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

Estamos contra el muro | We are against the wall

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik

2016 Photographic documentation Courtesy of the artist

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Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik

b. 1981
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Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is conceptual artist working with craft and food to tell the stories of migration. Sita holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Scripps College, and an M.F.A. in interdisciplinary art and an M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. Raised in Los Angeles and based in Oakland, she is Indian and Japanese Colombian American. Sita has exhibited and collaborated in the US, Holland, Ireland, Hong Kong, and Mexico. Her projects include installing curry powder in a European castle, importing artisan goods over the US-Mexico border, and leading workshops about food, migration, and memory in Hong Kong. Her most recent project, Estamos contra el muro | We are against the wall, involved the collaborative construction of a border wall made entirely of piñatas. The East Bay Express described it as "the most joyous political critique of the year."
 
Sita is also a co-founder of the People's Kitchen Collective (PKC), who were named in 2016's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ YBCA 100 list. They are recipients of the Center for Asian American Media’s (CAAM) Advocate Award and were awarded support by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Open Spaces Program. PKC recently exhibited with For Freedoms, the first artist-run super PAC at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York and at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center's Crosslines pop-up museum. The goal of The People's Kitchen is to not only fill our stomachs but also nourish our souls, feed our minds and fuel a movement.
 
See also peopleskitchencollective.com.

Photo credit: Rachyel Magana



 

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  • Born: Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Based: Oakland, CA, USA

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Estamos contra el muro | We are against the wall

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik

2016 Photographic documentation Courtesy of the artist

contributor

X

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik

b. 1981
image description
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Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is conceptual artist working with craft and food to tell the stories of migration. Sita holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Scripps College, and an M.F.A. in interdisciplinary art and an M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. Raised in Los Angeles and based in Oakland, she is Indian and Japanese Colombian American. Sita has exhibited and collaborated in the US, Holland, Ireland, Hong Kong, and Mexico. Her projects include installing curry powder in a European castle, importing artisan goods over the US-Mexico border, and leading workshops about food, migration, and memory in Hong Kong. Her most recent project, Estamos contra el muro | We are against the wall, involved the collaborative construction of a border wall made entirely of piñatas. The East Bay Express described it as "the most joyous political critique of the year."
 
Sita is also a co-founder of the People's Kitchen Collective (PKC), who were named in 2016's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ YBCA 100 list. They are recipients of the Center for Asian American Media’s (CAAM) Advocate Award and were awarded support by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Open Spaces Program. PKC recently exhibited with For Freedoms, the first artist-run super PAC at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York and at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center's Crosslines pop-up museum. The goal of The People's Kitchen is to not only fill our stomachs but also nourish our souls, feed our minds and fuel a movement.
 
See also peopleskitchencollective.com.

Photo credit: Rachyel Magana



 

location

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  • Born: Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Based: Oakland, CA, USA

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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

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Zavé Martohardjono

b. 1984
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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.

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

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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

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X

Zavé Martohardjono

b. 1984
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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.

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

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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

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Zavé Martohardjono

b. 1984
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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.

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

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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

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Zavé Martohardjono

b. 1984
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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.

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

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heARTbreak! (installation view)

Việt Lê

2016 Mixed media, HD video, color sound Duration: 5 min. 25 sec. Courtesy of the artist

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Việt Lê

b. 1976

Việt Lê is an artist, writer, and curator. Lê is an assistant professor in Visual Studies at the California College of the Arts. He has been published in positions: asia critique; Crab Orchard Review; American Quarterly; Amerasia Journal; Art Journal; and the anthologies Writing from the Perfume River (2010), Strange Cargo (2010), The Spaces Between Us (2010), Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art (2012), among others.

Recent solo exhibitions include lovebang! (Kellogg University Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 2016), vestige (H Gallery Bangkok, 2015), and tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak! (Nhà Sàn Collective, Hà Nội). Lê has presented his work at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; University of California-Los Angeles Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Japan Foundation, Việt Nam; 1a Space, Hong Kong; Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Thailand; Civitella Ranieri, Italy; Shanghai Biennale, China; Rio Gay Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; among other venues. White Gaze (Sming Sming Books & Objects, February 2018) is an art book in collaboration with Michelle Dizon and Faith Wilding.

Lê co-curated transPOP: Korea Việt Nam Remix with Yong Soon Min (Seoul, Korea; Sài Gòn, Việt Nam; Irvine, San Francisco, California, USA, 2008-09), the 2012 Taipei Kuandu Biennale and Love in the Time of War (University of California, Santa Barbara and SF Camerawork). He coorganized the 2015 Artistic Interventions confererence of PhD workshops and symposium (Hong Kong). Lê has co-edited special issues of Asian American Literary Review: (Re)Collecting Vietnam (2015), and BOL Journal: Việt Nam and Us (2008). He has also co-edited, with Professor Lan Duong, a special issue of Visual Anthropology (Routledge, forthcoming winter 2018). He is a reviews co-editor, with Professor Laura Kina, of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas and one of the board members of the Queer Cultural Center.

Lê received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. His writing has been translated into Chinese, German, Khmer, and Vietnamese.

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  • Born: Sài Gòn
  • Based:

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heARTbreak! (teaser)

Việt Lê

2017 HD video, color, sound, projection, dimensions vary Duration: 1 min. 21 sec. Courtesy of the artist

contributor

X

Việt Lê

b. 1976

Việt Lê is an artist, writer, and curator. Lê is an assistant professor in Visual Studies at the California College of the Arts. He has been published in positions: asia critique; Crab Orchard Review; American Quarterly; Amerasia Journal; Art Journal; and the anthologies Writing from the Perfume River (2010), Strange Cargo (2010), The Spaces Between Us (2010), Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art (2012), among others.

Recent solo exhibitions include lovebang! (Kellogg University Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 2016), vestige (H Gallery Bangkok, 2015), and tan nÁRT cõi lòng | heARTbreak! (Nhà Sàn Collective, Hà Nội). Lê has presented his work at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; University of California-Los Angeles Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; DoBaeBacSa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Japan Foundation, Việt Nam; 1a Space, Hong Kong; Bangkok Art & Cultural Center (BACC), Thailand; Civitella Ranieri, Italy; Shanghai Biennale, China; Rio Gay Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; among other venues. White Gaze (Sming Sming Books & Objects, February 2018) is an art book in collaboration with Michelle Dizon and Faith Wilding.

Lê co-curated transPOP: Korea Việt Nam Remix with Yong Soon Min (Seoul, Korea; Sài Gòn, Việt Nam; Irvine, San Francisco, California, USA, 2008-09), the 2012 Taipei Kuandu Biennale and Love in the Time of War (University of California, Santa Barbara and SF Camerawork). He coorganized the 2015 Artistic Interventions confererence of PhD workshops and symposium (Hong Kong). Lê has co-edited special issues of Asian American Literary Review: (Re)Collecting Vietnam (2015), and BOL Journal: Việt Nam and Us (2008). He has also co-edited, with Professor Lan Duong, a special issue of Visual Anthropology (Routledge, forthcoming winter 2018). He is a reviews co-editor, with Professor Laura Kina, of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas and one of the board members of the Queer Cultural Center.

Lê received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. His writing has been translated into Chinese, German, Khmer, and Vietnamese.

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  • Born: Sài Gòn
  • Based:

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Horizon

Kim Anno

2014 Oil and silkscreen on aluminum 56" x 74" Courtesy of the artist

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Kim Anno

b. 1958
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Kim Anno is a painter, photographer, book artist, and filmmaker/video artist whose work has been exhibited by museums nationally and internationally. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Honolulu Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, Crocker Museum, Oakland Museum, Getty Research Institute, Columbia University, University of Texas, Austin, Walker Museum, Koopman Collection, The Hague, and Newberry Library all include her work.

Anno’s works include films and staged readings. Her documentary, A New World (2016), focuses on the education and triumph of young African American women at North Carolina’s Bennett College. In 2016, she directed Crisis, a live staged reading in collaboration with Brazilian composer Saulo Laudares, of her adaptation of Dante’s Purgatorio (Canto 32), as well as a live contemporary dance performance, Drought 1200, presented in San Francisco. Currently Anno is making two films in South Florida and Cuba. The first is 90 Miles from Paradise, a project staged in Havana, Key West, and Miami. The second film, ¡Quba!, is a documentary on the LGBTQI community in Cuba, and she recently licensed four original Cuban bands’ songs for the film. For the Oakland Asian Cultural Center’s 2017-18 season, Anno is producing a film/live music performance concert. Anno’s films have been screened internationally at festivals and venues including the Museum of Modern Art, Rio De Janeiro; the 14th Annual New Media Festival, Seoul, Korea; Goethe Institute, Johannesburg; Durban Municipal Gallery in the Don’t Panic Exhibition; San Francisco Asian Art Museum; Site Santa Fe Biennale; One Night Stand, New Mexico; the King’s Art Center; Kim Anno Retrospective; the Varnosi Museum, Hungary; DC Dusseldorf International Expo, Germany; Pulse, Miami; the Berkeley Art Museum; the Denison University Museum; and Noel Art Museum.

Her work is also featured in a number of exhibitions and magazines. She has a solo exhibition and screening in Atlanta, at Marcia Wood Gallery, and in 2018 she will have a solo exhibition at the University of Suffolk in England. Her work is featured in the June 2017 issue of Area Paris, an arts magazine. More of her work will be published in Saint Anne’s Review (Spring 2017).

Anno is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships: the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Award, the Eureka Foundation’s Fleishhaker Fellowship (2003), the Zellerbach Foundation (2010-12), the Open Circle Foundation (2013), and a Sustainable Arts residency at Kala Art Institute. In fall 2014 Anno was a recipient of a Berkeley Film Foundation Award and published her second artist’s book with the poet Anne Carson, titled The Albertine Work Out. In 2015, she received the Kala Art Institute’s master artist award. She has published photography covers, photo essays, and Purgatorio text in Art Papers National Magazine (Fall 2016). She contributed to an essay on the artist David Hammons for Flash Art Magazine and to Queering Contemporary Asian Art (2017), edited by Laura Kina, and Jan Christian Bernabe. Anno also published a photograph in Harper’s Magazine in 2013.

Anno has been at work on an epic social practice filmmaking project: Men and Women in Water Cities, a longer term work made with local actors, citizens in coastal communities who are grappling with sea level rise. Recently, she founded the non-profit Wild Projects. Its mission is to “collaborate with communities world wide through fearless art, film, and performance productions that inspire resiliency in the face of adversity.”

You can also find her work at Marciawoodgallery.com.

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  • Born: Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Based: Berkeley, CA, USA

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Kyoto

Kim Anno

2013 Oil on wood and canvas 48" x 84" Courtesy of the artist

contributor

X

Kim Anno

b. 1958
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Kim Anno is a painter, photographer, book artist, and filmmaker/video artist whose work has been exhibited by museums nationally and internationally. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Honolulu Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, Crocker Museum, Oakland Museum, Getty Research Institute, Columbia University, University of Texas, Austin, Walker Museum, Koopman Collection, The Hague, and Newberry Library all include her work.

Anno’s works include films and staged readings. Her documentary, A New World (2016), focuses on the education and triumph of young African American women at North Carolina’s Bennett College. In 2016, she directed Crisis, a live staged reading in collaboration with Brazilian composer Saulo Laudares, of her adaptation of Dante’s Purgatorio (Canto 32), as well as a live contemporary dance performance, Drought 1200, presented in San Francisco. Currently Anno is making two films in South Florida and Cuba. The first is 90 Miles from Paradise, a project staged in Havana, Key West, and Miami. The second film, ¡Quba!, is a documentary on the LGBTQI community in Cuba, and she recently licensed four original Cuban bands’ songs for the film. For the Oakland Asian Cultural Center’s 2017-18 season, Anno is producing a film/live music performance concert. Anno’s films have been screened internationally at festivals and venues including the Museum of Modern Art, Rio De Janeiro; the 14th Annual New Media Festival, Seoul, Korea; Goethe Institute, Johannesburg; Durban Municipal Gallery in the Don’t Panic Exhibition; San Francisco Asian Art Museum; Site Santa Fe Biennale; One Night Stand, New Mexico; the King’s Art Center; Kim Anno Retrospective; the Varnosi Museum, Hungary; DC Dusseldorf International Expo, Germany; Pulse, Miami; the Berkeley Art Museum; the Denison University Museum; and Noel Art Museum.

Her work is also featured in a number of exhibitions and magazines. She has a solo exhibition and screening in Atlanta, at Marcia Wood Gallery, and in 2018 she will have a solo exhibition at the University of Suffolk in England. Her work is featured in the June 2017 issue of Area Paris, an arts magazine. More of her work will be published in Saint Anne’s Review (Spring 2017).

Anno is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships: the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Award, the Eureka Foundation’s Fleishhaker Fellowship (2003), the Zellerbach Foundation (2010-12), the Open Circle Foundation (2013), and a Sustainable Arts residency at Kala Art Institute. In fall 2014 Anno was a recipient of a Berkeley Film Foundation Award and published her second artist’s book with the poet Anne Carson, titled The Albertine Work Out. In 2015, she received the Kala Art Institute’s master artist award. She has published photography covers, photo essays, and Purgatorio text in Art Papers National Magazine (Fall 2016). She contributed to an essay on the artist David Hammons for Flash Art Magazine and to Queering Contemporary Asian Art (2017), edited by Laura Kina, and Jan Christian Bernabe. Anno also published a photograph in Harper’s Magazine in 2013.

Anno has been at work on an epic social practice filmmaking project: Men and Women in Water Cities, a longer term work made with local actors, citizens in coastal communities who are grappling with sea level rise. Recently, she founded the non-profit Wild Projects. Its mission is to “collaborate with communities world wide through fearless art, film, and performance productions that inspire resiliency in the face of adversity.”

You can also find her work at Marciawoodgallery.com.

location

X
  • Born: Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Based: Berkeley, CA, USA

comments

X