Queering Contemporary Asian American Art

Queering Contemporary Asian American Art takes Asian American differences as its point of departure, and brings together artists and scholars to challenge normative assumptions, essentialisms, and methodologies within Asian American art and visual culture. Taken together, these nine original artist interviews, cutting-edge visual artworks, and seven critical essays explore contemporary currents and experiences within Asian American art, including the multiple axes of race and identity, queer bodies and forms, kinship and affect, and digital identities and performances.

Using the verb and critical lens of “queering” to capture transgressive cultural, social, and political engagement and practice, the contributors to this volume explore the connection points in Asian American experience and cultural production of surveillance states, decolonization and diaspora, transnational adoption, and transgender bodies and forms, as well as heteronormative respectability, the military, and war. The interdisciplinary and theoretically informed frameworks in the volume engage readers to understand global and historical processes through contemporary Asian American artistic production.

Laura Kina is an artist and a Vincent de Paul Professor of Art, Media, and Design at DePaul University. She is the coeditor of War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art. Jan Christian Bernabe is the operations, new media, and curatorial director at the Center for Art and Thought. The contributors are Mariam B. Lam, Eun Jung Park, Alpesh Kantilal Patel, Valerie Soe, and Harrod J Suarez. Featured artists are Anida Yoeu Ali, Kim Anno, Eliza Barrios, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Wafaa Bilal, Hasan Elahi, Greyson Hong, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Lin + Lam (H. Lan Thao Lam and Lana Lin), Viet Le, Maya Mackrandilal, Zavé Martohardjono, Jeffrey Augustine Songco, Tina Takemoto, Kenneth Tam, and Saya Woolfalk.

Foreword by Susette Min

Introduction: For the Love of Unicorns: Queering Contemporary Asian American Art

by Jan Christian Bernabe and Laura Kina

CHAPTER 1 QUEERING SURVEILLANCE

“You Blushed”: Queering Surveillance after 9/11 in the Work of Jill Magid and Hasan Elahi

by Harrod J. Suarez

Performance, Surveillance, and Sousveillance: A Conversation with Wafaa Bilal and Hasan Elahi

by Jan Christian Bernabe and Laura Kina

CHAPTER 2 QUEERING TIME

Pacific Standard Time: Queering Temporality in Asian American Visual Cultures

by Mariam B. Lam

Promiscuous Time Traveling (on Leaving and Returns): A Conversation with Lin + Lam and Việt Le

by Laura Kina

CHAPTER 3 QUEERING AFFECT

Filipino Diasporic Queer Killjoy: Recuperating Failure in Jeffrey Augustine Songco’s Guilty Party and BOMH Series

by Jan Christian Bernabe

Negotiating Desire and (Queer) Masculinity: An Interview with Kenneth Tam

by Jan Christian Bernabe

CHAPTER 4 QUEERING METHODOLOGY

Queer Zen: Unyoking Genealogy in Asian American Art History

by Alpesh Kantilal Patel

Pin@y Projections: Urban Spaces, Digital Ephemerality, and Planned Obsolescence: An Interview with Eliza Barrios

by Jan Christian Bernabe

Queer Traveler–on Desiring and Failing Sublime Landscapes: An Interview with Kim Anno

by Jan Christian Bernabe and Laura Kina

CHAPTER 5 QUEERING SUBJECTIVITY

Risky Subjectivity: Select Works by Korean Adoptee Artists

by Eun Jung Park

Dazzle: A Conversation on Transgender Subjectivity with Greyson Hong and Kiam Marcelo Junio

by Jan Christian Bernabe and Laura Kina

CHAPTER 6 QUEERING MIXED RACE

Liminal Possibilities: Queering Mixed-Race Asian American Strategies in the Art of Maya Mackrandilal and Zave Gayatri Martohardjono

by Laura Kina

Chimera: A Conversation on Mixed Race/Mixed Methods with Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik and Saya Woolfalk

by Laura Kina

CHAPTER 7 QUEERING ASIAN AMERICA

Open-Source Identities: Identity and Resistance in the Work of Three Asian American Artists

by Valerie Soe

Muscles, Mash-Ups and Warning Shots–Queering Japanese American History: An Interview with Tina Takemoto

by Jan Christian Bernabe and Laura Kina

The Buddhist Bug—Spanning Borders and Bodies: An Interview with Anida Yoeu Ali

by Laura Kina

Afterword: To be Queer Being to Queer It . . .

by Kyoo Lee