curated exhibition

Queer Horizons

Queer Horizons features work by Asian diasporic artists that envisions a queer future that unsettles the past, disrupts the present, and imagines new worlds beyond the limits of the horizon.

 

We take inspiration from José Esteban Muñoz, the late queer studies scholar, and his conception of a “not yet here.” As he explains in Cruising Utopia, the “not yet here” is a phenomenon of queer futurity that “allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present.”

 

Within the last ten years in the US, we have celebrated the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the formal acceptance of gays in the military, and increased visibility of LGBTQ bodies and personalities in popular culture. In our present moment, however, LGBTQ rights, safety, and health care are increasingly under threat. Simultaneously, the current administration frames Asian American communities as “un-American,” the after tremors along old Yellow Peril fault lines. They are foreign, unassimilable, undocumented: Muslim “terrorists,” hordes of H1B visa techie taking over American jobs, or “model minority” students taking up too much space in classrooms.

 

However, the artists and works in Queer Horizons name a possibility beyond the "model minority”: as queer Asian American artists, they disrupt the model minority narrative defined by heteronormative notions of success. Each artist engages a non-linear temporality moving between pasts, presents, and futures, and each work gestures towards a queer history that we, as Queer Asian Americans, can excavate, (re)create, and (re)produce in our pasts, presents, and futures. For example, Greyson Hong's Costco photos, Việt Lê's productions of club scenes/ online performances, and Tina Takemoto's unconventional short film all tell of an alternative past to inform a queer alternative future. As we think of these experiences at the intersections with undocumented status, foreignness, and Islamophobia, their highly experimental and queer aesthetic in storytelling suggests further radical potential.

 

It is in this dangerous political climate that the artists in Queer Horizons insist on claiming liminal and hybrid spaces and lives, queer collectivity, and intersectional solidarity. Embracing failure, misbehavior, non-normativity, and defiant joyfulness thus becomes a radical form of resistance. This is the kind of utopian horizon that we call forward. In the spirit of artist Jeffrey Augustine Songco’s video, “Let’s Dance America!”

 

Queer Horizons appears in conjunction with the publication of Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe’s book, Queering Contemporary Asian American Art (University of Washington Press, 2017). http://www.queeringcontemporaryasianamericanart.com/

 

Curated by Jan Christian Bernabe and Laura Kina

 

Curatorial Assistant: Mads Le

 

Contributors: Anida Yoeu Ali, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Kim Anno, Wafaa Bilal, Greyson Hong, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Việt Lê, Maya Mackrandilal, Zavé Martohardjono, Genevieve Erin O'Brien, Jeffrey Augustine Songco, Tina Takemoto, and Saya Woolfalk.

 

Contributors’ works are published in staggered waves from late-June to late-July 2017, after which the whole exhibition are archived permanently on CA+T’s website.

 

Special thanks to the Andy Warhol Foundation and the California Institute of Contemporary Arts for fiscal support.

 

Summer 2017

Vietnam More
Than Love on the
Horizon Hanoi Remix

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

2016 Video performance of holograms of LGBTQ
Vietnamese in Vietnam
and the diaspora
Duration: 3 min. 28 sec. Courtesy of the artist

contributor

X

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

b. 1974
image description
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Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. O'Brien has spent 20+ years working with and organizing in communities for social justice. She was a founding member of Arts In Action, a Los Angeles political arts collective, and she has worked for Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, where she coordinated the Summer Internship Program.

She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam in 2009. She returned to the U.S. and taught as a lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, Claremont Colleges, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her films have screened at film festivals internationally, including her most recent short film For the Love of Unicorns. O'Brien was a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation's Creative Economic Development Fund. In 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Department of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest works, More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels, were commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. More Than Love on the Horizon hologram installation has been presented in San Jose and New York City. Sugar Rebels has been performed and installed at the Hammer Museum, the Cathartic Carnival, and was recently installed at SOMArts as part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama. In collaboration with Pigeon Press, she is releasing a limited-edition artist cookbook, Seasonal Ruminations on Love. She will be featured at the Asian American Literature Festival in Washington DC. O'Brien is a trainer with Center for Story-based Strategy, working with social justice organizations nationwide to harness the power of narrative for social change.

Her work is also available at the following websites: www.vietnammorethanlove.com and www.sugarrebels.com.

location

X
  • Born: Alexandria, VA, USA
  • Based: Los Angeles, CA, USA

comments

X

contributor

X

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

b. 1974
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. O'Brien has spent 20+ years working with and organizing in communities for social justice. She was a founding member of Arts In Action, a Los Angeles political arts collective, and she has worked for Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, where she coordinated the Summer Internship Program.

She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam in 2009. She returned to the U.S. and taught as a lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, Claremont Colleges, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her films have screened at film festivals internationally, including her most recent short film For the Love of Unicorns. O'Brien was a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation's Creative Economic Development Fund. In 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Department of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest works, More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels, were commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. More Than Love on the Horizon hologram installation has been presented in San Jose and New York City. Sugar Rebels has been performed and installed at the Hammer Museum, the Cathartic Carnival, and was recently installed at SOMArts as part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama. In collaboration with Pigeon Press, she is releasing a limited-edition artist cookbook, Seasonal Ruminations on Love. She will be featured at the Asian American Literature Festival in Washington DC. O'Brien is a trainer with Center for Story-based Strategy, working with social justice organizations nationwide to harness the power of narrative for social change.

Her work is also available at the following websites: www.vietnammorethanlove.com and www.sugarrebels.com.

location

X
  • Born: Alexandria, VA, USA
  • Based: Los Angeles, CA, USA

comments

X

contributor

X

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

b. 1974
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. O'Brien has spent 20+ years working with and organizing in communities for social justice. She was a founding member of Arts In Action, a Los Angeles political arts collective, and she has worked for Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, where she coordinated the Summer Internship Program.

She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam in 2009. She returned to the U.S. and taught as a lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, Claremont Colleges, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her films have screened at film festivals internationally, including her most recent short film For the Love of Unicorns. O'Brien was a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation's Creative Economic Development Fund. In 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Department of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest works, More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels, were commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. More Than Love on the Horizon hologram installation has been presented in San Jose and New York City. Sugar Rebels has been performed and installed at the Hammer Museum, the Cathartic Carnival, and was recently installed at SOMArts as part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama. In collaboration with Pigeon Press, she is releasing a limited-edition artist cookbook, Seasonal Ruminations on Love. She will be featured at the Asian American Literature Festival in Washington DC. O'Brien is a trainer with Center for Story-based Strategy, working with social justice organizations nationwide to harness the power of narrative for social change.

Her work is also available at the following websites: www.vietnammorethanlove.com and www.sugarrebels.com.

location

X
  • Born: Alexandria, VA, USA
  • Based: Los Angeles, CA, USA

comments

X

Vietnam More
Than Love on the
Horizon West Coast Remix

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

2016 Video performance of holograms of LGBTQ
Vietnamese in Vietnam
and the diaspora
Duration: 3 min. 26 sec. Courtesy of the artist

contributor

X

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

b. 1974
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. O'Brien has spent 20+ years working with and organizing in communities for social justice. She was a founding member of Arts In Action, a Los Angeles political arts collective, and she has worked for Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, where she coordinated the Summer Internship Program.

She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam in 2009. She returned to the U.S. and taught as a lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, Claremont Colleges, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her films have screened at film festivals internationally, including her most recent short film For the Love of Unicorns. O'Brien was a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation's Creative Economic Development Fund. In 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Department of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest works, More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels, were commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. More Than Love on the Horizon hologram installation has been presented in San Jose and New York City. Sugar Rebels has been performed and installed at the Hammer Museum, the Cathartic Carnival, and was recently installed at SOMArts as part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama. In collaboration with Pigeon Press, she is releasing a limited-edition artist cookbook, Seasonal Ruminations on Love. She will be featured at the Asian American Literature Festival in Washington DC. O'Brien is a trainer with Center for Story-based Strategy, working with social justice organizations nationwide to harness the power of narrative for social change.

Her work is also available at the following websites: www.vietnammorethanlove.com and www.sugarrebels.com.

location

X
  • Born: Alexandria, VA, USA
  • Based: Los Angeles, CA, USA

comments

X

contributor

X

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

b. 1974
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. O'Brien has spent 20+ years working with and organizing in communities for social justice. She was a founding member of Arts In Action, a Los Angeles political arts collective, and she has worked for Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, where she coordinated the Summer Internship Program.

She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam in 2009. She returned to the U.S. and taught as a lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, Claremont Colleges, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her films have screened at film festivals internationally, including her most recent short film For the Love of Unicorns. O'Brien was a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation's Creative Economic Development Fund. In 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Department of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest works, More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels, were commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. More Than Love on the Horizon hologram installation has been presented in San Jose and New York City. Sugar Rebels has been performed and installed at the Hammer Museum, the Cathartic Carnival, and was recently installed at SOMArts as part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama. In collaboration with Pigeon Press, she is releasing a limited-edition artist cookbook, Seasonal Ruminations on Love. She will be featured at the Asian American Literature Festival in Washington DC. O'Brien is a trainer with Center for Story-based Strategy, working with social justice organizations nationwide to harness the power of narrative for social change.

Her work is also available at the following websites: www.vietnammorethanlove.com and www.sugarrebels.com.

location

X
  • Born: Alexandria, VA, USA
  • Based: Los Angeles, CA, USA

comments

X

contributor

X

Genevieve Erin O'Brien

b. 1974
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer mixed race Vietnamese/Irish/German/American woman. She is an artist, a filmmaker, an organizer, a cook/private chef, and an educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. O'Brien has spent 20+ years working with and organizing in communities for social justice. She was a founding member of Arts In Action, a Los Angeles political arts collective, and she has worked for Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the University of California, Los Angeles Labor Center, where she coordinated the Summer Internship Program.

She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam in 2009. She returned to the U.S. and taught as a lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, Claremont Colleges, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her films have screened at film festivals internationally, including her most recent short film For the Love of Unicorns. O'Brien was a recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and Center for Cultural Innovation's Creative Economic Development Fund. In 2016 she went to Hanoi, Vietnam as a US Department of State/ZERO1 American Arts Incubator Artist for a project highlighting LGBTQ visibility and equality. Her newest works, More Than Love on the Horizon: West Coast Remix and Sugar Rebels, were commissioned and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. More Than Love on the Horizon hologram installation has been presented in San Jose and New York City. Sugar Rebels has been performed and installed at the Hammer Museum, the Cathartic Carnival, and was recently installed at SOMArts as part of Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama. In collaboration with Pigeon Press, she is releasing a limited-edition artist cookbook, Seasonal Ruminations on Love. She will be featured at the Asian American Literature Festival in Washington DC. O'Brien is a trainer with Center for Story-based Strategy, working with social justice organizations nationwide to harness the power of narrative for social change.

Her work is also available at the following websites: www.vietnammorethanlove.com and www.sugarrebels.com.

location

X
  • Born: Alexandria, VA, USA
  • Based: Los Angeles, CA, USA

comments

X

Topaz Burn

Tina Takemoto

2009 Animated film of soy sauce drawing Duration: 1 min. (looped) Courtesy of Tina Takemoto

contributor

X

Tina Takemoto

Tina Takemoto is a queer fourth-generation Japanese American artist and scholar based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her M.F.A. in visual art from Rutgers University and Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester. She is associate professor at California College of the Arts.

Takemoto has presented artwork and performances internationally and has received grants funded by Art Matters, the Fleishhacker Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Her film Looking for Jiro (2011) received Best Experimental Film Jury Award at the Austin LGBT International Film Festival.

Her articles appear in Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Afterimage, Millennium Film Journal, Art Journal, GLQ, Journal of Visual Culture, Performance Research, Radical Teacher, Theatre Survey, Women and Performance, and the anthologies Queering Asian American Art, Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories and Thinking Through the Skin. Takemoto serves on the board of the Queer Cultural Center and is co-founder of Queer Conversations on Culture and the Arts.

My work explores the hidden dimensions of same-sex intimacy and queer sexuality among Japanese Americans imprisoned by the US government during World War II. Depictions of queer wartime history are rare. As a fourth-generation Japanese American, I grew up hearing family stories about camp, but no one ever mentioned same-sex intimacy in the camps. Unlike most gender-segregated prisoners, Japanese Americans were incarcerated by family unit and pressured to conform to heterosexual norms. My work adopts a playful and political approach to Japanese American identity, queer sexuality, and historical memory. Looking for Jiro is a multimedia project inspired by Jiro Onuma, a dandy gay bachelor who admired musclemen and worked in the mess hall while imprisoned at Topaz incarceration camp in Utah. This project imagines how Onuma survived the isolation, humiliation, and heternormativity of imprisonment through animated soy sauce drawings, drag king performance, experimental music video, homoerotic bread making, and the hand-crafted art of “gentleman’s gaman.”

location

X
  • Born: California, USA
  • Based: San Francisco, CA, USA

comments

X

Topaz Burn (screen capture)

Tina Takemoto

2009 Screen capture of animated film Courtesy of Tina Takemoto

contributor

X

Tina Takemoto

Tina Takemoto is a queer fourth-generation Japanese American artist and scholar based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her M.F.A. in visual art from Rutgers University and Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester. She is associate professor at California College of the Arts.

Takemoto has presented artwork and performances internationally and has received grants funded by Art Matters, the Fleishhacker Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Her film Looking for Jiro (2011) received Best Experimental Film Jury Award at the Austin LGBT International Film Festival.

Her articles appear in Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Afterimage, Millennium Film Journal, Art Journal, GLQ, Journal of Visual Culture, Performance Research, Radical Teacher, Theatre Survey, Women and Performance, and the anthologies Queering Asian American Art, Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories and Thinking Through the Skin. Takemoto serves on the board of the Queer Cultural Center and is co-founder of Queer Conversations on Culture and the Arts.

My work explores the hidden dimensions of same-sex intimacy and queer sexuality among Japanese Americans imprisoned by the US government during World War II. Depictions of queer wartime history are rare. As a fourth-generation Japanese American, I grew up hearing family stories about camp, but no one ever mentioned same-sex intimacy in the camps. Unlike most gender-segregated prisoners, Japanese Americans were incarcerated by family unit and pressured to conform to heterosexual norms. My work adopts a playful and political approach to Japanese American identity, queer sexuality, and historical memory. Looking for Jiro is a multimedia project inspired by Jiro Onuma, a dandy gay bachelor who admired musclemen and worked in the mess hall while imprisoned at Topaz incarceration camp in Utah. This project imagines how Onuma survived the isolation, humiliation, and heternormativity of imprisonment through animated soy sauce drawings, drag king performance, experimental music video, homoerotic bread making, and the hand-crafted art of “gentleman’s gaman.”

location

X
  • Born: California, USA
  • Based: San Francisco, CA, USA

comments

X

GENERAL DYNAMICS 2.0

Zavé Martohardjono

Apr 2017 Video documentation of GENERAL DYNAMICS 2.0 performed at Gibney Dance Company Duration: 21 min. 22 sec. Courtesy of Zavé Martohardjono

contributor

X

Zavé Martohardjono

b. 1984
image description
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Zavé Martohardjono is an interdisciplinary artist interested in geopolitics, social justice, queer glam, and embodied healing. They were born in Canada and call New York City and Indonesia home. They received their B.A. in International Relations from Brown University (2006) and M.F.A. in Media Arts Production from the City College of New York (2009). They’ve performed at BAAD!, Boston Center for the Arts, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Issue Project Room, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Movement Research at Judson Church, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Recess, and the Wild Project. Zavé is currently a dance artist in residence at the Bronx Museum of the Arts through the BxMA Co-Lab residency. Previously, Zavé was a Gibney Dance Work Up 3.0 artist (2017); had residencies at The Shandaken Project at Storm King (2016), La MaMa (2016), Chez Bushwick (2015); and was a Lambda Literary Fellow (2015). They recently contributed to Dancer-Citizen Issue 4 and MXRS Commons' February 2017 Commons. When not performing, they work at the ACLU, organize with artists of color in NYC, and are a Third Wave Fund advisory board member.

location

X
  • Born: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • Based: Brooklyn, NY, USA

comments

X

GENERAL DYNAMICS 2.0

Zavé Martohardjono

Apr 2017 Photodocumentation of GENERAL DYNAMICS 2.0 performed at Gibney Dance Company Courtesy of Zavé Martohardjono Photograph by Scott Shaw

contributor

X

Zavé Martohardjono

b. 1984
image description
  • See All Works
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  • visit website

Zavé Martohardjono is an interdisciplinary artist interested in geopolitics, social justice, queer glam, and embodied healing. They were born in Canada and call New York City and Indonesia home. They received their B.A. in International Relations from Brown University (2006) and M.F.A. in Media Arts Production from the City College of New York (2009). They’ve performed at BAAD!, Boston Center for the Arts, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Issue Project Room, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Movement Research at Judson Church, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Recess, and the Wild Project. Zavé is currently a dance artist in residence at the Bronx Museum of the Arts through the BxMA Co-Lab residency. Previously, Zavé was a Gibney Dance Work Up 3.0 artist (2017); had residencies at The Shandaken Project at Storm King (2016), La MaMa (2016), Chez Bushwick (2015); and was a Lambda Literary Fellow (2015). They recently contributed to Dancer-Citizen Issue 4 and MXRS Commons' February 2017 Commons. When not performing, they work at the ACLU, organize with artists of color in NYC, and are a Third Wave Fund advisory board member.

location

X
  • Born: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • Based: Brooklyn, NY, USA

comments

X