Exhibition of Nuo Masks
November 28, 2005 - March 10, 2006

In "DETAINED," eleven artists address questions of identity, immigration and detention, especially in today's post-9/11 climate:

Wafaa Bilal includes political commentary in his work to encourage dialogue and self-reflection and to promote a sense of self-empowerment instead of powerlessness. Chitra Ganesh and Mariam Ghani create a physical library housing video, critical texts, portraits and prints addressing the human costs of public policy and the role of language in defining and redefining the rights, struggles and perceptions of immigrants in post-9/11 United States. Dorothy Imagire addresses ethnic identity. Performance artist Pia Lindman challenges viewers to question how our media environment alters and changes our perception of 'others.' Trong Nguyen's "Messages from Guantanamo" explores the question of who is detained at Guantanamo Bay. Lina Pallotta's portraits of Afghan women delve into not only the culture from which these women have come, but also their awareness of the influence that American culture has had on them. Jenny Polak & Dread Scott address the issues of immigrant detention and anti-Arab/anti-Muslim sentiment in Welcome to America. Visible Collective/ DisappearedInAmerica.org , traces migration impulses and hyphenated identities in post-9/11 security panic. Rene Yung draws on the idea of a community peace wall to create Meditations, an interactive piece referencing the Islamic tradition of making art with non-images.

Artists: Mikyung Kim, Anna Kuo, Younhee Paik

All art to some extent, lays claim to concerns of the spirit. For some artists, however, spiritual issues occupy a central concern, some indicate another realm or existential plane, others are based on access to esoteric knowledge and posit this in their work. The art making practice of these three women is affected by such beliefs as well as the mental states and artistic recipes that have evolved for them as individual personalities, coming to bare fruit with the fragrance of each art work created. In this way, Mikyung, Anna, & Younhee is an individual, and though one may not draw a direct tie to any one proposition on the spiritual, it is possible to say that to the extent a viewer can appreciate the art created is the extent a viewer senses the fragrant moment of its conception. Such art intimates a disclosure – that this life is staged in the context of a larger mystery and mundane habits and occurrences can be transformed by the light of this mystery. Curated by Robert Lee.

FRACTURED FAIRYTALES: The 16th Annual Exhibition
December 8, 2006 - January 19, 2007

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CHINESE CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENTAL ART
December 18, 2007 - March 16, 2007

Artistic ornamental color painting on architectural structures shows the unique spirit and concept of China's classical building - an architectural culture of ornamental art. China's classical architecture can be traced back to 3000 years ago. This art form first appeared on buildings during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-220 BC), and was a status symbol for the occupants of these buildings.

The architectural ornamental art has progressed along with the development of Chinese classical architecture through the application of colors, subject matter and technique. The subjects used in this art form varied from clouds, plants, animals, and spiritual deities in the Han Dynasty to lotus flowers in Six Dynasties Period. In Tang Dynasty, geometric figures and plants were more often applied. Qing Dynasty saw the peak of architecture in Chinese history. Its development combined Xuanzi painting and created palace style, Hexi style, Yuanlin Shu style among many others.

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MIXED SKIN
June 1st to July 13th, 2007

Opening reception: Friday, June 1st, 5:30pm to 8 pm
Artist talk and panel discussion on mixed race issues: Tuesday, June 19th, 7 pm

In an age of mixing cultural and ethnic identities, how do we define ourselves? This is a question that even for a community like New Yorks Chinatown, with so many energies pulling and tugging at its fabric, cannot be ignored. Chinatowns ethnic coherence can be sustained and celebrated as it embraces all of its diverse children and welcomes all of its potentialities.

In this art exhibition entitled, Mixed Skin, Asian American Arts Centre recognizes and celebrates the heart centered relationships that are the basis for diversity, and that are the final response to the erection of barriers everywhere. National barriers included. Three multi-ethnic artists atest to this by coming to grips with this question.

In his Hapa Project, Kip Fulbeck, a film director, artist and professor. He is of Cantonese, English, Irish, and Welsh background. His photographs of several hundred people who identify as Hapa (half Asian-Pacific American) records how each defines him- or herself.

After interviewing Sanseis, 3rd generation Japanese Americans who are also people of mixed Asian descent, Dorothy Imagire, an artist of Japanese and Iranian descent, blends fabrics from different cultures to create unique personalized kimonos reflecting each person's ethnic and cultural backgrounds. She will also be exhibiting, for the first time, her latest project - baby blankets reflecting the next generation of people of mixed Asian/Japanese descent-Quapa (or quarter Asian-Pacific American) children.

Toni Thomas, an artist of African and Native American roots, draws on the history of the former Chinatown in the predominantly African-American community in Newark, New Jersey. Her poignant series of collaged and painted quilts explore what sparks inter-community ties and integrated relationships among Asian and African American communities.

On Tuesday, June 19th, artists Dorothy Imagire and Toni Thomas will be jointed by other writers and artists for a panel discussion on the subject of mixed culture and identities. Filipina-Finnish writer Johanna Eva has been exploring what it means to be of mixed ethnicity in her zine Sisu. Additional participants to be announced (TBA), on this website.

AAAC is pleased to have two essays written for this exhibition. One by Albert Chong, and prominent Jamaican-Chinese artist/photographer who exhibited at AAAC in 1987, and who has done extensive research on Jamaican history. The other by Troung thi Kim Tuyen was born to a Vietnamese mother and African-American Marine father, and came to the US in 1975. She holds a BFA degree from Howard University and has studied at art schools in the US and London. She works in the arts and entertainment industry on marketing and production.

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2007-2008

FIBERS: FIERO, KOTANI, KIM
October 11rd to December 7th 2007

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RARE TRIBAL TEXTILES FROM CHINA
November 23rd to December 7th, 2007
December 14th to February29th, 2008

Accompanying the Fibers exhibition from November 23rd to December 7th will be an exhibition of Chinese Tribal Textiles from the Minority Peoples of China.?? These are museum quality fabrics from Dr. Andrew Wang, a collector of tribal arts and textiles from Asia, representative of historical tribal traditions. They are from the peoples known as: Miao, Gejia,Yao, Yi, Dai, Li, and Zhang.?? A selection of these will be on display to match the contemporary Fibers exhibition. The public is invited to view fibers as an art form, both traditional and contemporary, and to consider these two in relation to each other.?? In this way the Art of the New can be seen in the context of the Art of the Traditional.

A more extensive selection of these garments will be exhibited filling the entire gallery through the holiday season, from December 14th to February 29th, 2008. A reception will be held to mark this exquisite display of pattern and skill, the highest quality embroidery of China.

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YEONG GILL KIM
July 11th to August 1st, 2008
Opening Reception: Fri July 11, 2008 from 5:30pm - 8:30pm

VIEW YEONG GILL KIM'S ESSAY

Yeong Gill Kim is a Korean American artist who has lived in NY for many years. He saw the transition in Korea from a feudal society to a modern country and the confusion it brought to the people. By 1995 he had given up purely contemporary idioms and returned to materials and ideas that had inspired so much of Korea's artistic tradition. Inflected by modernity in the uniformity of the color of the strokes, by the washed surface, his gesture to contemporary times is there, and to that extent, to the West. The complexity of his brush work on muslin has attained a breathtaking clarity and simplicity.

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ARTSLAM 2008

WED, JULY 16, 2008 & FRI, AUGUST 15th 2008
Time: 7:00pm - Onwards
Admission: FREE.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Abha Dawesar, Vivian Wong, Kenji Kojima, Yasuko Shingu

Friday, August 15th 2008, from 7 to Onwards:
Barbara Coleman, Cecile Chong, Dana Zaldo, Kikuko Tanaka, Ugur Kunst

For more information please email aaacinfo@artspiral.org or call 212.233.2154

This event is organized by Adliana Bahrin, program assistant at AAAC.

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ARTSLAMS TESTIMONIALS

For the past few years, the Asian American Arts Centre has held ArtSlams, an interactive gathering of artists, curators, and community members. The ArtSlam engenders an environment in which the audience and artists engage in dialogue that provides constructive criticism and feedback to emerging artists who are influenced by Asia or Asian America. With the assistance of additional funding, we hope to host more ArtSlams to further the professional and creative growth of fledgling artists.

"I cannot begin to express what you gave me other than to say a whole new confidence in the value of continuing to take risks, make mistakes and do it all again. Thank you for the opportunity you gave my work to be seen and criticized by young professional artists and educators and well-informed artists as yourselves." -- Lathoriel Badenhausen
(read full letter)

"I cannot quantify the impact that ArtSlam has brought to my art career since the event, but the confidence that I got from the success of the event was tremendous, and gave me the strength and belief required to further pursue and sustain my practice in the art which eventually led to more valuable opportunity and endeavors." -- Eugenie Tung
(read full letter)

"ArtSlams program provides emerging and young artists a competitive yet productive occasion for presenting their works and receiving feedbacks. "-- Reiko Tomii
(read full letter)

"What I found that evening [of the ArtSlam] was a group of artists who were hungry to show their work and to dialog with other artists and critics. They absorbed the conversation around each others' work and participated generously, giving their own thoughts and observations. I thought the ArtSlam was exactly what a community of artists needs periodically. They need a chance to come together, share and test out their work and ideas in an intimate environment. Outside the university setting, this kind of evening is all too rare and precious." Emily Cheng
(read full letter)

"I am sure that the artists felt fantastic from the serious manner in which their work was discussed by the audience critics and curators. I thought the program was well organized and the tone was casual yet professional." -- Barbara Ellmann
(read full letter)

"The ArtSlam afforded me a much needed chance to express my views on my work in a supportive environment. This was very beneficial as English is not my mother tongue." -- Soyeon Cho

"The audience benefits because it lets them into a world seldom seen other than within the artist's studio. For the artist it is invaluable. Contact with a community group enriches the solitary artist by provocative feed back to take to their studio."-- Akiko Kotani

"In addition, ArtSlams are also a very unique and valuable program that offer the kind of opportunity that is unlike other art institutions, such as commercial galleries and museums that don't always focus on assisting young and under-represented artists to develop their professional portfolios and skills necessary for their budding careers." -- Bovey Lee
(read full letter)

"The ArtSlam programs are an invaluable resource for artists, from which they can develop networks, receive feedback, and learn presentation skills. Artists thrive best within a community that allows a free exchange of ideas and opinions, and this dynamic allows their work to thrive as well." -- Deanna Lee

"...the AAAC's ArtSlams have offered [participating artists] the rare opportunity to transcend the myriad cultural and ethnic barriers that can falsely and sadly divide New York's artists rather than offer them a larger and richer heritage." -- Libby Seaberg

The Reintegration of Tradition into Contemporary Art:
A Panel talk with Marie Yoho Dorsey & Yeong Gill Kim
Friday, August 8, 2008 5pm - 7pm

The panel talk with Marie Yoho Dorsey and Yeong Gil Kim will be held at Asian American Arts Centre, 26 Bowery on Friday, August 8, from 5pm to 7pm. Afterwards there will be a reception. The artists will speak on the synchronicity of Asian traditions and contemporary ideas, where they meet in their own art and lives. Images and art works will be shown and there will be time for questions to be discussed. This event is FREE, donations are welcome.

Young Gill Kim is a Korean American artist who has lived in NY for many years. He saw the transition in Korea from a feudal society to a modern country and the confusion it brought to the people. By 1995 he had given up purely contemporary idioms and returned to materials and ideas that had inspired so much of Korea's artistic tradition. Inflected by modernity in the uniformity of the color of the strokes, by the washed surface, his gesture to contemporary times is there, and to that extent, to the West. The complexity of his brush work on muslin has attained a breathtaking clarity and simplicity. With a disarming soft spoken simplicity Kim brings innovations to indigenous Asian traditions and points to a direction for a diverse American society.

As the curator, Robert Lee has said, "Yeong shows that contemporary art in America need not be founded on a break with the past, nor on claims of a new age of global technology. He demonstrates that a crisis of identity, a gap born of two irreconcilable cultures, can be spanned with a renewed confidence in the vitality of one's Asian traditions."

Marie Yoho Dorsey is an artist well trained for four years in the Japanese art of Ikebana. This has turned her skilled mind to the art of painting, the process of direct gravure, collage and installation to create delicate and masterful renderings on fabric. Her mystical journeys through landscapes and clouds capture the precious and ephemeral.

Ms Dorsey grew up in a bi-cultural family with a Japanese mother and American father. She was able to experience tradition and contemporary culture and takes part in transplanting the art of Ikebana here. She says, "Where East meets West the ideas behind Ikebana are imbued with a different set of cultural and artistic values inherent to the culture it finds itself."

Ms Dorsey says: classical Japanese philosophy understands the basic human reality as impermanence. It is a call to vital activity in the present moment and gratitude for another moment granted. "My work is a direct representation of an awareness of the world around me. I experience beauty as an emotion. All my materials have an ephemeral and a vulnerable quality to them. Ritual and contemplation are key elements to the work. Wonder and curiosity about the connections and associations which I entertain with the world around me inspire my image/object making."

MARIE YOHO DORSEY
August 8th to August 29st, 2008
Opening Reception: Fri August 8, 2008 from 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Marie Yoho Dorsey is an artist well trained for four years in the Japanese art of Ikebana. This has turned her skilled mind to the art of painting, the process of direct gravure, collage and installation to create delicate and masterful renderings on fabric. Her mystical journeys through landscapes and clouds capture the precious and ephemeral, despite the noise of the cities of New York and Florida where she lives.

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2008-2009

METRO POLES IN CHINATOWN
October 2008 - January 2009

Participating Artists: Katarina Wong, Wennie Huang, Tamiko Kawata, Olivia Beens, Wan Ling Li, Angela Valeria, Tamara Gubernat, Laura Chipley, Francisca Porali, Nathalie Pham, Avani Patel.

This Fall the Asian American Arts Centre joins in a cross-borough collaboration called Metro Poles occurring simultaneously in Jamaica, the Bronx & Lower Manhattan. Metro Poles in Chinatown marks the first time AAAC will partner with the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center & Chinatown Manpower Project & other local entities as installation sites for artists art works. This will open community institutions to the innovations and ideas of new art inviting a New York audience from Manhattan & other boroughs together with local people & residents.

*** Note: There will be a continuation of the Metro Poles In Chinatown at Columbus Park in the summer 2009

ZERO CAPITAL'S CLUSTERBOMB! AT AAAC
December 13 - January 15, 2009

OPENING RECEPTION & PERFORMANCES:
Saturday, Dec 13, 6pm-onwards

CLOSING RECEPTION:
Thurs, Jan 15, 6pm - onwards

Zero Capital's CLUSTERBOMB! will open at the Asian American Arts Centre at 26 Bowery, 3rd floor with a reception and performances from 6 to 9 pm. Asian American Arts Centre welcomes Zero Capital and is proud to support their initiating exhibition.

CLUSTERBOMB! is a creative response to physical and psychological displacement in the post 9-11 era of disillusionment and artistic inertia. It is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational and transnational network of artists, writers, activists, cultural workers and youth. Participants are posing a collective challenge to the issue of have and have-nots, why those who have are getting more and those who don't have are getting less or nothing.

Zero Capital is a collective of NYC based, as well as national and international artists, writers, activists, cultural workers and youth, with outsider artists messaging a possibility. Artists include: Tomie Arai, Regie Cabico, Fay Chiang, Jean Chiang, Jason DaSilva, Paul Gilman, Lauren Hokoyama, Arlan Huang, Jason Kao Hwang, Siddhartha Joag, Mia Kang, Perry Mamaril, Mari Nakano, Danny Phelan, F. Omar Telan, Laura Wilde and Bella Noir, Angel Velasco Shaw and others.

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A LUNAR NEW YEAR FESTIVAL 2009

Exhibition of Tibetan Thangka Paintings

FOLK FESTIVAL:
Sunday, February 1st, 2009 | 3:00PM - 5:30PM

EXHIBITION OF TIBETAN THANGKA PAINTINGS:
January 21 - March 31 2009

OPENING RECEPTION:
Sun, Feb 8 2009 3:00pm-5:30pm at AAAC

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, the Arts Centre is pleased to announce "A Lunar New Year Folk Arts Festival" featuring Asian Folk Artists, and a Tibetan folk singer. Five traditional artists/crafts people will be giving hands on demonstrations. Artists include: Ye Xun - a Chinese miniature dough figurine artist, Rose Sigal-Ibsen - Sumi-e ink calligrapher, Kavita Vyas - an Indian Mahendi hand painting artist, Duong Truong - fortune teller, Kwok Kay Choey - an Er Hu performer, together with Jampa Youden - a Tibetan folk singing performance. New Year delicacies will also be served.

Audiences will have the opportunity to interact with skilled folk artists who demonstrate their crafts and will have the opportunity to ask questions, make requests and the chance to learn and delight in the magic of a traditional craft and to enjoy traditional folk singing. This is an ideal event for families. The music, art and performances will delight both old and young alike.

Festival Admission: General - $12; Senior Citizens, Students - $6; Children 3 - 12 - $6: and for Children 3 and under - Free.

* Come early. Space is limited! For reservation and information, write to aaacinfo@artspiral.org or call 212.233.2154.

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Tibetan Thangka Paintings Exhibtion
The exhibition of high quality Tibetan Thangka paintings will be on view during this festival. The dates of the exhibition are January 26 till March 13, 2009. Thangka paintings usually depict deities and saints, aspects of the life of the Buddha, as well as the more abstract Mandalas, astrological charts, medical descriptions and scenes, usually serving as a supplementary aid to religious educational development. They are meant as focal elements for visualization, meditation and contemplation. A talk by Lama Tenzin Yignyen is expected at the opening reception. Write aaacinfo@artspiral.org for info.

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THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE: ARTASIAMERICA
Launching in Spring 2009

[ ARCHIVE ESSAY ]

All Hands On Deck: Crafting The Teachable Moment
Date: March 23, 2009
Location: South St. Seaport Museum, New York, NY

AAAC education programs will be featured at Cool Culture from 9am to 130pm on March 26 at South St Seaport called Crafting the Teachable Moment. Come and experience AAAC culturally diverse approach to art education. Or book a tour of AAAC gallery directly through aaainfo@artspiral.org

By encouraging an encounter with an art work in relation to one's own background, a viewer can become conscious of what is learned visually, intuitively. Doing this with young children for over a dozen years has demonstrated how diversity and visual games can be integrated seamlessly as a valid and enriching addition to education. You can become conscious of what is learned visually.

THE 30TH ANNUAL ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN HERITAGE FESTIVAL
Sunday May 3, 2009 | 12-6PM
Location: Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 47th. St. NYC

Featuring a variety of Folk artists from different backgrounds, five traditional artists/crafts people will be giving hands on demonstrations. As for this year, the artists joining Asian American Arts Centre are:

Jampa Youden : a Tibetan folk singer who also does traditional jewelry design.
Kavita Vyas - Mehandi artist
Ming Liang Lu: master paper cutter of portraits
Rose Sigal Ibsen : Sumi-e Calligraphy Artist
Ye Xun : Dough figurine master artist

Audiences will have the opportunity to interact with skilled folk artists who demonstrate their crafts and will have the opportunity to ask questions, make requests and the chance to learn and delight in the magic of a traditional craft! Go here to read more about our folk artists.

This is an ideal event for families. The music, art and performances will delight both old and young alike. See you there this weekend!

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"AMERICA'S CHINATOWN VOICES" AT COLUMBUS PARK
MAY 9 - AUGUST 8, 2009

PRESS CONFERENCE:
Friday, May 8, 3pm at AAAC

OPENING RECEPTION:
Thurs, May 14, 2009, 6:30pm - 8:30pm at AAAC

A special outdoor art event will occur in Columbus Park this Spring/Summer. To rally the community to come together and speak about their community. From children to seniors, in English & in Chinese, with images or without, this opportunity is for all to be heard. Especially welcome are those atuned to the decisions that face Chinatown and know that the future of Chinatown is in our hands. Their voice, ideas, and statements will be painted on panels 18x24 inches all around the outside gates of Columbus Park at a distance of 15-20 feet of each other. A total of about 70-80 panels will be up, Once a week the artists (and volunteers) will come in on the weekend to repaint some panels, and repaint new comments and thoughts on the panels. On the weekends an Open Day where the artists will attend the installation and invite community members to write down their comments on the panels.

Each panel will have an email address or phone where the community can email the artist their thoughts and comments to be posted the next week.

Volunteers are welcome to sign up and help to mount this extensive weekly effort by contacting Nat@npham.com or aaacinfo@artspiral.org

For updates, go to http://www.nycmetropoles.com

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ARTSLAM 2009
FRIDAY, JULY 3RD 2009 | 5:30PM - 7:30PM
Participating Artists:
Hwa Hyun Kim, Kerry Ann Lee, Nung-Hsen Hu, and Xiaoqing Ding

For the past several years, the Asian American Arts Centre has held a series of slide/art slams, allowing emerging artists the opportunity to present and talk about their work, meet and network with each other as well as with more established artists and critics/curators. Last year, the Centre hosted two slide slams, showcasing the work of nine artists working in various media.

On Friday, July 3rd, Asian American Arts Centre will be hosting the annual ARTSLAM, showcasing the work of emerging Asian-American & Asia influenced artists.

Admission is FREE. EVERYONE is invited. This event is organized by Adliana Bahrin.

The ARTSLAM Series is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency and from The New York Department of Cultural Affairs. The Asian American Arts Centre was founded in 1974 in New York City as a not-for-profit organization to address the distinctive concerns of Asian Americans in the United States. Its mission is to promote the preservation and creative vitality of Asian American cultural growth through the arts, and its historical and aesthetic linkage to other communities.

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HOME MADE: Picturing Chinese Settlement in New Zealand
ARTIST TALK WITH KERRY ANN LEE

Kerry Ann Lee is an artist, designer and educator based in Wellington, New Zealand and is currently in New York doing an Artists residency at the School of Visual Arts with support from the Fulbright New Zealand and the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust.

Home Made is a visual art and design project that draws upon Lee's heritage to interogate Chinese identity in New Zealand. The lavishly illustrated artist book expands the discussion on mid-19thC Cantonese Diaspora and celebrates an alternative cultural history of Chinese settlement through cut-paper, paint, found text and images.

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CHINA: JUNE 4, 1989
June 4, 2009 - Ongoing
Online Exhibition: Website

On June 5, 1989, in response to the massacre of the students in Tiananmen Square, the Asian American Arts Centre in NY initiated a year long exhibition that eventually brought over 300 artists to participate, drawing attention to this historic tragedy. After the exhibit traveled to several sites over the next few years and the calls to have it and the informative materials that accompanied it died away, the exhibition and the art work that it encompassed lay dormant. Now, on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Student Movement this exhibition is being revised with this online exhibition for all to see. Much has passed and China may no longer be the China that it was. For this exhibition, this is not the issue. Tiananmen Square, however, must not be forgotten. So many artists came forward to give selflessly to this cause, creating innumerable memorable images.

These images manifest & reflect the global outcry and passion that was felt around the world. If there is any message of these art works to be remembered, like the image of that sole resistor who stood before a line of tanks stopping them in their tracks, it is to stand up for what you believe. Remember Tiananmen Square...

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Computer Art Residency: A Collaboration with Immigrant Social Service Inc.
JULY 27 - JULY 31, 2009

Sponsored by Asian American Arts Centre with support from a collaboration with Immigrant Social Service, the artist Jiawei Gong will be in residence for this week from July 27 to July 31, 2009 Monday to Friday daily from 3pm to 6pm at the Immigrant Social Service at 137 Henry St. He will install some of his new art work as it is developing and work on his computer in the basement community space of Immigrant Social Services where local teenagers gather daily. During the Residency he will interact with these teenager on a casual, informal basis, spending time with them, answering their questions and curiosity, and in this way introduce young people to creativity & how technology can be used to further creative goals.

This is a pilot program of AAAC with funding from the Asian American Arts Alliance, investigating innovative ways for the arts to be effective in a community setting. Local community centers and facilities as sites for contemporary artists work enables AAAC to reach non-traditional audiences and encourage new and interesting perceptions by participates and viewers. Visitors are welcome to see Jiawei Gong's installation, see the process of bringing work from the digital realm to realization, and witness the learning environment that will be created -- visitors will be permitted in from 4:00PM - 5:30PM daily.

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2009-2010

ARTASIAMERICA.ORG IS LAUNCHED!
Date: July 28, 2009
WEBSITE WWW.ARTASIAMERICA.ORG

[ PRESS RELEASE | ARCHIVE ESSAY ]

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Out Of The Archive: PROCESS & PROGRESS
'35th Anniversary Celebration of the Asian American Arts Centre'

SEPTEMBER 18 - OCTOBER 30, 2009
Curated by Angel Velasco Shaw

OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday September 18th 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Out of The Archive: PROCESS & PROGRESS CATALOG ISBN#0974330221

[ PRESS RELEASE | ESSAYS FROM CATALOG ]

Farewell To 26 Bowery
'We are moving!'

After thirty-five years of operation, Asian American Arts Centre will leave its home at 26 Bowery, continuing its cultural work from a new address.

[ PRESS RELEASE | LOCAL ISSUES ]

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Dialogues in the Visual Arts Series:
Out of the Archive: Progress and Community

DECEMBER 9, 2009, 7PM
LOCATION: BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center at 19 Chambers Street, New York, NY 10007
ENTRY: $5 inclusive of refeshments.

Moderator: Robert Lee, Executive Director of AAAC with Artists Nathalie Pham, Eun Young Choi, and Triple Edwards.
Curator: Susan Fleminger, deputy director at Abrons Arts Center of Henry Street Settlement

A panel conversation about the Asian American Art Centre's important web site artasiamerica.org, reflecting 60 years and several generations artistic production by Asian American artists and the organization's current community development efforts.

[ PRESS RELEASE ]

China on the Way to Modernization (From the Republic to the Present)
"A Case Study on Inheritance and Development of Jingdezhen Ceramic Craftsmanship."

Two Lectures On Sunday by Dr. Fang Lili and Zhu Legeng

DATE: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2009, 7PM
LOCATION: University Settle at Houston Street Center, 273 Bowery
ENTRY: Free

The talk will explain Dr. Fang's understanding of how tradition and cultural heritage have presented new sources of economic growth. Jindezhen is the case study because its traditional ceramic craftsmanship and the culture system based on it were attacked and essentially overthrown by a modern, industrial system. The craft persisted and was well preserved in the new culture.

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NEW YORK LUNAR NEW YEAR FESTIVAL 2010

DATE: Fri. Feb 12, 2010, 10am-10pm & Sat 2/13 10am-7pm
Location: Sara D. Roosevelt Park, Chinatown, NYC (map)
Admision: FREE!

"A Lunar New Year Folk Arts Festival" featuring Asian Folk artists and musicians. Traditional artists/crafts people will be giving hands on demonstrations. Artists include a Chinese miniature dough figurine artist, a calligrapher, a Korean Knotting artist, an Indian Mahendi hand painting artist, an Er Hu performer, together with a Tibetan folk dance and music performance. New Year delicacies will also be served. Audiences will have the opportunity to interact with skilled folk artists and ask questions, make requests and learn and delight in the magic of a traditional craft and music. This is an ideal event for families.

[ PRESS RELEASE ] [ PAMPHLET ]

THE 31TH ANNUAL ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN HERITAGE FESTIVAL

DATE: SUNDAY, MAY 2ND, 2010
TIME: 12PM - 6PM
LOCATION: UNION SQUARE PARK, E 14th ST. (BTWN. BROADWAY & PARK AVE.)

Featuring a variety of Folk artists from different backgrounds, five traditional artists/crafts people will be giving hands on demonstrations. As for this year, the artists joining Asian American Arts Centre are:

Karen Ahn: Korean Maedeup (Knotting)
Kavita Vyas: Mehandi artist
Ming Liang Lu: Master paper cutter of portraits
Jampa Youden : A Tibetan folk singer who also does traditional jewelry design.
Rose Sigal Ibsen : Sumi-e calligrapher
Ye Xun : Dough figurine master artist

Audiences will have the opportunity to interact with skilled folk artists who demonstrate their crafts and will have the opportunity to ask questions, make requests and the chance to learn and delight in the magic of a traditional craft! Go here to read more about our folk artists.

This is an ideal event for families. The music, art and performances will delight both old and young alike. See you there this weekend!

[ PRESS RELEASE ]

AMERICA'S CHINATOWN VOICES:
Exhibition & Silent Auction

Red Panels from Summer 2009 Outdoor Exhibition in Columbus Park
"A Gathering of the Arts in Chinatown"

View panels HERE to auction.

DATE: APRIL 23 - MAY 9, 2010

OPENING RECEPTION: APRIL 22, 6PM - 8PM
CLOSING & MOTHER'S DAY PARTY: SUNDAY, MAY 9, 4PM-7PM

LOCATION: Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 3rd Floor (map)

Artists: Avani Patel, Nathalie Pham, and the Chinatown community

About 80 - 90 red panels were painted by community people, children, artists & other New Yorkers from the previous installation "America's Chinatown Voices" will be mounted at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center. There will be a night where the panels will be auction.

The artists will mount an online gallery of the panels for viewing, in the mean time please go to HERE to view pictures from the exhibition at Columbus Park last year.

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CHINA: JUNE 4, 1989
June 4, 2010 - August 4, 2010
Online Exhibition: Website

On June 5, 1989, in response to the massacre of the students in Tiananmen Square, the Asian American Arts Centre in NY initiated a year long exhibition that eventually brought over 300 artists to participate, drawing attention to this historic tragedy. After the exhibit traveled to several sites over the next few years and the calls to have it and the informative materials that accompanied it died away, the exhibition and the art work that it encompassed lay dormant. Now, on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Student Movement this exhibition is being revised with this online exhibition for all to see. Much has passed and China may no longer be the China that it was. For this exhibition, this is not the issue. Tiananmen Square, however, must not be forgotten. So many artists came forward to give selflessly to this cause, creating innumerable memorable images.

These images manifest & reflect the global outcry and passion that was felt around the world. If there is any message of these art works to be remembered, like the image of that sole resistor who stood before a line of tanks stopping them in their tracks, it is to stand up for what you believe. Remember Tiananmen Square...

[ PRESS RELEASE ]

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2010-2011

ARTSLAM 2010
discussion/panel talk

DATE: THURSDAYS | 10/14 & 10/21 | 530PM-730PM

THURSDAY OCT 14TH, 5PM-630PM
Participating Artists:
Jing Zhou, Vivian Oyarbide, Maia Cruz Palileo, and Uday Kdhar.

THURSDAY OCT 21ST, 5PM-630PM | POTLUCK!!! Bring your friends and food!
Participating Artists:
Carol Tanjutco, Susan Lee Yung, Justin Baldwin, Betty Taopat Kaos, and Roshani Thakore.

For the past several years, the Asian American Arts Centre has held a series of slide/art slams, allowing emerging artists the opportunity to present and talk about their work, meet and network with each other as well as with more established artists and critics/curators. Last year, the Centre hosted an art slam, showcasing the work of 5 excellent artists working in various media.

On Thurdays, October 14th and October 21st, Asian American Arts Centre will be hosting the annual ARTSLAM, showcasing the work of emerging Asian-American & Asia influenced artists.

Admission is FREE. EVERYONE is invited.

The ARTSLAM Series is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency and from The New York Department of Cultural Affairs. The Asian American Arts Centre was founded in 1974 in New York City as a not-for-profit organization to address the distinctive concerns of Asian Americans in the United States. Its mission is to promote the preservation and creative vitality of Asian American cultural growth through the arts, and its historical and aesthetic linkage to other communities.

**CORRECTION: Carol Tanjutco will present on Oct 21. Dmitry Borshch is unable to attend.

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8 ARTISTS: FROM THE ARCHIVE
exhibition

DATE: AUGUST 14 - SEPTEMBER 11, 2010
LOCATION: CUCHIFRITOS, NYC

OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, AUGUST 14th, 4PM - 630PM

Artists: Charles Yuen, Dinh Q. Le , Dorothy Imagire, Eunjung Hwang, Howardena Pindell, Nancy Hom, Roger Shimomura, and, Sin-ying Ho.

In collaboration with the Artists Alliance Inc. (AAAI), exhibition entitled tentatively, Eight Artists: From The AAAC Archive��������������������������������, will be installed in the Cuchifritos art gallery/project space located inside the Essex Street Market from August 14th - September 11th 2010.

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OF FILMI LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS:
exhibition

Exhibit: October 1, November 24
Opening Reception: Friday, October 29th, 6:00 p.m.
Location: Asian Arts Initiative , 1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Artists: Jaishri Abichandani, Shelly Bahl, Siona Benjamin, Swati Khurana, Nitin Mukul, Pratima Naithani.

Curated by Shelly Bahl

AAAC and AAI presents you our often explicit and sometimes secret celluloid obsessions. Oh, how to explain our joyful passions and guilty pleasures in reenacting these choreographed gestures of love, longing, betrayal and loss!

Do not fear this charmed world of ours. Some may mock it as a place of artifice and stylized emotions, set to song and dance sequences. Ah, but these are not merely empty gestures, but rather, a doorway into a magical realm where epic narratives gain strength through consistent repetition.

Filmi Love the traces of sticky sweet smudges from glittery kisses upon our fingertips, as we dance through the florid gardens of our imaginations. Join us, and we spin you right round, baby, right round.

The six artists in the exhibition are all currently based in New York City and vicinity. Their works in this exhibition comprising of painting, mixed-media, photography, video and installation, reflect on the omnipresent influence of Bollywood cinema within contemporary popular culture in South Asia, the Diaspora and beyond.

A collaboration between Asian American Arts Centre and Asian Arts Initiative. The reception is co-sponsored by Twelve Gates Art Gallery.

Asian Arts Initiative's visual arts programming is supported in part by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

[ PRESS RELEASE ]

ACTIVISM AND THE RISE OF THE ALTERNATIVE SPACES AT EXIT ART
discussion/panel talk

DATE: FRIDAY, OCT 29TH, 6PM-9PM
LOCATION: EXIT ART, 475 Tenth Ave, New York, NY 10018 (map)

In conjunction with Exit Art's Alternative Histories exhibition, a panel talk entitles "Activism and the Rise of Alternative Art Spaces" will be held on Friday 10/29.

Robert Lee, director of Asian American Arts Centre will discuss the founding of the Asian American Art Centre:

Its relation to the Asian American movement; its emergence from the activities of the Basement Workshop (1970-mid1980s); Its establishment as the non-profit Asian American Dance Theatre in 1974 and changing to its current name in 1986; its expansion to include the presentation of contemporary art exhibitions in 1983, as well as its other folk art and educational programs and activities.

Moderator: Mary Anne Staniszewski, Associate Professor and Acting Head of the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY

Participants: Robert Lee, Director, Asian American Arts Center; Beka Economopoulos, Co-Founder / Director, Not An Alternative; Alanna Heiss, Founder, P.S.1, Director, AIR and Clocktower Gallery; Avram Finkelstein, Gran Fury; Melissa Rachleff Burtt, Clinical Associate Professor of Arts Administration, NYU

Investigating the early history of New York alternative spaces, this panel looks at the genesis, culture and legacy of this movement in the context of activism and political agency.

Please RSVP to this event: http://www.exitart.org/support/rsvp. Each public event during the Alternative Histories exhibition is $5.00 which can be paid on line or at the door.

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