Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American Art - Hardcover

Elaine H. Kim; Margo Machida; Sharon Mizota; Lisa Lowe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520235355 ISBN 13: 9780520235359

Publisher: University of California Press, 2003

Synopsis

Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes chronicles the blossoming of Asian American art and anticipates the growing democratization of American art and culture. Pairing work by twenty-four contemporary Asian American visual artists with responses provocatively drawn from cultural critics, other artists, activists, and intellectuals, this book explores themes of geographical movement, the sexuality of Asian bodies, colonization, miscegenation, hybrid forms of immigrant cultures, the loss of home, war, history, and memory.

Elaine H. Kim's historical introduction charts the trajectory of Asian American art from the nineteenth century to the present, offering a comprehensive account of artists, major artworks, and major events. Commentaries by writers, artists, and cultural activists examine the work of visual artists such as Pacita Abad, Albert Chong, Y. David Chung, Allan deSouza, Michael Joo, Hung Liu, Yong Soon Min, Manuel Ocampo, PipoNguyen-Duy, Roger Shimomura, Carlos Villa, and Martin Wong. Prominent artists and critics such as Homi K. Bhabha, Luis Camnitzer, Enrique Chagoya, Gina Dent, Ellen Gallagher, Arturo Lindsay, Kobena Mercer, Griselda Pollock, Jolene Rickard, Faith Ringgold, Ella Shohat, Lowery Stokes Sims, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie offer thought-provoking reflections on each artist. Sharon Mizota's extended captions further elucidate the paintings, graphics, photography, installations, and mixed-media constructions under discussion.

As a set of dialogues, simultaneously visual and textual, Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes encourages the cross-cultural conversation that is shaping the emerging art of Asian Americans and of the United States in general. Alternately personal, intellectual, aesthetic, and political, these essays and the art they consider provide unique perspectives on both the past and the future of American art.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"Godzookie Lives! Kim, Machida, and Mizota have opened up a whole new series of conversations on identity within a varied and distinguished group of artists and writers. And we get to eavesdrop. The artists are Asian American, the respondents are from all over the map, and the results are in turn scholarly, political, intimate, and provocative. This dialogic form, across cultures, across generations, brings a breath of fresh air to cultural studies."—Lucy R. Lippard, author of Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America

"This wonderfully rich collection is three big projects stuffed into one: critical essays that help us theorize and historicize the Asian American art of the past and present; a generous sampling of contemporary artworks, accompanied by provocative and informative captions; and a series of responses to the efforts of individual artists by a wide range of intellectuals and activists. Altogether, we discover Asian American art at the crossroads of history, theory, criticism, and practice. Scholarly and sassy, personal and critical, this book stakes out an emerging and exciting field."—Anthony W. Lee, author of Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco

"This brilliantly original collection of essays and images overflows with experimental energy and ideas. Structured to foreground difference and to reflect theoretical, historical, and poetic perspectives, Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes radically redraws the cultural profile of Asian America."—Mark Johnson, co-curator of With New Eyes: Toward an Asian American Art History in the West

"Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes chronicles the coming of age of a distinct category in the American art scene. This paradigm-setting book collects together major voices in Asian American art and art criticism, literally acting as a visual and textual declaration that Asian American art has finally arrived."—Shu-mei Shih, author of The Lure of the Modern

About the Author:

Elaine H. Kim is Professor of Asian American and Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is coeditor of Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writing (2002) and executive producer of the documentary Labor Women (2002). Margo Machida is Assistant Professor of Art History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. She is also Visiting Scholar at New York University's Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program. Sharon Mizota is a visual artist and web designer who received her M.F.A. from Rutgers University. Lisa Lowe is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego, and author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian American

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0520235355
• ISBN 13: 9780520235359
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 233