Chinatown Arts week 

"Heart Mind"

postait from the Bob Eng Lee and AAAC Collections

 The 4th annual Chinatown Arts Week is here! From October 15th to 24th Think!Chinatown will be hosting cultural programming featuring traditional Chinese arts groups along with emerging Asian American artists. Join us for musical performances, dance performances, mural celebrations, art exhibitions, and so much more! All events are free to the public. 

_ AAAC 

https://www.thinkchinatown.org/artsweek2021

F-Stop in Chinatown: Group Exhibition

• Friday, September 24, 2021
• 6:00 PM 8:00 PM
• 1 pike st new york, NY (map)

Exhibition is up Sept 24-Oct 13 at 1 Pike St

October 17, 2021

"Heartmind”

Portraits from the Bob Eng Lee

and Asian American Arts Centre Collections,"

at

Pearl River Mart Gallery

ASIAN AMERICAN ARTS CENTRE is pleased to announce the art exhibition,

"Heartmind: Portraits from the Bob Eng Lee and Asian American Arts Centre Collections," at Pearl River Mart Gallery at 452 Broadway. Presented in collaboration with @thinkchinatown as part of Chinatown Arts Week.

At One Pike St., on the other side of Chinatown, is a companion exhibition that engages the history of AAAC, the New York City Asian American arts community, and themes of Asian American identity.  Artists: Yoshiki Araki, Julia Nee Chu, Tai Dang, Ming Fay, Teh Ching Hsieh, Arlan Huang, Wing Young Huie, Soon Im Kim, Akiko Kotani, Nina Kuo, Jerry Kwan, Kwok Mang Ho, Evri Kwong, Long Nguyen, Tara Subharwal, Charles Yuen, Chen Zhen and others.   Opening Reception Friday October 22, 6pm – 8pm 

Dates TBA.  And by appt - ThinkChinatown.org

For more info  https://www.thinkchinatown.org/artsweek2021

October 15th - 24th! The 4th annual Chinatown Arts Week

https://www.thinkchinatown.org/bob-lee

In this context the phrase “Asian American art'' serves more as a political term than an aesthetic one and also refers to our brief history in these United States. My perspective, however, began with the formation of Asian civilizations — in deep time. This is where it is possible to begin to imagine how notions of both “East” and “West” evolved in relationship to each other, along the so-called Silk Route. In this ancient soil, fresh history is still being written. “Alternatives to the Story of Christopher Columbus,” an exhibition we did on this theme in 1992, raised questions of how white supremacy started in the early Middle Ages in the clash with the nomadic Migration Peoples. Along the Silk Route, we may find how the emphasis on the man-made world and the disregard and abuse of the natural world began, and learn important clues as to how to address it. Asian American art has been a door for me that opens to the world. 

Turn your attention, now, to the work that has been chosen to exhibit here — some, you will see nowhere else. Look at Soonim Kim’s life-size portrait head, shown at One Pike, and see that it is, amazingly, made of wool! Raw fibers form a face, shaping each of her features, the incredible raw, woolly texture of her skin so soft to the touch as to seem weightless. What skills were harnessed to create such a marvel? Indeed, the artist adapted and invented in order to create. Taught by her grandmother at an early age she was well-schooled in needlepoint by the time the artist went to art school. She was there introduced to drawing techniques with charcoal sticks. Art students will remember their lessons in chiaroscuro, capturing the shades of light and shadow as it fell across the surface of a table or a chair, a scene keenly observed in light values. Soonim wondered if she could do this with her needlepoint. First in low relief, then in higher relief, eventually she could render her perceptions in the full round. In this way, Soonim brought together her Asian feminine sensibility with a Western way of seeing into her art — a most direct manifestation of what Asian American art is. If you have visited the Greek and Roman sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum, you have seen the portrait heads of Roman patriarchs that are so similar to Soonim’s head — except they are made of marble. Soonim Kim’s portrait is an inversion: a poignant rendering of a soft, kind, gentle person in the moment of light that it was captured. 

_from exhibition statement of Bob Eng Lee