Fresh Talk
/ Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian
American Art
by Elaine H.
Kim, Margo Machida, and Sharon Mizota,
Eds.
University of California Press, Berkeley,
2003
233 pp., illus. Trade, $39.95
ISBN: 0-520-23535-5.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan
Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
There is no doubt that Asian Americans
have suffered severe discrimination over
the past century. Many were emprisoned
in concentration camps before and during
the Second World War, some have been accused
of anti-American activities and generally
they have been regarded as second or third
class citizensif citizens
at allgood enough to do only
the most menial jobs. Individuals have
risen to high places, but they are the
exception. Most still live in ghetto's,
whether by choice or by necessity, and
even thought they perform far above average
at universities, they are still represented
far below proportionality in the media,
in public office, and in all kinds of
institutions, with the exception maybe
of academic circles.
In the first part of Fresh Talk, Daring
Gazes, Elaine H. Kim, Professor of
Asian American and Comparative Ethnic
Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley, follows the road taken by a
number of Asian American artists from
the early 20th century on and
analyzes the range of possible positions
they have taken in the debate on their
place in American art, in general. Some
have chosen to emphasize their cultural
origins, their identity as Asian Americans,
and the particular flavour their background
gives to their being American. Others
have tried to be just American among Americans,
neither stressing nor denying their heritage.
The similarities of the problems black
and women artists are faced with abound.
The second part of the book, Gallery,
consists of 24 colour images of works
by Asian American artists, each with a
short description and interpretation by
artist and webdesigner Sharon Mizota.
Brief as they are, they beautifully illustrate
the possible relations between the artistic
expression, the political stance, and
the technical proficiency of the artists,
and they are a perfect upbeat for what
follows in the third and final part: 'Interchanges'.
This is a collection of short interpretative
essays by 24 commentators, each paired
with one of the artists from the second
part. The contributors are cultural critics,
artists, social activists, curators, and
scholars from African American, Latino,
and Native American heritages. "Encountering
artists and works of art with which they
were largely unfamiliar afforded the writers
in Fresh Talk an unusual opportunity
to reflect on how they construct meaning
when looking at and writing about art,
and on what culturally and historically
specific frames of reference they bring
to that process."
Of course, not all of these essays are
as brilliant as Odili Donald Odita's reflections
on the work of Vietnamese photographer
Pipo Nguyen-Duy in the light of his own
forced migration from Biafra, but none
is less than surprising and eye-openingat
least for this European reader.
As a bonus to the introductions and the
conversations, the book has short biographical
notes on all the artists and commentators,
which comes in handy for further study.
And if that is not enough, it is simply
a very beautifully laid-out book. A pleasure
to read and to browse through, one would
almost call it a coffee-table book, without
the negative overtones of that label.