Asian American Artists in California (1970S to Present)
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Remapping Topographies of Race and Public Space: Asian American Artists in California (1970s to Present) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Art and Architecture by Julianne P. Gavino Committee in charge: Professor E. Bruce Robertson, Chair Professor Swati Chattopadhyay Professor Miriam Wattles Professor Celine Parreñas Shimizu December 2018 The dissertation of Julianne P. Gavino is approved. _____________________________________________________ Celine Parreñas Shimizu _____________________________________________________ Miriam Wattles _____________________________________________________ Swati Chattopadhyay _____________________________________________________ E. Bruce Robertson, Committee Chair December 2018 Remapping Topographies of Race and Public Space: Asian American Artists in California (1970s to 2000s) Copyright © 2018 by Julianne P. Gavino iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the generous support of University of California Santa Barbara, notably the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Department of Asian American Studies, Graduate Division, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, and Special Research Collections - UCSB Library. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my Dissertation Chair Bruce Robertson for sharing considerable warmth, patience, and mentorship throughout my graduate work. I have grown in immeasurable ways—personal, academic, and professional—because of his firm commitment to my research, curatorial work, and digital projects. Likewise, my Dissertation Committee members each provided me with invaluable grounding and guidance. Swati Chattopadhyay dynamically instructed me through theoretical foundations of spatial thinking. Miriam Wattles gave conscientious attention to my reflexive process and fieldwork research. And, Celine Parreñas Shimizu tremendously broadened how I approach cultural inquiry and identity-based explorations. I am also indebted to Nancy Hom, Bob Hsiang, and countless Kearny Street Workshop leaders and participants for demonstrating to me their enduring spirit of community-building and art activism. Amy Hau and The Noguchi Museum in addition to Dean Keesey and the Masumi Hayashi Foundation generously shared with me the importance of cultivating artistic legacies and committing to their stewardship. To my colleagues of the 2012 National Endowment of Humanities Summer Institute “Re-envisioning Asian American Art History” and Diasporic Asian Art Network— notably Alexandra Chang, Margo Machida, and Krystal R. Hauseur—I am grateful for their support, encouragement, camaraderie, and collaboration. My appreciation extends to my friends, family, and kindred spirits all along the West Coast, on the Big Island of Hawai`i, and beyond. I offer a full heart to Joshua and our kitties for cheering me on with much devotion and unabated humor. And, maraming salamat po to my parents and extended family who unquestionably shaped and supported my path. Lastly, I offer a special dedication to the memory of my Lola Imang (1918-2012), who continues to nourish and guide me in my journey through imaginative worlds. Mabuhay! iv VITA OF JULIANNE P. GAVINO December 2018 EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts in History of Art, University of California, Berkeley, May 1994 Master of Arts in Museum Studies, New York University, May 2006 Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, December 2018 (expected) PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT 2013-2018: Lecturer, Art Program, California State University Channel Islands 2014: Lecturer, Department of Art & Art History, Loyola Marymount University 2011-2012: Curatorial Fellow, Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara 2007-2013: Teaching Associate/Teaching Assistant/Research Assistant, Department of the History of Art and Architecture and Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara PUBLICATIONS “Exhibition Review: Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968-80, Chinese American Museum (CAM), Los Angeles, California, January 19, 2017 - June 11, 2017.” Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Volume 4, Issue 3, 2018, pp. 342-345. “Artist Bibliography” (compiled with Taylor Hoffmann). Masumi Hayashi: A Legacy in Landscape Photographs, 1976–2006, edited by Barbara Tannenbaum, Radius Books, 2017. “Visual Art and Artists” (coauthored with Krystal R. Hauseur). Asian American Society: An Encyclopedia, edited by Mary Yu Danico, SAGE Publications, 2014, pp. 54-59. "Visions and Voices of the I-Hotel: Urban Struggles, Community Mythologies, and Creativity" (coauthored with Nancy Hom and Johanna Poethig). Community Arts Perspectives: A Publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Maryland Institute College of Art, 2011 (online journal). v "Posters and Placemaking: The Imprint of Kearny Street Workshop at the I-Hotel," Community Arts Perspectives: A Publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Maryland Institute College of Art, 2011 (online journal). AWARDS 2017 Instructionally Related Activities Award, CSU Channel Islands 2017 Research, Scholarship, or Creative Activity Award, CSU Channel Islands 2017 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Faculty Fellow, CSU Channel Islands 2016 Center for Integrative Studies Faculty Mini-Grant Award, CSU Channel Islands 2014 Center for Multicultural Engagement Faculty Award, CSU Channel Islands 2014 Stepladder Program for Interdisciplinary Research and Learning, Course or Curriculum Redevelopment Grant, CSU Channel Islands 2013 Discretionary Provost Grant, Curatorial Project, CSU Channel Islands 2012 “Re-envisioning American Art History: Asian American Art, Research, and Teaching,” National Endowment for Humanities Summer Institute, New York University 2012 Dissertation Fellowship, Graduate Division, UC Santa Barbara 2011 Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Maryland Institute College of Art 2010 Fee Fellowship, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, UC Santa Barbara 2009 Dean’s Fellowship, Graduate Division, UC Santa Barbara 2009 Teaching Assistant Instructional Grant, Instructional Development, UC Santa Barbara 2009 Visual, Performing, and Media Arts Award, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UC Santa Barbara 2009 Graduate Student Academic Advancement: Scholarly Collaborations Award, Graduate Division, UC Santa Barbara 2006 Department Merit Fellowship (2 year), History of Art and Architecture, UC Santa Barbara vi FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: American Art and Its Publics Studies in American Art with Professor E. Bruce Robertson Studies in Spatial Theory with Professor Swati Chattopadhyay Studies in Japanese American Visual Culture with Professor Miriam Wattles Studies in Asian American Cultural Studies with Professor Celine Shimizu vii ABSTRACT Remapping Topographies of Race and Public Space: Asian American Artists in California (1970s to 2000s) by Julianne P. Gavino This study seeks out diverse and complex intersections of space, place, and identity through selected Asian American artists working in California from the 1970s to 2000s. It does so in the format of three case studies exploring artwork by Kearny Street Workshop (1972-1977), Masumi Hayashi (1945-2006), and Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). This art historical research attends to how aesthetics and politics meld together and investigates this through themes of race and public space. By analyzing representations of physical and cultural landscapes, I argue how important central texts and subtexts of the featured work divulge negotiated, culturally hybrid terrain. The study first examines Kearny Street Workshop’s community arts engagement and graphic arts posters in urban ethnic neighborhoods. As such, new public images of Asian Americans were to emerge during a tumultuous era of social activism and cultural affirmation in the 1970s. It next considers Hayashi’s “American Concentration Camps” series of panoramic viii photo collages (1990-1999) representing pilgrimage landscapes of the WWII Japanese American internment (1942-1945). It investigates the imagery’s transformative reflections upon history, memory, and civil liberties in crossgenerational ways. Lastly, it focuses on Noguchi’s sculpture garden California Scenario (1980-1982) and nature-culture relations within a postsuburban environment, noting its global, transcultural, and performative intersections. Each of these case studies reveals how cultural specificity and cultural heterogeneity in contradistinction dispels any sense of singular or fixed spaces, places, and identities. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction................................................................................................................ 1 A. Overview and Background........................................................................ 4 B. Research Questions....................................................................................... 9 C. Race and Public Space.................................................................................. 13 D. American Art in a Multicultural Context............................................. 18 E. Asian American Art....................................................................................... 24 F. Summary of Chapters................................................................................... 34 II. Reimagining Community: