Saturday, May 5, 2012
Artist Yong Xu Zhang

Artist and painter Yong Xu Zhang (on the left) met with Bob Lee (Executive Director of AAAC).  He was exhibited at AAAC in 1990 in the Tiananmen Square Witnesses exhibition under the name "Deng" for as a student in  the Square he could not then risk using his real name.  His paintings were quite different from the 300 artists who took part in these Tiananmen Square exhibits.  Quite different from the tone of protest art was his allegorical and portrait art. 

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Thursday, May 3, 2012
Terracotta Warriors: Defenders of China’s First Emperor Exhibition at Discovery Time Square



Terracotta Warriors: Defenders of China’s First Emperor, a new experiential adaptation of one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in modern time, opens at Discovery Times Square (226 West 44th Street) on April 27. The exhibition will feature the world premier of a set of gates from the Emperor’s tomb, which have never been seen outside of China, the U.S. debut of more than 20 artifacts, including a “Lai” Ding (cooking utensil) and a Bronze “He” (water or wine container), and an up-close look at 10 of the authentic, life-sized clay soldiers. 

Tickets are $19.50 (child 4-12), $25.00 (adult) and $22.50 (senior = 65) and available for purchase through the Discovery Times Square website (www.DiscoveryTS.com), by phone (212-987-9692) or by visiting the Discovery Times Square box office. For a limited time, you can get 20% off the full admission price by using the promotional code “96752”. For group and school sales, use the code “Qin” for special discounts.

For more info, go to www.terracottawarriorexhibit.com
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Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Radical Women Meeting 

"Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster: 
Reflections of an Asian American Woman" 
 
Date: Thursday, May 24th, 2012
Time: 7:30PM
Location:
Freedom Hall, 113 W. 128th St.

This special meeting will feature an open discussion of this title work by feminist activist and author Mitsuye Yamada. The essay reflects the double invisibility based on being both Asian and a woman. A survivor of the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, Yamada makes a powerful statement on the intersections of race, gender, and national identity.

A Pan-Asian dinner will be served at 7pm (donation $8). Door admission free.

Freedom Hall, 113 W. 128th St., Harlem. Between Malcolm X Blvd. (Lenox Ave.) and 7th Ave. Subways #2 or 3 to 125th St. For more information, call (212) 222-0633 or email nycradicalwomen@nyct.net. Childcare provided. Wheelchair accessible. 
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Digimovie at Exit Art: "CENTURY OF BIRTHING"

Introduction and post-screening Q&A with Lav Diaz
Part of Corporal Histories: Lav Diaz's Epic Philippine Cinema 
Saturday, May 5 at 1:15 PM






Dir. Lav Diaz, 355 minutes, 2011, Philippines, In Tagalog and English w/ English subtitles.Screening includes two 15-minute intermissions.

Telling two seemingly unrelated tales, CENTURY OF BIRTHING is a grand meditation on the roles of the artist, the prophet and the acolyte. The first story focuses on Homer (Perry Dizon), a filmmaker who has spent years working on his latest opus — and still isn’t happy with it. Hounded by friends, co-workers and festival programmers to finish the damn thing, he resists every entreaty, countering a programmer’s pleas to send him the film with, “I don’t make films for festivals, I make them for cinema.” The second story concentrates on a Christian cult in a rural region — a group largely comprised of young women (referred to as “virgins”) and dominated by its charismatic leader, Father Turbico (Joel Torre). When one of the longest-standing members strays, the impact is catastrophic for both her and the cult. Told almost entirely in long takes that are alternately transfixing, claustrophobic and penetrating, CENTURY OF BIRTHING boasts exquisite black-and-white imagery. Indeed, it may be Diaz’s most entrancing film to date — and it’s certainly his most personal.
 


Synopsis courtesy of Toronto International Film Festival 2011.

For more info, go to www.exitart.org


**Please note that while this event is free and open to the public, our regular $10 admission fee will apply to the screening of Century of Birthing that begins at 1:15 PM. Audience members who are planning to attend the conversation and stay for the screening are encouraged to purchase their tickets to the screening on our website or in our lobby before the discussion.
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Friday, April 20, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Mandala Flea Market Mutants: Pop Protocol and the Seven Transformations of Good-luck National Defense Cats

Solo exhibition of artist Yoko Inoue: "Mandala Flea Market Mutants: Pop Protocol and the Seven Transformations of Good-luck National Defense Cats"

I attempt to poetically elucidate the relationships between objects and humans in the context of the intricately interdependent, contemporary, multi-cultural environment. I consider the confluence of different cultures in the market place, paying attention to such aspect as product routes, specific cultural derivations of products, and the influence of globalization and free trade on traditional culture. In my installation art, I use the ceramic medium, because of its cultural universality, to seek ways of linking contemporary objects to their history, lost cultural origins and displaced meanings. 
Mandala Flea Market Mutants: Pop Protocol and the Seven Transformations of Good-luck National Defense Cats takes the form of a multi-disciplinary installation that affects and aestheticize the appearances and mechanics of a marketplace, materially consisting of excessive accumulations of banal objects, commoditized sacred figures or good luck icons that I individually hand cast in porcelain and stoneware and manipulate. 
This project is derived from my research on the historical and cultural implications of the ubiquitous flea markets in the compound of To-ji temple and Kitano shrine in Kyoto, that are held on specific days for receiving blessings or special divine favors from particular deities. Here, within the confluence of the sacred and profane, people practice the rituals of commerce and barter with deities. I explore the hidden commonality, whether a mystic belief, supernatural power or a superstition, that exists between traditional cultural iconography and that of pop and subculture in Japan. I question what remains within an object that makes it possible for us to recognize ourselves in it and reclaim it as part of our own identity or in a broader sense, our cultural identity. 

Inoue is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the commoditization of cultural values and assimilation and identity issues in the form of installation and public intervention performance art. Originally from Kyoto, Japan, Inoue earned an MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been shown at Brooklyn Museum, Sculpture Center, Rubin Museum, Momenta Art and Art in General in New York and at other international and national venues. She has received Guggenheim Fellowship, The Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture and Cross Disciplinary/Performative Work, Tides Foundation Lambent Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, Franklin Furnace Fund, GAPS 9-11 Fund from LMCC and other grants. Most recently she received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award. Residencies include Skowhegan, LMCC Workspace, Smack Mellon, .ekwc in The Netherlands, Civitella Ranieri in Italy and Sacatar Foundation in Brazil. Inoue is awarded the LMCC Paris Residency at Cité Internationale des Arts from May to October, 2012.


To to Smack Mellon Gallery for more information
Link: http://smackmellon.org/
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Thursday, March 1, 2012
Contemporary Japanese Art: Finding its Voice in Japan & Abroad

Panel Discussion: “Contemporary Japanese Art: Finding its Voice in Japan and Abroad”

A panel discussion will focus on Japanese Contemporary Art through a conversation with a top art critic, museum curator, artist and art dealer, all specializing in Japanese art today. The panel will address how recent historical events, a pervasive pop culture and a volatile economy, along with other aspects of the current social and economic landscape, may influence how fine art is made and marketed in Japan today. 

Panelists: Richard Vine (Art in America), Allison Tolman (Tolman Collection), Nao Matsumoto(Artist), Miwako Tezuka (Asia Society) 
Moderator: Susan Eisner Eley (Susan Eley Fine Art) 

Free to participate 
Seats are limited, so please RSVP at info@newcityartfair.com



For more information go to www.susaneleyfineart.com
Kentaro Hiramatsu
Fumiko Toda
















Ayakoh Furukawa

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Community Oral History: "From Street Fair to Medical Home: The Charles B. Wang Community Health Center

Date: March 1, 2012
Location MoCA,
215 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013
Time: 630PM
Open to public. Please RSVP to programs@mocanyc.org

The Chinatown Health Clinic, now the CBWCHC, started around the same time as Basement Workshop where AAAC began. Both organizations shared shared volunteers at 22 Catherine St where Basement Workshop was on the 3rd floor and the Health Clinic was on the 2ed floor. Thats when the Chinatown Street Fair* took place in 1973 and I designed the poster for this ground breaking event that organized and awakened so many youth of that era.  This poster I recently re-discovered and gave to Regina for CBWCHC's collection of the documents that mark the beginnings of their history. A picture of it is in the book on one of the Street Fair stalls we built on Mott St.  Many memories will be shared at MoCA at the Health Center’s talk on their new book recounting the story of building this important community organization - on March 1. 
 
*Note: The first street fair was in 1971 at Father Tang's church on Henry Street focused more on health, the second one in 73' featured things other than health sparking both social and political awakening of the Asian American Movement.  


For more information, please go to MOCA's website.

Bob Lee and Regina Lee holding a poster Bob made for the Chinatown Street Fair in 1971.

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Saturday, February 25, 2012
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Performance artist Li Ning turns his life into art in this epic work of experimental documentary. For five grueling years, Li documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li’s chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen. Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. The film captures a decade’s worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.
Synopsis courtesy of dGenerate Films.

Official Selection, International Film Festival Rotterdam
Official Selection, Beijing Independent Documentary Film Festival
Official Selection, MoMA Documentary Fortnight

“A riveting portrait of an artist’s attempts at expression and conflicts with societal norms.”
– Museum of Modern Art

Tickets are $10 general admission and are available for purchase at the box office 30 minutes prior to each screening or anytime on Exit Art's website HERE

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We had so much fun during the parade! Happy Lunar New Year to everyone! We look forward to next year's parade. We need more people to join us! Trust us, its really fun!


Ummi and Nana as Accidental Chinese Hipsters wannabes with their big happy Asian face mask holding the AAAC banner on Division Street.



Karen in her mahjong costume with a bird on her head.

 CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THE PARADE!
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
World's Largest Library of Korean Art Books opens in Times Square

Thousands of Books and Magazines on Korean Art and Culture are Available for Free Loan to All Members of the Public

The Korean Art Society owns the world's largest collection of English-language books on Korean art. The entire collection is now displayed at 400 West 43rd Street, in Times Square. Thousands of publications are available for you to borrow, including many books that are so rare that they are almost impossible to find. All of the publications are arranged by subject, so it is very easy to find material on a wide range of Korean art subjects. The collection includes every Korean art auction catalog ever published, along with all of the auction results. This library is open to the public as part of our effort to promote Korean art, and so that everyone can enjoy the results of their ongoing international search for publications on Korean art and culture.

For more info, go to www.koreanartsociety.org

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