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By
August 13, 2017
“So many I’ve had
the chance to support, to see them all together, recognizing what they
achieved, I feel fulfilled. How many years its been, regardless of how it
happened -
I just want to
congratulate each one, such a wonderful event marking a historic moment.
Having An/other NY, a young new group pay tribute to them, and seeing how
the cultural situation is morphing, its clear what I did in the 80s and
Godzilla did in the 90s has established Asian/Asian American art’s presence on
the American landscape, laying a foundation for the future. As a second
generation Asian American my concern for establishing a home on these American
shores – a cultural acceptance – for people of Asian decent is no longer. We
have a cultural voice, and its Asian inflections hold no small significance. We
have a vital place in the discourse on visual arts and in the institutions
where the public can access them, and in the contested spaces where cultural
confrontations reinvent us anew. I didn’t know I would ever see this day
when I started. Amazingly its here. Thanks to all who made it happen.”
Written after the Godzilla event at Gallery Korea on May 23rd2017 by Bob
Lee, Asian American Arts Centre.
From Godzilla’s
Wikipedia page:
“Godzilla Asian
American Arts Network was an arts collective and support network started in
1990 for Asian Americans. Founded on the premise that they did not have a suitable
organization to promote, support and encourage their visual arts, Godzilla's
founding members sought to fill this void.”
In the three
interviews of the founders of Godzilla conducted by Alexandra Chang, see
- http://as-ap.org/content/godzilla-0 - it is clear they were working at or with
the Asian American Arts Centre at that time.
How many years we had been working
together nor how the split occurred will not be written here. .Suffice it
to say their split from AAAC affected operations severely, the impact lasted
for too many years,,, I too buried it at the advise of my board thinking that
the AAAC archive is the best place to leave this story for those who want to
know how change in grassroots activism really takes place within the context of
late capitalism.* Now it’s clear that such things will not be unearthed, old
wounds will not be allowed to heal with myths too popular to fade, and another
revival is about to take place on August 10th. Only by choosing no longer to
suppress them, to bring them into the light after so many years, will
reconciliation be felt by those most effected. It’s good to know many Godzilla
artists had no notion of what happened at the start and the work they did came
from a positive place.
About a year or so
later while working with TAAC, The Association of American Cultures, I came to
visit Karamu House in
Cleveland, Ohio, the oldest African-American theater in the US. In speaking
with the director she shared with me their experience. Gathering African
American artists together they developed a program to train them for the larger
art world and when completed, ushered them out into this world. They met with
such rejection that the artists returned and attempted to shut down Karamu
House. When I heard this I remembered my own experience, how it felt like
an embargo around Cuba, those years were hard. That's when I realized this was
not a phenomena affecting only my organization nor only Asian Americans. The
larger dynamics of the mainstream is not to allow an ethnic community to have
strong leadership or any effective infrastructure other than in its own
enclave. This is not the place to argue such questions. What became clear for me was such disputes within
people of color communities and families were that people became merely pawns
in a larger political/cultural contest.
 |
From
left: John Allen, Nina Kuo, Lynne Yamamoto, Tomie
|
|
Much is made of
economic opportunity but in an ethnic community, particularly for Asians, we
have to break our ethics of modesty, learn to be self promoting if not
aggressive, exploit our own people to advance in a context where money means
everything. Thus the idea of poverty pimps came to apply to non profits. When my
generation were all volunteers at Basement Workshop in the early 70s and
government grants were offered us, we knew what had to be done if we wanted to continue our
work. When most of the volunteers left Basement years later it was because the
way funding was allotted in the support of staff who had to have a way to live. Thus when actions were
taken for our community or for artists, our motives were seen as tainted,
even corrupted. The ethics of self gain as fundamental to society led in
an ethnic enclave to tolerating this as a secular sin such that the natural
tendency to gratitude was undermined. These and other factors may help to shed light on how to understand an
ethnic community and the split with AAAC.
When artists as
sensitive beings, had to fight for their identity, their humanity, to survive
the streets of NY, our culture could only make a place for this as a fight for
recognition, for status. (Asian American Art: A Community Based Perspective March
1997 in a Brandywine Workshop catalogue – Impressions: Contemporary Asian Artists Prints) It
was called identity politics. Bumping
into one another in a crowded subway even can be taken personally, a
misunderstanding can be construed as a betrayal. Aside from the melodrama of
betrayal that sells so many films, in NYC betrayal as a human perception has
become a norm. Yet this is how I
felt.
Whether it was my
personality or my training as a historian, apparently I could not realize my
goal as stated in 1983 at the Eye to Eye artist panel talk of enabling all to
share and work together. As a curator I did what curators do in organizing
exhibitions. So much for applying a historical approach to a contemporary
context.
 |
| Helen Oji with Charles Yuen & Herb Tam |
The tactic I
evolved of an annual continuum of thematic Asian American art exhibition
programs - repetition of the same refrain, a seemingly innocuous norm when
there was no such thing on a societal level as Asian American art
though there was Black art and Hispanic art - came about as a survival
tactic
--- given the
context of the 60s assassinations including Bruce Lee & his son, FBI
Chinatown deportation raids in the 50s & IWK (I Wor Kuen where I was cadre)
surveillance in early 70s, in 1969 asserting our cultural difference as
Asian-Americans within the mainstream of Lower Manhattan at Basement, police
violence in Newark in 68’ where I was raised, & decimation of the Black
Panthers in 60s/70s, gang repression of IWK and AAAC in the 90s (see the New
Yorker Magazine June 17, 1991 Gwen Kinkead pp56-84), the closing of Park Row by
NYC Police Dept., being ignored and blackballed by pro Taiwan forces for anyone
pro mainland China, being blackballed by the NYC press for several months based
on quality, not race, as the only acceptable basis for exhibitions, and
beginnings of Patient Rights at Gouverneur Hospital in early 70s with Chinese
language rights being finally vouchsafed by the HHC (Health & Hospitals
Corporation). Aside from barely survivable funding, a minimum was structured as
visual events that open the door for cultural growth.
Godzilla
artists I supported before 1990 worked together to achieve what AAAC saw as its
mission. From 83’ to 90’ AAAC exhibited over forty Godzilla artists in twenty
two exhibitions. AAAC continued support of several Godzilla artists throughout
the 90s and beyond, ie., Charles Yuen, Arlan Huang, Colin Lee, Sung Ho Choi, Tomie
Arai, Bing Lee, etc. The initial break with AAAC however hostile, freed
Godzilla from the tone I had set, historical and serious to social and media
savvy. The sensibility of a youthful, rebellious generation will out.
 |
| Zhang Hongtu with Eugenie Tsai & Sung Ho Choi |
Hidden in
silence for twenty plus years, this story was mentioned in an essay of Young
Park that was never published. Written in 2002 for the AAAC Story exhibition
titled AAAC: its History of Reintegration, she wrote on page 9 of 15 pages
"...Asian American Art community could have been
much more powerful and generated strong impact ... I believe that the lesson
between Godzilla and the Asian American Arts Centre would make their next
generation vigilant and alert of their opportunities for forming a solid
cultural unit of Asian American Art in the United States..." – maybe, but AAAC continued, key important exhibitions
happened and continue to this day, issues of identity have found their place
among many issues that give shape to art.
Thus from the vantage of this moment, Asian American art has established
itself as a historical phenomena at minimum among many contemporary art
circles. Public exhibitions as actions with printed cards documenting for its
audience a message and action on a regular basis, even with minimal publish reviews,
impacts consciousness, awakens others to action, and becomes part of the flow
of the art community.
 |
|
Lillian Cho,
formerly of the Asian American Arts Alliance speaks from the audience
|
In
1994 the sudden news of Chinese contemporary artists signaled a shift of
the art market, the next wave transformed perceptions of contemporary Asia
through its art. That this signal was delivered by Asia Society indicates how
well orchestrated is the American public's news about who Asia is becoming.
This also indicates the significance of Asian American art is far beyond domestic
borders. After 911 the wars of South East Asia move to the Middle
East, Muslims become the next racial target, OWS responded to the 2008
international financial crisis but it could not maintain the pressure, and now
the Alt/Rt. presents us with alternative truths – another media driven
perception. The media itself has transformed our attention and become part of
the art culture that has merged Asian/Asian American art with the international
Asian art spectacle (as in Field Meeting:Thinking
Practice). The particular
sensibility that Asian American domestic concerns bring has overlapped with art
in Asia, and are yet raised in the public arena by Black Lives Matter,
gentrification, immigration, and re-zonings, and they have become embedded in
the art of local, regional, market and ethnic communities. The world is an
aesthetic place, yes, and as we make a case for a multiplicity inclusive of
Asia in each city’s tumultuous urban bubble our choices need to make space for
what Gordon Hempton calls “One Square Inch of Silence”.
For every non
profit who was not appreciated for what they gave, Margo Machida's, not my
own arrogance and shortcomings, are listed here:
She benefits from AAAC actions at the
following events:
Panelist on Eye To Eye with Lucy
Lippard, John Yau, etc 1983 ; Artists-in-Residence - a nine month residency
1984-85 ; AIR organizer, participating artist & speaker in a Symposium on
Contemporary Asian American Art - May 1, 1985 ; Two Person
exhibition with Charles Yuen entitled “Orientalism” April / May 1986 ; Artists
Selection Committee & Wrote Exhibition Introduction for Roots to Reality
II: Alternative Visions Oct / Nov 1986 ; Chosen for a three person
exhibition entitled “The Mind’s I, Part 2 with Luis Cruz Azaceta and Robert
Colescott March / April 1986 ; Guest Curator for Invented
Selves December 1988 ; Conference participant - Independent
Curator/Cultural Critic “The Players: Asian American
Art” A conference co-sponsored by AAAC &
Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program & Institute at NYU) with the
AAAC Story exhibition June 1, 2002 ; selection panelist for 12th Annual
Exhibition: Contrary Equilibriums (A collaboration with The Korea
Society) Sept / Nov 2002 (This and
more can be found at http://www.artspiral.org/exhibitions-timeline.php
)
 |
|
John Allen, Arlan
Huang, & Colin Lee
|
Allexandra Chang’s
book: In the exhibition at the New Museum organized by Gregory Sholette in
1998 entitled Urban Encounters, six NYC art collectives were presented
including Godzilla. Installed on the wall at the opening there was a large
panel with the name of Basement Workshop on the top. On the bottom row was the
name of Godzilla: Asian American Arts Network. In the middle was the name Asian
American Arts Centre indicating the sequence how Godzilla evolved. In
Alexandra Chang’s book Envisioning Diaspora, Asian American Visual Arts
Collectives: From Godzilla, Godzookie, to the Barnstormers on page 82-83 she displays
a timeline poster, From Basement to Godzilla: The Legacy of Asian American
Activism in the Arts. This timeline obscures the relationship between AAAC and
Godzilla that the New Museum wall panel presented. It did however hint at
the relation between AAAC and Basement which Alexandra knows well since she was
once staff with AAAC and was hired also to video document an AAAC event (Nov.03’)
held upon the return of one of the seminal founders of Basement, Danny NT Yung
where many of his friends were invited. (Dannys papers from those years are available to serious
researchers through AAAC.)
Aside from a note
on the New Museum’s exhibition I should mention a bit more about media. It is
not lost to me that this effort at resolution is initiated and implemented on
Steve Jobs computer. The last thing he gave to all his friends was Yogananda’s
book, the book that aided in his realization of intuition as his greatest gift.
Yogananda himself completed his autobiography just after a nuclear weapon fell
on Hiroshima. A recent film on his life indicates he returned to the US, despite
the racism which drove him away to counter this global trend. The American
astronaut Edgar Mitchell would have agreed with his intuitions given what he
saw from his capsule's bubble. I would not be surprised if several Godzilla
artists would agree also. Let then intuition have the final say on this matter.
And let intuition guide us through our own tangled paths to the art and world
we seek.
Bob Lee
 |
| Solar System by Charles Yuen |
* We are not free from the vanities and egoism that is common in
a culture dependent on competition, just as no one is free of racism, of bias
when it is so prevalent everywhere. We can be critical of biases and
point to them with righteous indignation, but that does not mean we ourselves
are free of them. In the 80s at CAPA's Annual Heritage Festival, with
nearly fifty tables spread across Lincoln Center plaza, the cultural area was filled,
each table a different Asian American organization, and each had their own
T-shirt for sale. I remember how those on the next table looked so loathingly
at our T-shirts. It was natural. Not Nature. Its capitalism. The worsening of
these sentiments is what I refer to as Late Capitalism. That's what has
come to a crisis now touching on everything, including NYC Cultural Plan
(peoplesculturalplan.org) - unequal power dynamics and the struggle for equity
and the pretense of justice.
 |
Art Slam at AAAC
jointly sponsored with Godzookie Nov. 15, 2003
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