One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now

Performance by Patty Chang: A Chinoiserie Out of the Old West

November 15, 2007; 6:00 p.m.

BAM Galleries

Known for her mesmerizing performances and video works that blur the boundary between fact and fiction, Patty Chang is inspired by “catalysts for specific situations,” as she calls them. One such catalyst was the 1928 meeting of cultural theorist Walter Benjamin and Hollywood actress Anna May Wong in Berlin. In this program, Chang presents a new performance work-in-progress—part of her long-term investigation of Wong, translation, and transculturation at the advent of sound film.

Patty Chang is an artist in residence at BAM/PFA this November. She will present a program of her video works at the PFA Theater on Wednesday, November 14.

Panel Discussion: Asian Adoption/Asian American Identity

November 11, 2007; 3:00 p.m.

Museum Theater

What are the identity issues facing adoptees from Asia in the United States? How do they experience being Asian American, and how have they expressed this creatively? These and other questions are the subject of this timely and multifaceted program. The panelists represent Korean American, Vietnamese American, and Chinese American perspectives; scholars will be joined by a poet, a musician, and a filmmaker whose work has been influenced by their personal experiences of adoption.

Sara Dorow, assistant professor of sociology, University of Alberta, and author of a book on transnational adoption from China, will discuss how Chinese adoptees in the United States and Canada narrate intersections of race, kinship, and the spaces of “home,” and how they have become “poster children” for adoption. Rebecca Hurdis, a UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Ph.D. candidate, Korean adoptee, and author of essays on identity and Korean adoption, will discuss how ideologies about race are shaped and transmitted through family structures. Derald Wing Sue, professor of psychology, Columbia University Teachers College, and cofounder of the Asian American Psychological Association, will address the multiple dimensions of Asian American identity confronting Asian adoptees.

Lee Herrick, poet and professor of English, Fresno City College, will read from his new collection This Many Miles from Desire, and discuss how notions of identity, time, and ambiguity in his poetry relate to his adoption from Korea. New York–based musician Jared Rehberg will perform “Waking Up American,” written to his Vietnamese birth parents, and “Scrapbook,” composed for a new generation of adoptees, and talk about the relation between his life and his music. Filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem (First Person Plural, 2000) will present an excerpt from her new film-in-progress, which features interviews with Korean adoptees living all over the world, and discuss the political, social, and ethical dimensions of international adoption.

Catherine Ceniza Choy, associate professor of ethnic studies and coordinator of the Asian American studies program at UC Berkeley, will introduce and moderate the program.

Poetry Reading
Asian American Poetry Now

October 21, 2007; 3:00 p.m.

Gallery C

How are young Asian American poets grappling with some of the issues that have engaged the artists featured in One Way or Another? Eight West Coast– and New York–based Asian American poets, from the same generation as the exhibition artists and with a comparable range of cultural backgrounds, will read from work that parallels the “post-identity” premise of One Way or Another. Their poetry displays a range of exciting experimental styles that depart from the focus on identity politics that has marked the work of many Asian American poets since the 1960s.

Poet and UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate Chris Chen, whose dissertation explores experimental currents within contemporary Asian American and African American poetry, will introduce and moderate the program. Featured poets are Barbara Jane Reyes, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Cathy Park Hong, Paolo Javier, David Lau, Eileen Tabios, and Truong Tran.

Guided Tours

October 18, 2007 - December 20, 2007

UC Berkeley graduate students from the departments of Asian American Studies, English, and History of Art will offer tours of One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now on selected Thursdays and Sundays. The tour guides are Chris Chen, Sonal Khullar, Ethel Regis, and Yueni Zhong.

Tour Schedule for December
Sunday, December 2, 2:00
Thursday, December 6, 12:15 and 5:30
Sunday, December 9, 2:00
Thursday, December 13, 12:15 and 5:30
Sunday, December 16, 2:00
Thursday, December 20, 12:15 and 5:30

Artists’ Talk by Michael Arcega, Ala Ebtekar, and Indigo Som

October 14, 2007; 2:00 p.m.

Galleries 2 and 3

Three Bay Area artists in the exhibition, Michael Arcega, Ala Ebtekar, and Indigo Som, converse with museum visitors and one another about their work and about what it means to show it in the context of “Asian American art now.”

Sign Language–Interpreted Tour with Patricia Lessard

October 6, 2007; 1:30 p.m.

Galleries 2 and 3

Local sign language interpreter Patricia Lessard joins a UC Berkeley graduate-student tour guide for an interactive talk about One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now.

Artist’s Talk and Demonstration by Binh Danh

September 30, 2007; 2:00 p.m.

Galleries 2 and 3

Exploring personal and public histories of the Vietnam War and his own relationship to both the United States and Vietnam, San Jose–based artist Binh Danh combines photosynthesis and found photographs to make the fragile and evocative artworks he has named “chlorophyll prints.” In an interactive program, the artist will discuss his works in the exhibition and demonstrate his art-making process.

Performance and Booksigning by Denise Uyehara
Shedding Light: Performance and Illumination

September 28, 2007; 7:00 p.m.

Museum Theater

Los Angeles–based artist Denise Uyehara’s recent book Maps of City & Body collects the last fifteen years of her compelling performance work, which examines individual and collective memory through theater, movement, video projection, and light. In celebration of the book’s publication, Uyehara performs excerpts from her works, including a piece that explores Japanese American internment during World War II in relation to the experiences of Arab Americans, South Asians, and Muslims in the United States today, as well as postpartum work that asks, “When do babies begin voting Republican?” A booksigning will follow.

Interdisciplinary Panel
Asian American Art Now

September 23, 2007; 3:00 p.m.

Museum Theater

An interdisciplinary panel about what it means to make art within, alongside, and against a discourse of shifting interpretations of Asian American identity. With UC Berkeley English professor Colleen Lye; exhibition artists Anna Sew Hoy and Michael Arcega; exhibition co-curators Susette S. Min and Karin Higa; and Intersection for the Arts program director Kevin Chen.

Curator’s Talk by Elizabeth Thomas

September 19, 2007; 12:00 NOON

Galleries 2 and 3

Phyllis Wattis MATRIX Curator Elizabeth Thomas offers her take on this unique exhibition.