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.
