Recalling some exhibitions and
memories:
I was born and
raised in Newark NJ in the Black, Puerto Rican and downtown neighborhood, apart
from the Chinatown that barely existed back then. My family’s laundry was
four blocks from the area where the riots of 1968 broke out. When Black
students took over the law building on Rutgers local campus I was with them.
When many years later my father mentioned that someone came by the laundry,
said something was going to happen that evening, and he need only take a chair
and sit outside in front of his plate glass façade, and nothing will happen to
his store. Clearly this was a planned uprising, not a riot. When AAAC mounted
the Ancestors exhibit an Asian American artist said to me I had no right to do
such a show. I knew I had every right.
Dr. Alan Crite created a body of work that
recorded life in the South end of Boston. He started working as an artist for
the US government through the WPA. For decades he worked with African American
churches. He mentored and encouraged many African American artists.
Artists at Northeastern University would call him father. He took under his
wing the artist Lotus Do and she is forever grateful for his mentorship.
As board member and chair of The Association of American Cultures (TAAC), I
brought Alan Crite to their bi-annual national conference, to promote and
generate the collection of papers and oral histories documenting the relations
between African and Asian American individuals and communities. Unfortunately
we never received the support of foundations to continue this.
Ancestors:
a Collaborative Project with Kenkeleba House
This
public exhibition was designed to encourage the act of paying homage, not only
to one’s own ancestors but those of our neighbors, the ancestors of another
people. It paid tribute to all America’s forebears, whether they be Asian,
African, European, Latin American, or Native American. By focusing on two, Asian and African American
ancestors, it recognized that the rites and beliefs of diverse people permeate
society as a whole and that acts of homage are fundamental to the development
of the sense of community.
“…we recognize the wealth of our
heritage as Americans and encourage the act of paying homage
to all the Ancestors of this Land”
Organized by Corrine Jennings &
Robert Lee
Mounted at Kenkeleba House 214 East
2ed Street & at Asian American Arts Centre 26 Bowery
Artists Participating: 24,
including several Afro-Asian artists and five Afro-Asian Collaborating artists.
Exhibition Flyer for “Ancestors,” Asian American Arts Centre,
1995.
Participating artists in Ancestors:
Camille Billops Lotus
Do Brooks
Roy Hiro Calloway Albert
V. Chong
Simone Leigh Richard
Mafong
Sana Musasama Helen
Oji
Howardena Pindell Yoland Skeete
Thomas Vu Daniel Anton
Wong
Elaine Wong Lily Yeh
Lui Lan Ding / Robert Craddock Eunju
Kang / Charles Burwell
David Higginbotham / Toshinori
Kuga Hyon
Joo Kim / Prestone Jackson
Lisa K. Yi / Faith Ringgold
Simone
Leigh
Untitled. Salt fired stoneware, 2006. Approximately 25 inches high.
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In 1987,
several African American artists participated in the four-part Mind’s I exhibition. Robert Colescott, Alison Saar, Benny Andrews and
Albert Chong, an Afro-Asian artist, participated with several other diverse
artists. The accompanying essay noted: that the African American novelist
Richard Wright, wrote of psychological siege as a normal state for persons of
color.
Albert
Chong
Aunt Winnie's Story 30x20 inches 1995 thermal transfer
print on canvas with incised copper metal
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In “Betrayal/Empowerment I” held at
Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1994 its written, “one of the
stories of Asians in America is a story of betrayal. Carlos Bulosan, a renowned Filipino novelist
wrote as early as 1938 of the condition of the pinoy (Filipino) as one of
betrayal. “ This is suggestive of a
kinship between an African and Asian American sensibility.
Joseph
Goto Untitled
#21 , 1979 welded steel
Sui Kang
Zhao Fluorescent
Pamphlet 1992 Fluorescent light, pamphlet, transparencies
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In “We Count! The
State of Asian Pacific America” in
1993, held in the Court House, adjacent to City Hall the catalogue essay “Towards an American Covenant With Difference”
stated: …a national program should be implemented to promote a
cultural/artistic dialogue, such that the gaps in understanding and
communication between diverse peoples and traditions that has existed for so long
are overcome. Such a program would prioritize diverse organizations and
artists. It would be based upon major initiatives to reverse the racial
precepts and exclusionary policies of preceding decades. It would recognize an
American covenant with difference is an important precondition for
participation in an interdependent world.” http://artasiamerica.org/artist/detail/71
Dolly Unithan
Banners of Martyrs (Victims of Police Violence)
348x40 inches 1993
site-specific installation
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The theme of
ancestors continued with The Reintegration of Tradition into Contemporary Art
in 1999 where it points to, “…what cultures share in their spirituality without
raising their separate characteristics. The three sectors that describe
American life (the marketplace, deliberative
processes of democracy, and the civic sector) may have omitted their dependence
on the fourth. Their roles in the public arena cannot do their work
without a mindfulness of the ‘larger silence’, and the great diversity of
beliefs this republic has yet to encompass.” A material and secular society tends to
overlook the higher realm where spirituality and its silence tends to be drowned
out by the noise and commotion of the chaos endemic to modern political
processes.
Hisako Hibi
Topaz 16x20
inches 1945 oil on
canvas Created in Topaz, UT
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In 2007
the exhibition Mixed Skin was held with Kip Fulbeck, Dorothy Imaguire &
Toni Thomas and essays by Teresa Kim & Albert Chong, artists of mixed Asian
descent & mixed African roots made manifest proudly this question of mixed
identity. To celebrate the identity of
Hapa as a heart centered relationship, a basis for family, and for society’s diversity,
was something AAAC could do.
As a senior community arts organization we thank you and are
grateful for your support. We encourage you not to forget such elder
organizations. Even in the midst of all
that we are going through, we are going through this together, so please keep
us in mind. Your support and your donations are very much welcomed and
needed. Your skills and your time may be
of great value to us. Please do not
hesitate to contact us. In this regard we invite you to donate to Asian
American Arts Centre (see artspiral.org for donation link) or to one of the
three elder arts organizations of your choosing below.
These are dear friends that you may already know. Otherwise we invite you to get to know them.