works on Paper, Gallery 5, Richmond, VA (2006). He is a recipient of the 2008-09 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship and was featured in the 2008 Mid-Atlantic issue of New American Paintings.

Paper and Process 2Art Projects International, NYC

Press release:
Paper and Process 2
November 6 - December 19, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, November 6, 2009 6-8pm
Art Projects International, 429 Greenwich Street, Suite 5B, New York, NY 10013 [directions <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/info/> ]

Paper and Process 2 is API’s second exhibition exploring artists’ widely varied uses of paper as medium. Historically storied, paper also sets itself apart as one of the most vital and flexible mediums used in contemporary art. The artists of “Paper and Process 2” have each spent significant portions of their careers exploring paper’s potential and include Jean Shin, Tchah-Sup Kim, Jian-Jun Zhang, In-Hyung Kim, Richard Tsao, and IL Lee.

Jean Shin uses digital embroidery on paper to create the triptych “Celadon Threads.” The two side panels of this work capture in thread patterned fragments of celadon pottery. Similarly, the central panel shows whole in stitched outline pottery shapes of the type from which Shin collected broken pieces to create her mosaic wall work “Celadon Remnants,” a public commission by the New York MTA Arts for Transit.

Tchah-Sup Kim works with crisscrossing fine lines in his etching “Between Infinities” to create an abstract field of subtle variation. This elongated horizontal field, or band, reveals organic looking irregular forms at the far left and right of the band, like fine grained woodwork becoming unexpectedly unfinished and gnarled at edge, or, perhaps, like meticulously cultivated lands hemmed in by rugged coasts. Kim’s approach to abstraction comes out of works like “Triangle” of the same period--a highly detailed etching of rocks in a river bed--which explores the potential of mark making on paper through realism. The accurately depicted river rocks are a seamless construction created, as is the abstraction of “Between Infinities,” by contrasting bold abstraction with the most ephemeral of delicate lines and allowing the unmarked paper to act as the conveyance of light.

Jian-Jun Zhang’s photographs’ of his “Vestiges of a Process” series acknowledge their paper support--“rough” paper is used to hold the image and draw attention to itself. Further, the images in this series of Shanghai Shi-Ku-Men architecture, a blending of European and Chinese styles from the 20’s and 30’s, are stamped with official looking red markings that read “tear down.” Once existing in consort with real buildings marked for destruction, now--that the buildings are gone--Zhang’s art works are the most real thing left even as they announce themselves as only paper. It is this paper’s interplay with the real that points to the fluidity between idea, thing, document and memory.

In-Hyung Kim uses the textures of paint and graphite to give life to the texture of paper’s surface. Her expressionistic rendering of natural forms and light-touch give a freshness to her work that suggests each piece of paper has just been marked moments before the arrival of the viewer’s gaze. In these powerful, small format works, under ten inches square, a bird or plant may be featured or as in “Untitled 1707” the confident brushwork and bold marking bring fundamental form into action.

Richard Tsao saturates paper with purples, reds and other rich hues in a multistep monotype process. Found items from nature, such as leaves, provide a starting point to create bold silhouettes or barely discernible vegetal forms. Captured on paper, in dramatic inter-plays of contrasting values and bold color, pigment seems yet in dynamic motion.

IL Lee presents white forms in a field of blue ballpoint lines. The white ground of the paper and the inked surface are distinct yet of equal weight. Through labor the ink becomes the paper and a modulated yet cohesive surface tension is created. Further, in the work “SW-096,” Lee uses tape to block out white forms and disrupt the viewer’s appreciation of his craft. The flowing lines of his pen become contrasted with the abrupt white edge created by the removed tape. Lee wants to announce the artifice in his process. The taped line creates a rupture in his masterly technique to snap the viewer awake, to remove seduction, to have the viewer consider anew ink, paper, light, form.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jean Shin <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/work/tag/Jean_Shin> was born in Seoul, Korea. She lives and works in New York. Recent solo museum exhibitions include: Jean Shin: Common Threads, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (2009); Jean Shin: TEXTile, Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2006); and Projects 81: Jean Shin, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004). Select group exhibitions: Second Lives, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2009); RED HOT, Museum of Fine Art, Houston (2007); One Way or Another, Asia Society Museum, New York (2006); Make it Now: New Sculpture in New York, Sculpture Center, New York (2005); Counter Culture, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2004); and Open House, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2004). Selected collections: Museum of Modern Art, NY; Chase Bank, NY; Citicorp, NY; New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; Asia Society and Museum, NY; and Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA.

Tchah-Sup Kim <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/work/tag/Tchah-Sup_Kim> was born in Yamaguchi, Japan. He lives and works in New York and Korea. Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include: the Lee In-Sung Award Exhibition, Mesena Hall, Daegu, Korea (2009); Lee Jung-sup Artist Award Exhibition, Chosun Daily Newspaper Gallery, Seoul, Korea (2003); a retrospective Kim Tchah-Sup's Odyssey, Marronnier Art Center, Korean Culture & Art Foundation, Seoul (2002); and a group exhibition A Decade of Transition and Dynamics, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachon, Korea (2001). Selected collections: Museum of Modern Art, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Library of Congress, DC; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; and Chase Manhattan Bank Art Collection, NY.

Jian-Jun Zhang <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/work/tag/Jian-Jun_Zhang> was born in Shanghai, China. He lives and works in New York and Shanghai. Recent exhibitions include: History in the Making: Shanghai 1979-2009, Shanghai, China (2009); Butterfly Dream, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai (2008); Towards Abstraction, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai (2008); The 5th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea (2004); Jian-Jun Zhang: Mountain and Water, Art Projects International, New York (2003); Zhang Huan, Weihong and Jian-Jun Zhang, Diverseworks, Houston (2003); and Fourth Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2002). Selected collections: Uli Sigg Collection, Switzerland; Genentech, CA; JP Morgan, Hong Kong; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China; and Frederick R. Weisman Foundation of Art, CA.

In-Hyung Kim <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/work/tag/In-Hyung_Kim> was born in Seoul, Korea. She lives and works in Paris. Select exhibitions include Undergrowth, Art Projects International, New York, NY (2003); Marking: Drawings by Contemporary Artists from Korea, The Korea Society, New York (2003); New Artists 2000, International Kunstmesse Kongresshaus, Zurich, Switzerland (2000); Figuration Critique, Du Toit de la Grande Arche, Paris, France (1998); and Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea (Window Installation, 1997).

Richard Tsao <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/work/tag/Richard_Tsao> was born in Bangkok, Thailand. He lives and works in New York. Upcoming and recent exhibitions include: Paknam-Mouth of the River, H Gallery, Thailand (2010); Flooding, Art Link, Seoul, Korea (2008); Flood, Chambers Fine Art, New York (2005); Paper and Process, Art Projects International, New York (2004); Portraits, 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand (2004); and The Inverse Mirror, Chambers Fine Art, New York (2003).

IL Lee <http://www.artprojects.com/index.php/work/tag/IL_Lee> was born in Seoul, Korea. He lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: IL LEE, Gebert Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM (2009); IL LEE, The Vilcek Foundation, New York (2008); Il Lee: Ballpoint Drawings, Queens Museum of Art, New York (2007); Il Lee: Ballpoint Abstractions, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA (2007); Il Lee: Ballpoint Works 1980-2006, Art Projects International, New York (2007); Paris/New York: Il Lee, Galerie Gana-Beaugourg, Paris, France (2005). Selected group exhibitions: On, Of or About: 50 Paper Works, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX (2009); NextNext Art, BAM, New York (2004); and Open House, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY (2004). Selected Collections: San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachon, Korea; and the Total Museum, Seoul, Korea.


For more information please visit www.artprojects.com <http://www.artprojects.com> or contact 212-343-2599 or api@artprojects.com

Asian American Arts Centre, NYC — move from Bowery to Norfolk Street

For Immediate Release
October 14, 2009
Asian American Arts Centre
Announces
Farewell To 26 Bowery


After thirty-five years of operation, Asian American Arts Centre will leave its home at 26 Bowery, continuing its cultural work from a new address.

AAAC has presented hundreds of artists, and in its beginnings held numerous performances of Asian American contemporary and traditional dancers. Asian folk artists were presented annually, educational classes, panel talks and lectures were often available, with publications and other printed matter. Its online materials grew and became extensive, documenting AAAC’s work as one of the first to bring public attention to Asian American artists and their art as a special field of study.

Becoming independent of Basement Workshop in 1974, and establishing its home at this location 33 years ago, AAAC took part in the early effort by young leaders and students to organize New York’s Chinatown around community & cultural issues to benefit all Asian peoples regardless of origin, thus creating an Asian American Movement on the East Coast. One consequence of this work was to start the pattern of bringing tax dollars back to Chinatown to serve the cultural, educational and social service needs of this community and its residents.

(Another example of Basement’s legacy is Chinatown’s First Street Fair in 1972 through its partnership with the late Tom Tam at Gouveneur Hospital, who later became a leader of the Chinatown Health Clinic/CBWCHC. Together the demand for Chinese speaking workers be hired at the hospital lead to this policy enacted in all New York City’s public health institutions, and to what became the universally adopted principle of Patient Rights.)



Now, after more that two decades of presenting Asian American artists, AAAC’s artists archive is available free online, laying the basis for the history of Asian American cultural presence in the US in contemporary visual arts. This historical record stretches back sixty years to 1945 to the beginnings of the Cold War era. This historical foundation is designed to server Asian American people as their communities grow and develop within the United States.

During these difficult financial times, when community’s of color cultural institutions are in greater danger than ever before, ways need to be found to continue to grow and develop cultural vitality, renewing a vision and a conviction in the value of Asian traditions as they reinvent their relevance to contemporary life.

AAAC is pleased to announce its partnership with Asian Americans for Equality, enabling AAAC to relocate in 111 Norfolk St to continue its cultural and educational activities. In this way AAAC’s innovative multicultural education programs will be available and grow. Looking forward, as the center of Chinatown moves further East and North, AAAC will again be situated at the heart of this neighborhood, uniting an Asian cultural presence with the vitality of Lower Manhattan’s cultural scene.

Visitors are welcome to see the current exhibition at the present address, Out of the Archive: Process and Progress featuring Tomie Arai, Albert Chong, John Yoyogi Fortes, & Swati Khurana daily from 12 – 6pm, M-F, and on Sat. from 3-6pm till October 30. Look for 26 Bowery, 3rd fl, above McDonalds. This exhibition demonstrates the value of AAAC’s digital archive – www.artasiamerica.org - is also featured online at www.artspiral.org. Hear the broadcast of the recent two hour panel talk by the artists, writers, curator & director available online. A fifty-six page catalogue is also available.

Asian American Arts Centre will be located in Lower Manhattan on the ground floor at 111 Norfolk St, zip 10002, near the intersection of Delancey & Essex Sts. Subway trains F, J, M, Z stop at this intersection, as does the buses M09 & M14. The M15 stops on Allen St & Delancey (walk 3 blocks east on Delancey), and the M103 stops on the Bowery ( walk 7 blocks along Delancey to Norfolk. Phone remains 212 233 2154. aaacinfo@artspiral.org www.artspiral.org www.artasiamerica.org

NEW ADDRESS:
111 Norfolk St. (Between Rivington St. & Delancey St.)
*VIEW PICTURES OF THE RECENT HAPPENINGS AT 26 BOWERY
Link: www.flickr.com/asianamericanartscentre

Patty Changthru June 27Mary Boone Gallery, NYC

Patty Chang
now through June 27th
at Mary Boone Gallery

Gallery location:
746 Fifth Ave
New York, NY 10161
212-762-2929


Press release below: please click to enlarge images


Exhibition information:
http://www.maryboonegallery.com/exhibitions/2008-2009/patty-chang/index.html
Review in The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/arts/design/12gall.html?pagewanted=all

Re-figurative OrderingJune 27 openingDNJ Gallery, L.A.

Re-figurative Ordering

June 27 - August 29, 2009
Artist’s Reception: June 27, 2009 – From 6 to 8pm

Guest Curator: Kaucyila Brooke
Featured artists: Carola Dertnig, Richard Hawkins, Catherine Lord, Henrik Olesen, Dee Williams, Michael Blum, and Yong Soon Min

Image: Dee Williams, Still from Untitled Video, 2007

DNJ Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, Re-figurative Ordering, which is guest curated by Kaucyila Brooke and features the work of several local artst, as well as artists from abroad. Gallery II features the work of Gregori Maiofis in the show entitled Proverbs. This exhibition runs from June 27 - August 29, 2009.

dnj gallery
154-1/2 north la brea avenue
los angeles, california 90036
323.931.1311
office@dnjgallery.net

5³: Multiplicity of Contemporary Art from South Korea at Mary Ryan Gallery, NYC

5³: Multiplicity of Contemporary Art from South Korea
Jungju An, Sangbin Im, Shin il Kim, Jiha Moon, Heeseop Yoon
June 18 to August 28 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, June 18th, 6-8pm

Mary Ryan Gallery
527 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
Www.maryryangallery.com


“A Beat”
A light and sound installation by Shin il Kim.

URBAN CONVERGENCE a high energy exhibitionAsian Arts Initiative & MadeULook ProductionsPhiladelphia, PA

Asian Arts Initiative & MadeULook Productions
Opening: Friday, June 12, 2009
Time: 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Location:
Asian Arts Initiative
1219 Vine Street (Chinatown North)
Philadelphia, PA
Phone:2155570455
Email: info@asianartsinitiative.org

URBAN CONVERGENCE a high-energy exhibition
Exhibit: June 12 – August 2, 2009 (see below for gallery hours)

Opening Reception: Friday, June 12, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Live b-boy performances by Dreamerz & Stylers Crews

The marriage between art and culture has never been more prominent than it is today. Examples abound: Damien Hirst's paintings as the backdrop of Jay-Z's music videos; Takashi Murakami's designs on Louis Vuitton's accessories and Kanye West's album cover; graffiti art on Converse sneakers, Sprint advertisements, and energy drinks; Shepard Fairey's iconic "HOPE" portrait of President Obama.

These collaborations reflect an unprecedented merging and morphing of artistic genres and culture—high art with street art, underground with pop, fine art with street culture—that is breaking down social barriers and dated paradigms and clearing space for new ideas and aesthetics.

Hailing from metropolitan hubs throughout the country—Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington D.C.—these artists will share exciting work in a variety of mediums and styles that demonstrate a nationwide convergence toward a fresh contemporary sensibility with an urban edge: Pose II, Joshua Mays, Dave Cramske, Isaac Lin, Rodney Camarce, Jesse Olanday, Sun You, Figments by Ciriaco, Anjni Raol, Shin Ae Tassia, Chanika Svetla, Bret Syfert, Junghwa O'Connell, Miss Tina Wong, Teel MUL, and Dan "R5" Barojas.

Urban Convergence is curated by Jeff Cylkowski, a Korean American adoptee and Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary painter, muralist, and hip-hop artist. Before receiving a formal art education from the Pratt Institute, he spent years immersed in urban subcultures. The spirit of that experience continues to inform his work today. In summer 2009, he will be Artist-in-Residence at the Asian Arts Initiative.

The residency will include a six-week series of painting and mural-making workshops with local youth in partnership with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, beginning July 6 and culminating with an exhibition of new work on August 14, 2009.

Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday – Friday
(215)557-0455 or www.asianartsinitiative.org

Mythical Montage - Paintings Parallel 3D Animated VideoNina Kuo , painter - Lorin Roser, animatorat Gallery 456, NYC

Mythical Montage - Paintings Parallel 3D Animated Video
Nina Kuo , painter - Lorin Roser, animator
at Gallery 456

June 12 – July 10, 2009

Press release: There is a unique interplay between this duo of Artists –Animated Video loops by Lorin Roser capture the Asian-inspired Painted scenes by Nina Kuo. Subjects include classical scholar or Tai Chi figures that evoke modern-day cultural realities. Both presentations of “Bubbling Pond” and floating sculptural shapes of scholar rocks are constructed in moving animations and in a painting showing dynamic bursting visualizations. Colorful. Pop icons of urban life are introduced as in the “Tang Lady Housewife” painting while the video uses architectonic models with cyber vacuum cleaner in offbeat fantasy scenes of abstracted compositions that dazzle us. Futuristic connotations capturing the anachronistic mood of Chinese literati landscapes are taken from Huangshan or Fu Bao Shi landscapes with montaged cyber forms that take us to another dimension. We enter as scholars retreating into a surreal meditative spirit. One examines the spiritual journey of each work and its influences from cultural traditions to new perspectives. These large-scale Kuo paintings present layers of textured forms as Roser’s 3D animations are juxtaposed computer-generated moving frames with choreographed music. Both forms reveal an impact of emotion and imaginary narratives that reveal how invented memories of past lost land-scapes are transformed into futuristic scenes. These works truly evoke new cyber forms that are montaged into an abstracted mental world. There is strong evidence that Kuo’s paintings became inspiration for Roser’s 3-D Animated Videos and vice versa – a rare travelogue of experiences.

Exhibited: New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, P.S1, Newark Museum, Flushing Town Hall, Plum Blossoms, Samuel Dorsky Museum, Cheryl McGinnis Gallery

Reviews: Eleanor Heartney (catalog), Jonathan Goodman (Art in America), Benjamin Genocchio and Holland Cotter (New York Times)

Opening June 12 - 6:00-8:30 pm Reception – Open to All

Location: 456 Broadway – at Grand St. NYC

Poetry with Luis Francia, writer, poet, professor at NYU, won PEN Center Open Book award and author of Phillippine American book “Eye of the Fish”

Live Music - Helen Yee, member “Music From China” and “Invert” Ensemble

PRESS Conference- June 11 – thanks to Alan Chow and Vivian Huang

Hours- M-F 12-6 pm or by appointment

Present Tense BiennialArtists Reflect on Contemporary Chinese CultureChinese Culture Center & Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco

Present Tense Biennial
Artists Reflect on Contemporary Chinese Culture

Presented by the Chinese Culture Center in collaboration with Kearny Street Workshop, this biennial exhibition showcases vibrant and diverse perspectives on contemporary Chinese culture. Featuring artists from the Bay Area and beyond, the show includes a wide array of media at the Center’s main gallery and in storefronts throughout Chinatown. Curated by Kevin B. Chen with Abby Chen & Ellen Oh.

Chinese Culture Center
750 Kearny Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
www.c-c-c.org; 415-986-1822

Image: Endless column, blue and white variation by Larry Lee. Porcelain bowls, threaded rod.

Satellite Installation throughout Chinatown:
55 Columbus Street
664, 665 and 667 Clay Street
17 Walter U. Lum Place
704, 708, 701 and 716 Kearny Street

May 1 – August 23, 2009

Public Opening: Saturday, May 2 at 1pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesdays – Saturdays 10 am to 4 pm
Sundays 12 noon to 4 pm

ADMISSION: Free

TOURS: Contact ellen@kearnystreet.org to schedule a private or group tour.

CATALOG: Available for order at CCC Gallery store or online.

Image: Infinite Regress by Michelle Yun, 2009

Featuring 參展藝術家

Tamara Albaitis 塔瑪拉

Nancy Chan 陳曼玲

Anita Wen-Shin Chang 張文馨

Julie Chang 張維倫

Thomas Chang 張凌生

Sergio de la Torre

Cui Fei 崔斐

Justin Hoover 胡智騰

Bu Hua卜樺

Arthur Huang 黃介彥

Suzanne Husky

Khiang H. Hei 夏漢強

Larry Lee 李煥庭

Sean Marc Lee 李荊山

Liting Liang 梁麗婷

Lucy Kalyani Lin 林冠瑩

Ken Lo 羅文驎

Fang Lu 方璐

Maleonn 馬良

Elizabeth Moy

Ming Mur-Ray 張賢明

Tucker Nichols

Nadim Sabella

Zachary Royer Scholz

Indigo Som 岑志廉

Charlene Tan

Patrick Tsai 蔡仁杰

Imin Yeh 葉艾明

Xudung Yu 喻旭東

David & Michelle Yun 雲明正 雲翠蘭

http://presenttense.us/

Mike Ming: "Salon Bob"at Bob Bar, NYC

Mike Ming
"Salon Bob"
presented by Bob Bar

Through May 12, 2009
bob bar
235 eldridge street
new york, ny 10002

The below is copied from the artist's Web site about the exhibition:
http://www.mikeming.com/

The art show is an abstract painting show about different ideas and techniques and themes that are based on oceans and story based influenced imagery. It is abstract in the sense of trying to create a painting of representational ideas and themes, such as waves, organic shapes, patterns and some figurative works. I hope to create an atmosphere that can take the viewer to an imaginary landscape of someplace almost recognizable and an image of some thing almost tangible. I also hope that the works can be enjoyed both visual and subconscious. I thought about the pieces hanging on the wall as if they were sounds, music and melodies that have been created in visual context. I created the works for me to open new ideas and to be interpretive, like performance art. I create the work without a true idea of the ideas I wanted to project but through intuitive visual and mental approach to the canvas int he way a sculpture might pound the rock until a shape appeared. It is a 'freeing' the visual expressions as much as it is 'coaxing.' The pieces are also created as a continuation of my 'live painting' expressions, where I might approach painting 'live' by more feeling out the location and situation rather than having an 'idea' before the show and creating a work that is more 'applied for' the situation. 'Applying for' reflects a preparedness but maybe not improvised. I imagine myimprovisation idea stems from music and modern paintings. Although the show still is reflective of subject matter, I try to create a sense of imporvisation because the difference in day to day evolution of a person, can sometimes be samll and sometimes can be overwhelming. It is with these ideas I create the show, 'Salon Bob.' The show's title 'Salon Bob' is reflective of the multiple style of painting expressions and daily technical improvisational approaches because it is also a reflection of my own personal journey to combine my many different sensory influence to the daily organic approach as a painter for myself. In creating these paintings in different techniques, either exaggerated from a usual approach or a tangent of my 'oler' approaches. For me, it is a reflection of my past as I look to the future in my current present state of being. I realize, the next step is always without certainty and the future is both exciting and frightening. My painting journey is not alsways a confident expression but the paintings help me to strive forward and be in peace with myself as I learn more about myself and it guides my growth to the future.
— from www.mikeming.com

Connected: Eject before disconnectingShih Chieh HuangRISD Museum of Art: Spalter New Media Gallery

Connected: Eject before disconnecting
RISD Museum of Art: Spalter New Media Gallery

Shih Chieh Huang
March 6- October 18, 2009

Thursday, March 05, 2009
Artist Lecture: Video in Person: Shih Chieh Huang
MICHAEL P. METCALF AUDITORIUM
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
224 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
http://www.risdmuseum.org/

Shih Chieh Huang
http://www.messymix.com/

Closing Reception for Free Store Exhibition Friday, March 20, 2009, 7-8pm Free Store at 99 Nassau Street in NYC

Closing Reception for Free Store Exhibition

FREE STORE is a project by
Double A Projects (Artists Athena Robles and Anna Stein)

Featuring Performances, 7-8pm, Friday, March 20, 2009

Miwa Koizumi NY Flavors Ice Cream 7-8pm

Min Oh - Two Performances, 7:15pm and 7:45pm

Performances as part of the curatorial project by Felicity Hogan, All is one, one is all, Miwa Koizumi returns with her NY Flavors Ice Cream. Miwa will be serving up neighborhood flavored ice-cream influenced by the "tastes and smells from New York City's different tribes." in conjunction with Min Oh's A dialog, an audience participatory performance combining live and recorded action, projection, graphics and video. Min Oh's piece will offer the audience an opportunity to direct the 'dialog' through collective participation in a unique, un-inhibiting and characteristically playful manner. Min Oh will perform the piece on two occasions, 7.15pm and 7. 45pm. Both artists embody the humanistic and egalitarian concepts of the Free Store.

In order to avoid disruption, if you arrive during Min Oh's performance, the front door will be closed (approx 10 mins) please be patient. Thank you.

Hours and Location
Free Store is located at 99 Nassau Street, New York, NY (between Fulton and Ann
Streets). The store will be open from February 19 to March 22, 2009 with a grand
opening reception on Thursday, February 19, from 6–9PM.

Exhibition hours are Thursday–Sunday 12–5PM and by
appointment.

To get there by subway, take the 4, 5, 6, J, M, Z to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall or

Fulton/Broadway-Nassau Street; or A, C, 2, 3 to Broadway-Nassau Street.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=99+Nassau+Street,+New+York,+NY&ie=UTF8&ll=40.711532,-74.007726&spn=0.008458,0.016522&z=16&iwloc=addr

Visit FREE STORE page on Facebook for more information.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Double-A-Projects-Presents-Free-Store/57088891257?ref=share

More Information about FREE STORE:
FREE STORE OPENS IN DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN AND OFFERS VISITORS A PRICELESS EXPERIENCE

Storefront Art Exhibition Created to Distribute and Collect Everyday Goods at No Cost in the Heart of New York City’s Financial District

NEW YORK, NY (January 27, 2009) – Artists Athena Robles and Anna Stein will present Free Store, an exhibition and non-commercial storefront installation, in lower Manhattan. Part cultural pop-up shop, part second hand boutique, the project is a networking model of economic sustenance that can be used in cities worldwide. This first Global Free Store will open on Thursday, February 19th and remain open until Sunday, March 22nd.

As evidenced by record lows in consumer confidence in January, consumers have had to curb spending habits, yet still find ways to maintain their lifestyle. Free Store demonstrates how community and mutual support can be used to fulfill some of these needs.

How Free Store Works: Free Shopping Using the donation and exchange system, visitors can give something useful or get something useful at Free Store. Located at 99 Nassau Street (between Fulton and Ann Streets), blocks away from Wall Street, Free Store will accept donations of items such as books,housewares and art supplies, offer these items for the taking, and stock a few items produced inhouse by the artists.

One World Currency Free Store will distribute World Bills, a global currency that potentially could be used at any free store in the Global Free Store chain.

Contributors to Free Store will receive World Bills for services donated to the store. They can then use these bills to trade with other participants or in future free stores in this series.

Events and Performances Free Store will host special events by invited curators Felicity Hogan, Edwin Ramoran, Julie Sengle and Herb Tam. These events include a curator’s talk, open office hours for artists to get feedback on their work, and interactive artist performances.

“Alternative and generous systems such as bartering have long been used in times of financial hardship,” said the artists Athena Robles and Anna Stein. “Artists, in particular, are familiar with having to be creative to make ends meet and have functioned on generous systems, especially artist-to-artist. Free Store aims to broaden this circle of trust and exchange by including the general public.”

About the Artists Artists Athena Robles and Anna Stein (aka Double A Projects) work in collaboration, bringing together their sculptural practices using historical and cultural references, public space and paper media. Their project Counter Culture Cash: Local Currency in Jamaica, NY examined counter culture systems and was featured on artnet.com. In addition, work by Robles and Stein was exhibited at Fountain Art Fair in Miami, Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn, and University of Massachusetts Gallery. Individually, they have shown at the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, American Museum of Natural History, NY; NURTUREart, Brooklyn, NY; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; and Residencia Corazón in La Plata, Buenos Aires, among other locations.

Hours and Location Free Store is located at 99 Nassau Street, New York, NY (between Fulton and Ann Streets). The store will be open from February 19 to March 22, 2009 with a grand opening reception on Thursday, February 19, from 6–9PM.

Exhibition hours are Thursday–Sunday, 12–5PM and by appointment.

To get there by subway, take the 4, 5, 6, J, M, Z to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall or Fulton/Broadway-Nassau Street; or A, C, 2, 3 to Broadway-Nassau Street.

Free Store is sponsored in part by The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The September 11th Fund.

Reviews:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/mar/16/new-york-free-store-retail

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/02/28/ny.free.store.wpix

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/the.free.store.2.946340.html

http://www.1010wins.com/pages/3931010.php

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02272009/news/regionalnews/this_stores_free_
for_all_157240.htm

http://www.stylelist.com/blog/2009/02/27/new-york-citys-free-store/

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/around_town/shopping/Shop-Lifting-Encouraged-a
t-One-Manhattan-Store.html

1 in 3 Art Exhibitat The Women's Building, San Francisco

1 in 3 Art Exhibit
In Solidarity with Every 1 of us who Experiences Violence, Amnesty International has teamed up with local and international artists to tell the stories of women facing and overcoming violence.

Exhibit opens: International Women's Day Celebration,
March 6, 7, 8
Friday and Saturday at 6PM; Sunday at Noon
The Women's Building
3543 18th Street, San Francisco

Travel Schedule:
Amnesty International and the 1 in 3 Art Exhibit in Northern California, our all volunteer-organized art and activism event to raise awareness about violence against women. The traveling exhibit previewed in Stanford this past weekend and will open in San Francisco March 6 and San Jose March 14. Other venues, Oakland and Davis, show dates to be determined.

Email svaw.norcal@gmail.com for more information.

LINKS TO AMNESTY
www.amnestyusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence-against-women/stop-violence-against-women-svaw/page.do?id=1108417

Asian Pacific Roots in the Big Appleat 456 Gallery, NYC

Chinese American Arts Council presents
Asian Pacific Roots in the Big Apple
at Gallery 456 in NYC
March 20 - April 23, 2009
Opening reception:
Friday, March 20 | 6:00 - 9:00 pm
Curated by Corky Lee

Featuring artists:

Alan Chin
Corky Lee
Jeff Liao
Karen Zhou

Gallery 456:
456 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York, NY
M-Fri 12-6PM
Sat 1-5PM
Gallery Hours:

http://caacarts.org/

Curator Statement

The collection of images by the photographers represents a pictorial and picturesque omission in America's discussion of what constitutes the American landscape and who belongs. In a city of immense and diverse peoples, Asians are not often seen because of generations of benign neglect and indifference. As a nation of immigrants, I'm fortunate that the city of my birth recognizes that my ginseng roots can be nurtured in America's soil. That's what I was taught, that's what I believe. Perhaps through the universal language of photography Asian and Pacific peoples will be less foreign and better understood.

Alan Chin

Alan Chin is from a Chinese-American immigrant family, born and raised in New York's Chinatown. Since 1996 he has covered conflicts in Iraq, the ex-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Alan has most recently documented the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi, the 2008 Presidential Campaign, and followed the trail of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. He is a contributing photographer to Newsweek and The New York Times, exhibits at Sasha Wolf Gallery and the Asian-American Arts Center, and is in the collection of the Museum Of Modern Art. The New York Times nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize twice, in 1999 and 2000.

Artist Statement

GUNG HAY FAT CHOY: Photographs of the Chinese New Year in New York's Chinatown

Every year as I walk the streets of Chinatown during the New Year, families spanning the generations joyfully reunite. I run into old friends and relatives, many whom I see only this once each year, but I find myself thinking -- and by extension, photographing -- more nostalgic, melancholy feelings. Because the celebration has changed, just as New York has changed, and with it the Chinese immigrant community.

Most obviously, long gone are the firecrackers, rockets, and their attendant paper debris, their acrid smoke and smell. That chaos has been replaced with a few controlled explosions, managed displays. There's a formal parade, complete with bilingual announcements, when once it was rare to hear Mandarin, let alone English, in the Cantonese and Toishanese world of my childhood.

I find myself inadvertently scanning the faces in the crowds, absurdly hoping to recognize my near and dear people, my great-uncles, grandmother, father, and all the others now dead and gone. Of course I don't find my ghosts! But I see my fellow Chinese-Americans, young and old, dressed in their finest, replete with dignity, enjoying the moment, and although they are not my own family, they each have their own private dramas and histories that I can only begin to understand the faintest hint of as I photograph them.

And that's why there are no dragons in these photographs, or red envelopes, or the other symbols and colorful displays of our holiday. Rather, it is the individuals, the characters and personalities of the street, who interest me. Each of us with our own story, fresh-off-the-boat or American-born, gathered together once each year, to start it afresh.

Corky Lee

Corky Lee is the eldest son of four and one sister whose father was an "paper son" and entered the U.S. just before the Great Depression. He grew up above the family hand laundry business because his father could not find work as an arc welder, a trade he learned during his tenure with the 14th Army Air Corp./Flying Tigers in World War II.

Lee is a self taught, self appointed "unofficial, undisputed Asian American photographer laureate". He is considered the dean of Asian Pacific American community/documentary photographers prying his trade for the last 35 years. He calls his passion and activism "photographic justice", bringing to light the struggles and contributions of Asian Pacific Americans.

His journalist accolades have come from the NY Press Association, Asian American Journalist Association, elected officials from NY to California and has exhibited in major cities and campuses from Honolulu to Harvard University. He's been an artist-in-residence at Syracuse University and NYU. He's a widower and wants to publish his life's work "before he's six feet under pushing up daisies."

JEFF CHIEN-HSING LIAO

JEFF CHIEN-HSING LIAO (b. 1977 Taiwan) is a Taiwanese-born photographer now based in New York City, where he earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts and a BFA from the Pratt Institute. He is the first prize winner of the New York Times "Capture the Times" photo contest. Liao's work has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions, and is represented by private and public collections, including JGS Inc. Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Queens Museum of Art in New York, J. Paul Getty Museum, George Eastman House, Norton Museum of Art and Deutsche Bank. His photographs have been widely featured in publications, including Art in America, ArtNews, Camera Art, Photo District News, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and the Village Voice. His new monograph, Habitat 7, is published by Nazraeli Press in 2007 and feature an essay by Ann W. Tucker. Liao is represented by Julie Saul Gallery in New York.

Artist Statement

Habitat 7
Four of the earliest major civilizations were formed in river valleys. The fertile lands provided surpluses of food that allowed for the growth of populations, development of cities, and thus civilizations were created.

Though we now live in an industrial and technological era, where the survival of our existence no longer simply depends on the availability of food, the pattern of our quest for living space still resembles that of the ancient river valley civilizations. Such is the premise of the 7 Train, the seven-mile-long subway line that connects New York City's Times Square with seven communities in northwest Queens, the most ethnically diverse county in the country.

On a smaller but equally complex scale, some of the distinctive characteristics of a civilization - an intricate and highly organized society with the development of elaborate forms of economic exchange, as well as the establishment of sophisticated, formal social institutions such as organized religion, education, and the arts - are evident in the communities that have developed along the tracks of the 7 Train.

While I've been living along these tracks for years, I am still constantly awed by the complexity of the communities formed alongside it as well as the harmony so many people of distinct backgrounds are able to live in. I set out to photograph the 'habitat' of the 7 Train as I came to see it, with a focus on not the individual but the people as a whole, as well as their relationship with their environment.

Karen Zhou

Karen Zhou is a self taught photographer who came to America at three from China. Her interest in photography was first piqued during college days backpacking throughout Europe. As an up and coming photographer, she has been published in National Geographics' book on Lunar New Year and has been a contributor of food photography to Time Out NY. Karen currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Artist Statement

As a young child growing up in Chinatown, my father would take endless pictures of my sister and I, documenting our childhood through his camera's len. When I went away to Europe to study abroad, he gave the camera to me with hopes that I would use it to see the world. In my travels, I rarely leave home without my camera. It has been a journey and a way of telling stories.

In documenting the APA communities, there is a richness to the diversity and flavor of each culture. I've tried to express each moment as intimately as if the viewer was there seeing the subject with me.

Art, Archives, and Activism: Martin Wong's Downtown CrossingsNYU A/P/A Institute 7th Floor Gallery

Art, Archives and Activism: Martin Wong's Downtown Crossings
Mar 06, 2009 - Dec 18, 2009

NYU A/P/A Institute, 7th Floor Gallery

The Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University is proud to present the exhibition “Art, Archives, and Activism: Martin Wong’s Downtown Crossings” from March 6-December 18, 2009. From the mid ’80s through the early ’90s, artist Martin Wong and other downtown New York artists were affected by an intersection of major historic events spanning the AIDS epidemic, urban renewal and attacks on graffiti in the city, to Tiananmen Square abroad. The exhibition explores artists who crossed paths during this particular time, influencing and inspiring discussions, art works, and activism.

The exhibition winds a story through the voices of his closest friends and peers during Wong’s time in New York City from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. As Wong would come to portray his friends, fellow artists such as Miguel (Mikey) Pinero, Sharp, Chris “Daze” Ellis, among others within his paintings, bringing them into a world of a Lower East Side re-imagined with the fantasies of escapism and romanticism of a barren land amid towering walls of crumbling brick where they dwelt, in this exhibition, the archival materials and lasting influences of Wong’s legacy and his friendships in turn shape a portrait of the artist—re-imagined and remembered.

The artist’s work shown in “Art, Archives, and Activism” range from the early ’80s through the ’90s and have been loaned from his estate at PPOW Gallery and the collections of his closest friends. Some photos, paintings and drawings have never been shown to the public before. Working with and drawing materials from the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University along with personal collections, “Art, Archives, and Activism” presents a story of a time and the interconnectedness of the artists with the world around them through the artwork, letters, photographs, videos, postcards, posters, and flyers of participant artists. The exhibition traverses the artificial borders of these two decades, and instead is spread through the moment delineated by artists’ lives and the issues that engulfed them — their personal influences, artistic production and activism that were catalyzed from these connections and overlapping paths. The opening reception is also the reception and book celebration for the Asian American Art Symposium 2009 at NYU presented by A/P/A Institute and co-sponsored by The Noguchi Museum; The Japan Foundation, New York; The Asia Society; NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; and Museum of Chinese in America.

Curated by Alexandra Chang, Tomie Arai, and I-Ting Emily Chu
Associated curated by Mie Iwatsuki
Exhibition Design by Jonathan Lo
Special Thanks to:
Florence Wong Fie, Marvin Taylor, Lisa Darms, Paul Laster, PPOW, Jamie Stearns, Ruby Gómez.

For more information about the symposium please visit www.apa.nyu.edu

Asian American Art Symposium 2009 at NYU

March 6, 2009
Registration and Conference — Noon-6pm
Location: NYU Casa Italiana | 24 W. 12th Street
Between Fifth and Sixth Aves

Symposium schedule:
Location: Casa Italiana | 24 W. 12th Street
between Fifth and Sixth Avenues

Reception • 6PM-8PM

Location: 7th Floor Gallery | 41-51 E. 11th Street
between Broadway and University Place

This major Asian American Art Symposium recognizes the growth of the
emergent field in current years and the publication of Asian American Art: A
History, 1850-1970 (Stanford University Press) and resulting exhibition “Asian/
American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970” at the de Young Museum
in San Francisco.

The symposium will explore the important art archive initiatives on both coasts
and include the participation of scholars, curators, archivists and artists at the
forefront, shaping key exhibitions, building archives, and creating documentation
on Asian American art.

A reception at the A/P/A Institute follows the symposium with the opening of
the A/P/A Institute exhibition “Art, Archives and Activism” and a joint book
celebration for several new publications on Asian American art including Asian
American Art: A History, 1850-1970 (Stanford University Press), Unsettled
Visions: Contemporary Asian American Artists and the Social Imaginary (Duke
University Press), and Envisioning Diaspora: Asian American Visual Arts
Collectives (Timezone 8 Editions).

Symposium Schedule
Asian American Art Symposium 2009
A Century of Asian American Art: Archives, Scholarship, and Curation

Location: Casa Italiana | 24 W. 12th Street
between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
12:00 pm — Noon Registration
12:30 — Welcome and Introductions: John Kuo Wei Tchen, Founding Director of A/P/A Institute at New York University

Keynote Opening and Q&A: Dr. Vishakha N. Desai, President of the Asia Society

Keynote presentation and Q&A: Mark Johnson, Professor of Art at San Francisco State University
Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents 1900-1970
Explores the model of the Asian American Art Project at Stanford University, where he is the co-director; the groundbreaking book 'Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970' (Stanford University Press, 2008), on which he served as the Principal Editor, and the recent de Young Museum exhibition he co-curated 'Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970.'

Q&As with Dr. Vishakha N. Desai and Mark Johnson will be moderated by Joan Kee, Assistant Professor in the History of Art, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

15 minute break

2:45pm — Panel 1: Unearthing the Contemporary: Asian American Art Round Table
This panel explores the archives of living artists and the Asian American Movement and current situation of Asian American art in documentation, curation and scholarship
Panelists
Ann Butler, Director of the Library and Archives at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College
Karen Higa, Adjunct Senior Curator of Art, Japanese American National Museum
Margo Machida, Associate Professor of Art History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut
Moderated by Alexandra Chang, Director of Public Programs and Research Manager at A/P/A Institute at NYU

4:15pm — Panel 2: Situating Asian American Art in the Museum
An art historical contextualization of the interconnections between artists in the U.S. and Asia in the museum setting
Panelists
Dr. Melissa Chiu, Museum Director and Vice President, Global Art Programs, Asia Society in New York
Jenny Dixon, Director of The Noguchi Museum
Dr. Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Moderated by Susette Min, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies, UCDavis

Closing Remarks John Kuo Wei Tchen

6:00-8h30pm Symposium Reception and Books signing/sales at A/P/A Institute at NYU located at:
41-51 E. 11th Street, 7th Floor
7th Floor Gallery
Between Broadway and University Place

There will be a concurrent gallery reception for the exhibition opening of "Art, Archives, and Activism: Martin Wong's Downtown Crossings"
Books available for sales and signing:
Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 (Stanford University Press, 2008) Edited by Gordon Chang, Mark Johnson and Paul Karlstrom
Unsettled Visions : Contemporary Asian American Artists and the Social Imaginary(Duke University Press, 2009) by Margo Machida
Envisioning Diaspora: Asian American Visual Arts Collectives (Timezone 8 Limited, 2009) by Alexandra Chang

Co-sponsored by: The Noguchi Museum; The Japan Foundation; The Asia Society; NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; and Museum of Chinese in America.

“Permanence”, Tattoo Portraits By Kip Fulbeck Invisible NYC

“Permanence”
Tattoo Portraits By Kip Fulbeck

Exhibition runs JAN 3 - JAN 24, 2009
at Invisible NYC
148 Orchard St

www.invisiblenyc.com
www.kenphillipsgroup.com/Phillips/kip.htm

About the book:
PERMANENCE
Tattoo Portraits
By Kip Fulbeck
Foreword by Horitaka

“Tattoos, for better or worse, reflect the human experience. Our successes, our joys, mistakes, and failures are all recorded on our skins. And just like life itself, sometimes they aren’t perfect. Sometimes they’re even tragic. But they are real. A tattoo is just ink in skin…it is up to the bearer to ascribe a meaning or value to it.“ - Horitaka

Once a fringe phenomenon, tattooing in now a full-blown cultural fact. More than 40 million people in the U.S. alone have tattoos, all with unique stories about why they chose to indelibly mark their bodies. PERMANENCE is the first book of its kind to combine photographic tattoo portraits with the stories behind them. Featuring people from all walks of life – from college students to rock stars, suburban moms to Hells Angels, gangbangers to CEO’s to pornstars – their stories are told in the subjects’ own words and handwriting.

Kip Fulbeck brings together young and old of all races, religions, and political persuasions in this visually arresting and identity-exploring book. His work explores the power of individuality, utilizing tattoos as a starting point. “Tattooing is everywhere,“ Fulbeck says. “This book deals with all facets of it…from absolute masterpieces to drunken mistakes, rites of passage and celebration to horrors of war. This book is about who we are.“

With a foreword by renowned tattooer Horitaka (senior apprentice to Horiyoshi III) and interviews with celebrity tattooers Kat Von D (LA Ink) and Oliver Peck (Elm Street Tattoo), and hardcore music legend Evan Seinfeld, PERMANENCE features images of:


Margaret Cho (Comedian, author)
Slash (Velvet Revolver, Guns N Roses)
Scott Ian (Anthrax)
Scott Weiland (Velvet Revolver, Stone Temple Pilots)
Paul Stanley (KISS)
Tera Patrick (Adult Film Star)
Chuck Liddell (UFC Hall of Fame Fighter
Johnny Winter (Blues legend)
Joan Jett (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
Nikole Lowe (London Ink)
Chris Garver (Miami Ink)
Jeffrey Sebelia (Project Runway)
and many others

From joyful to tragic, and impulsive to profound, PERMANENCE presents the myriad voices, emotions, and faces that make up the stories of the tattooed population today.

KIP FULBECK is the author of Part Asian, 100% Hapa (Chronicle Books) and Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography. A professor of art at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Kip is deeply respectful of the artistry and ritual of tattooing and proudly wears the works of Horitaka, Horitomo, and Horiyoshi III. For more information go to www.redsushi.com.

HORITAKA (Takahiro Kitamura) is the author of several books on tattooing and is the owner of State of Grace Tattoo in San Jose, California. He is a senior apprentice of the world-renowned tattoo master Horiyoshi III – the master’s first and only American apprentice. He is one of the most active and well-known contemporary American tattooists, and speaks and tattoos across the country.