Mezzanine

September 13 - September 22, 2019 (Monday to Friday 12-6pm, Weekend 11am-6pm)

Ground Floor Gallery Space, Pfizer Building (630 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11206)

Opening reception: Friday, September 13, 6-9pm (Performance by Pei-ling Ho at 7:30pm)

Panel discussion: Asian women artists in the context of the social and institutional structure

(Thursday, September 19, 6:30 - 8:00pm)

BROOKLYN, NY – We narrate us is pleased to announce, Mezzanine, a group exhibition co-curated by Jennifer (Chia-ling) Ho and Min Sun Jeon featuring works by Furen Dai, Moko Fukuyama, Pei-Ling Ho, Hai-Hsin Huang, Qinmin Liu, Anh Thuy Nguyen, Hyunjung Rhee, and Joanna Tam.

In the United States, “Asiatic femininity1” has recently been brought to the surface of the ongoing discussion around race, gender, and immigration. The western canon has stereotyped Asiatic femininity as opulent, sensual, oriental, excessive, feminine, passive, decadent, cultural possessive and ornamental. However, how does Asian female identity exist separately from the scope of the historically western lens?

Mezzanine is an exhibition comprised of contemporary women artists from East and Southeast Asia living in the US, sharing their stories with their own voice. Society narrates us into roles that can be overwhelmingly difficult to break free. Growing up in Asia and coming to the US to pursue their artistic career has led these artists to construct the assertion and reflection of themselves with the pre-imposed barriers and conflicts of being an immigrant, and being a woman. Featured artists not only challenge the pre-existing western perspectives of the yellow women, but also the conventional idea of what it means to be an Asian woman.

For many Asian female immigrants, the nail salon industry has been a dependable entry point in the American job market. Moko Fukuyama’s visual narrative highlights both the intimacy and detachment of an encounter between the nail salon patron and practitioner. Furen Dai compares men in the marriage market to art objects in the art market as they are both precious and desirable. Dai unveils the social phenomena and industries behind the collective anxiety around marital pressures in China. Joanna Tam’s sculpture and performance respond to the immigration enforcement policy in the US and questions their supposed functions to maintain justice, provide shelter, and facilitate migration.

The “New York dream” could sometimes be an illusion of social and economic inclusivity for artists. Through playful and melancholy paintings, Hai-Hsin Huang observes the everyday life in New York from the foreign perspective of what separately Americans and Asians might perceive as peculiar or mundane. Seemingly an unachievable dream, Qinmin Liu founded the first artist-run airline, Angelhaha Airline in 2017 as an interactive performative experience that flies passengers specifically to art events. Seeing her art practice as an enterprise, Liu does not play by the rules and demonstrates how art can empower women.

As an affective exploration of conflict and frustration at life between different cultures, these artists reimagine and embody the many contradictions of race, gender, communication, and belonging. Anh Thuy Nguyen constantly re-examines and negotiates the proximity between belonging and dis-belonging, affiliation and estrangement through objects and materials that hold contrast and contradictory to one another, both formally and allegorically. Pei-Ling Ho explores the development of gender identity and family structure under the influence of Confucianism. Ho’s interactive performance unravels the bond and boundary between a mother and a daughter. Hyunjung Rhee’s kinetic sculpture embodies glitches in communication and the breaks in transmission space. Shouting underwater, volatile expressions and emotions become distorted, obscured, and eventually purified.

Mezzanine is an architectural term for the space between floors. The title, Mezzanine, is a metaphor of being in a state of in-between different cultural, social, and political structures. By imposing diverse social issues and innate conflicts from distinctive perspectives of immigrants, Asian women artists, this exhibition invites us to start an open and genuine dialogue on the expectations and struggles within this identity.

We narrate us is an ongoing project, a discussion on Asian women artists in New York started by Jennifer (Chia-ling) Ho and Min Sun Jeon. The project aims to initiate a conversation on the diverse and complex experiences living as an Asian female in the US. Instead of seeking for a singular representation of “Asian female”, the project wishes to encourage artists with different cultural experiences to