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https://www.barrons.com/articles/christies-spotlights-diversity-in-the-asian-diaspora-in-a-selling-exhibition-01656611166
During the pandemic, artist Ho Jae Kim found it difficult to cope given the rising violence against the Asian American Pacific Islander community.
The vitriol at the time made Kim recall that even in art school, there were few times the contemporary Asian American experience was taught. Their stories were left untold.
Kim’s response was to approach Christie’s corporate social responsibility staff about a year and a half ago with a request to feature contemporary Asian artists and to bring more awareness to the AAPI community.
“The idea came because I wanted to create more moments of empathy and familiarity for me and people who are like me,” says Kim, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, and who is now based in Brooklyn.
The result is “At the Table,” a private selling exhibition of works by 30 contemporary AAPI artists—a collection of vivid pieces ranging from figurative paintings to abstract renderings, featuring artists of the Asian diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Proceeds from the sale—which runs through Friday—benefit Heart of Dinner, a nonprofit founded by actor and storyteller Yin Chang and her partner, Moonlynn Tsai, a Taiwanese-American restaurateur and entrepreneur, to provide meals to elderly Asian Americans throughout New York city.
A purpose of the fundraising, and being able to present contemporary AAPI artists and the range of their works, is to “draw attention to how human everybody is, and to give context to type of experiences everyone has,” says Sarah Han, a director at Harper’s gallery who co-curated the exhibition with Kim. Harper’s represents Kim’s work.
Rachel Ng, a Christie’s cataloger and member of the auction house’s CSR team said it didn’t take much convincing of the auction house’s leadership to get their support for the exhibition. Christie’s CSR program is often driven by employee initiatives.
“They felt this was a story and perspective that needed to be told and it has never been done at Christie’s before,” Ng says. In fact, she adds, there have only been a few exhibitions in New York over the years featuring the work of contemporary Asian artists, including the recent exhibition “Wonder Woman,” curated by Kathy Huang at Jeffrey Deitsch gallery in New York.
Ng learned of Heart of Dinner from artist Stephanie H. Shih, a Taiwanese-American artist who creates ceramic versions of grocery store items, and “was super vocal about volunteering” for the group during the pandemic.
The exhibition includes a ceramic to-scale bottle of Kadoya sesame oil and three small instant noodle packets created by Shih.
“Her works are fun and they look at the importance of food in people’s lives and specifically within the Asian Community and culture,” Ng says.
While Shih creates sculptures based on Asian grocery-store products, she will also make Western-inspired ceramics, getting ideas for items Asian families and children of Asian-American parents grew up with through crowdsourcing on social media. An example is “ Ferrer Rocher chocolates that are not Asian but were an Asian-American household staple because a lot of our parents would shop at Costco and buy them in bulk because they felt fancy,” Ng says.
Kim has two works in the show—the paintings Sidewalk and Scarecrow (Daylight). These deeply colored, other-worldly works were created this year using oil, inkjet transfer, and enamel on canvas. Sidewalk depicts two figures located between a freeway and a railroad who seem to be at odds at either end of a 1970s-era burgundy red car—one pushing, one pulling.
“They are really going out of their way to not move—it’s a little slapstick joke,” says Kim, noting that a lot of his work is about the “purgatories in our everyday life.”
The featured image of the exhibition is Mikey Yates ’ Four Brothers Drawing, a 5 by 6 foot oil, acrylic and pastel work on canvas, painted from 2021-22, of brothers around a table.
Han describes Yates’ work as a “beautiful painting” that she was happy to include in the show not only because of its direct connection to the title, but also because Yates is a Filipino-American artist.
“It’s important to understand the incredible diversity of the Asian diaspora,” Han says. “A lot of times people think Filipino names don’t sound stereotypically Asian. Also, they are Southeast Asian, so they have a different appearance than East Asians—the general stereotyping of Asian people.”
“At the Table,” also includes a hardcover cookbook by the same name that features a work by Shih on the cover of a Peking Duck. The book is an alternative exhibition catalog including recipes from the participant artists and chefs who are friends with Heart of Dinner, Ng says. The initial copies sold out but pre-orders for the next run are being taken.
Putting the exhibition and cookbook together also led to the creation of Civil Art, a nonprofit founded by Kim, Ng, Han and a former Christie’s CSR member. The nonprofit’s mandate goes beyond the AAPI community to raise the voices of all marginalized communities through the arts and literature.
Part of the group’s efforts is “to work towards positive progressive institutional change,” Kim says. “But also through fundraising and making things more available, we want to give care to people who are in immediate need and to elders.”
During the pandemic, artist Ho Jae Kim found it difficult to cope given the rising violence against the Asian American Pacific Islander community.
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