Previous AAWAA Intern Writes about Asian American Artists

Wendy Chen, a recent intern with AAWAA has had a successful learning experience and wrote an essay about Asian American art!


A Place Of Her Own- Defining the Utopian Ideal      Wendy Chen, Brymar University

 In 1971, Linda Nochlin wrote a pioneering essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”. The essay addressed the severe disproportion of “great” female to male artists in art history. Nochlin answered this question by stating that, “art is not a free, autonomous activity of a super-endowed individual, ‘influenced’ by previous artists. And more vaguely and superficially, by ‘social forces’ but rather, that the total situation of art making, both in terms of the development of the art maker and in the nature and quality of the work of art itself, occur in a social situation, are integral elements of this social structure, and are mediated and determined by specific and definable social institutions, be they art academics, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator, artist as he-man, or social outcast” (158 Nochlin).

Instead of attributing the lack of “great women artists” to individual limitations, Nochlin believes that the answer lies in institutional boundaries. Such hindrances to the development of successful artists were caused by the myth of the “genius” being commonly associated with the male artist.  The nineteenth century female artists’ lack of accessibility to nude models and the belief that the “real” work of women, should be to directly or indirectly, serve the family instead of engaging in a professional art career. Such societal assumptions left women artists restricted from many of the opportunities men had access to. Which is still true today. Rosa Bonheur was one of the few women who did succeed and was known for her detailed animal paintings of horses, which overtly projected her inner self-confidence. However she was only able to attain this magnitude of reputation by covertly adopting “masculine attributes” of single-mindedness, tenaciousness, and devotion to a professional art career. Linda Nochlin’s argument reflects how the absence of great women artists was due to the social institutions that were in place, which inhibited their visibility and potential. In art history the notions of “femininity” associated with women often put them at a disadvantage. This debilitating fixation on the differences between masculine and feminine is what obscured many of the nineteenth century artists from becoming visible in the art world. It makes you want to ask the same question about why there have been no great Asian American women artists in the United States. Not only are Asian Americans lacking a sense of self-identification and articulation but they are also underrepresented in mainstream visual arts and popular media. Therefore we should also examine the social forces and institutional boundaries that may be present and inhibiting their visibility.

I am arguing that the construction of identity demands critical re-examination and requires us to reform our ideas of gender, race and culture by stop dwelling on peripheral racial differences and start finding our commonalities. A major problem is the conception of identity as solely an ethnic, biological and cultural formation; people of Asian physiognomy are inherently marked as foreign.  The United States has never been a monoculture it has always been a collective cultural embodiment of memories and histories from both indigenous and immigrant communities. However Asian Americans are constantly perceived as perpetual guests because the majority of Caucasian Americans still accept the perceived imprints of racial and ethnic ancestry as natural markers of identity. As Asian Americans our identity can be viewed as instigators of change, as a testament to how identity is malleable, multidimensional and multicultural. Our multicultural identity is articulating something that is fundamental to what it means to be an American. It doesn’t matter if someone is Asian-American, Latin-American, African-Americans or European-American in essence we are all fundamentally the same. As individuals living in America we all desire a place that is founded on the ideals of being a liberal and democratic haven.

But like many minority groups expressing their identity, Asian American art has often been criticized for its association with “politics of victimization”. Identity politics is sometimes perceived to further legitimize and encourage self-marginalization. In 1993 Whitney Biennial featured a national show for new artistic talent of marginalized communities including African Americans, Latinos, homosexuals and Asians. This exhibition was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and received negative responses by reviewers who complained of feeling “battered by condescension” due to moralizing tones of social work or therapy when reducing the contemporary social issues to a battle between victims and oppressors. Three other exhibitions revolving around identity titled “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,” “Bad Girls,” and “Asia/America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art,” were also publicly denounced for perpetuating stereotypes and rhetorics of victimization.

Instead of formulating a cultural discourse through stories of diasporic pain and suffering which may further racialize oriental imagery. What needs to be done is that the stereotypes of inassimilable, culturally “backward” notions of Asians need to be proactively challenged. Stereotypes are markers of difference. Stereotypes are an example of how society uses oversimplified, widely held arbitrary ideas to distinguish between racial and gender groups by creating a narrative of “otherness”. People need to start realizing that skin color and ethnicity are merely a peripheral quality of an individual and the first step is to start breaking stereotypes. Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) is an important and necessary organization that questions the social forces and institutional structures that may prevent Asian American Women Artists from articulating their conceptions of identity and communal consciousness.

Art is the perfect narrative for exposing lives, as well as consciousness of communities and individuals. In addition to the re-formation of ethnicity, social norms of gender need to be reformed by countering the controlling images of Asian female stereotypes that are institutionally hampering their visibility,  their credibility and their important works . The modern identity is increasingly becoming more “fluid” and “the phenomenon of globalization has shifted Asian American studies and cultural criticism away from the U.S environment to focus on wider regional and international realms” (Machida 41).

By simply doing a comparison between the Asian American artists exhibited in “A Place Of Her Own” (curated by Cynthia Tom), and a photograph by a Chinese contemporary artist named Chen Lingyang, titled 25:00 (No 1), I was already able to see the similarities of in their artistic pursuits. What I noticed was that female artists in the United States and in China are both exhibiting a growing awareness of the debilitating nature of regulatory gender and social norms, and are presenting a concurrent desire for an idealistic gender reality. Despite coming from different national origins, Asian American artists and Chinese contemporary artists both present their longing for emancipation in a utopian form. They are creating or claiming a space where they can feel visible and unrestrained by social boundaries. Similar to how Chen Lingyang depicts a fictitious time of day where she can fulfill her fantasy of being “large” and be “as large as [she’d like], and do whatever [she] wants”. I see a reoccurring theme in female Asian American Artists, where they are looking for a place to feel liberated, to be unrestrained, to be visible and to matter. A Place of Her Own is successfully working towards the common cause of empowerment, feminism, self acceptance and social justice for all women that transcends the boundaries of nations and ethnic origins.

The burgeoning of the information technology age is actively bridging the gaps between cultures and societies and eroding national and cultural boundaries. In AAWAA’s most recent exhibition, Flying Fish, curated by Mido Lee and Li Ma, was about multiculturalism and the influence of technology in changing cultural paradigms. The exhibit was based on the metaphor of how Asian American artists were like a fish swimming through the confines of darkness, but eventually acquiring the ability to soar and fly like a bird, projecting into the sky. Not only did this exhibit present a theme of multiculturalism with optimistic undertones but it also united artists who were born and raised in the United States with the artists who were born in China and immigrated to the United States. This was another example of how artists from different backgrounds can be united as Asian American Artists based on their idealistic pursuits. Artist Bing Zhang’s paintings show how digital technology is impacting private and public lives from a global standpoint. Many of her paintings depict interracial interactions of Asians and Caucasians equally occupying a canvas space. It begins to reflect the possibilities of how cultures can intersect. That Asian Americans are an example of a community not defined by conceptions of geography and nationality.

These imagined utopias show how cultures can coexist without the need to exert dominance over the other. Society will benefit by becoming more “colorblind” and finding more similarities, rather than differences, between gender, race, and culture. By challenging these ideas of “Asia” as an imposed geopolitical fiction we will realize that many of our “markers” of difference are social processes designed to create “otherness”. As Americans we all share some form of history of diaspora. Amy K. Bell captured it well in her artist statement when she said that “Americans are excellent dreamers. [Their] ability to imagine new worlds and new ways of life has its roots. It is nurtured by a history of defending Democracy”. As long as Asian American artists continue to defend and fight for their rightful place in the world of art, one day these imagined utopias will finally transform into realities.