U Can’t Touch Dis: The New Asian ArtCurated by Eric C. Shiner
Sep 6 - Oct 13, 2007
ZONE:Chelsea Center for the Arts, NY
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 6th 6-8pm. Featuring the work of: Goil Amornvivat, Brendan Fernandes, Hiroshi McDonald Mori, Yoskay Yamamoto, Lisha Bai Ramya, Ravisankar, O Zhang, Yun Bai, Min Kim, Satanicpornocultshop, Toby Barnes, Susan Lee-Chun, Wei Shen, Angel Chang, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Saya Woolfalk
Presenting the work of 16young artists, many showing in New York for the first time, U Can’t Touch Dis introduces a cacophony of voices, images, sounds and sites that transform the traditional aesthetic tropes of Asian art into a new visual language based on global currents in new wave music, fashion, aesthetics and pop culture. These artists, from across Asia and the Asian diaspora in the West, create the “New Asian Art,” a philosophical nexus of production that is changing the face of Asia and indeed the world.
From Satanicpornocultshop’s hybrid mix of pop, experimental and death metal music to Saya Woolfalk’s full-room soft sculpture and video installations that revolve around scarily cute depictions of life and death, the New Asian Artists included in the exhibition break the rules of race, class and gender normativity, creating dynamic works that are smart, troubling, beautiful and eclectic in equal measure. Many of the artists in the exhibition throw the idea of “Asia” into the trash bin, instead identifying themselves as part of a truly global flow of information, identities and positions. Some have punk rock sensibilities, whereas others are old-school academics with a penchant for releasing the oft talked about “other”; no matter their stance, they make art that screams out in rebellion, whether subtle in nature or too hot to touch.
The exhibition will explore the concept of what it means to be an “Asian” artist in the early 21st-century, and indeed if that label is still applicable in the first place. All of the artists in the show consciously displace themselves from the tropes of Asia, whether geographically through their decision to leave Asia and move or work abroad, or philosophically in terms of their reflective stance on their own identities, mixed and varied as they are. From Chinese artists living in New York, to a Canadian artist born in Kenya and of Indian ancestry, the artists in U Can’t Touch Dis are citizens of the world, a trait readily depicted in their cutting edge work.
The exhibition includes works ranging from painting (Lisha Bai, Yun Bai, Barnes, Kim, Matsuyama, Ravisankar and Yamamoto) to sculpture (Lee-Chun, Fernandes and Woolfalk), as well as photography (Mori, Wei, Zhang), conceptual design (Amornvivat), fashion (Chang) and music (Satanicpornocultshop).
ZONE:Chelsea Center for the Arts
601 W. 26th St. #302
New York, NY 10001
Tel: (212)255-2177
Fax: (212)255-7264
info@zonechelsea.org