2008 – 2009

Metro Poles in Chinatown

October 2008 – January 2009

A Collaboration with Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Bronx River Arts Center, MetroPoles is curated by Jose Ruiz, Heng Gil, and Bob Lee. Opened and closed in various community locations— At the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center from Oct 22 till Jan 10, 2009. At Chinatown Manpower Project from Oct 14 till Dec 5 th and at the Chatham Green Cooperative, Nov 1 to Dec 13. The sites are: Chinatown Manpower Project at 70 Mulberry St 3fl., and the Charles B. Wang Community Health Centre on Canal St. at 268 Canal St, and an outdoor site - the Chatham Green Cooperatives. Learn more: photo album, flyer.

Participating artists:

Teen Map Project

November 2008

AAAC Saturday Art School teacher Chi Lee managed and directed 17 teenagers between 18 and 21 years old from all over China at CMP to address the problem of making Chinatown a welcoming place for teens. They planned, researched, compiled agreements with shopkeepers as well as designed together a Map for Teens, locating twenty-two places welcoming teenagers in Chinatown. This was finalized and easily carried by folding into an origami shape. A collaboration between AAAC Saturday Art School & Chinatown Manpower Project (CMP).

Chinatown map created by students (front) Chinatown map created by students (back)

Clusterbomb! Zero Capital Exhibition

December 13 – January 15, 2009

Clusterbomb! is a creative response to physical and psychological displacement in the post 9-11 era of disillusionment and inertia. It is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational and transnational network of artists, writers, activists, cultural workers and youth. Participants are posing a collective challenge to why those who have are getting even more and those who don't have are getting even less, or nothing. A meeting at the closing of artists, stakeholders and interested parties included performances, new works, home cooked food, drinks and a discussion on the future Zero Capital international artists collaborations, events, and fundraising efforts. Artist Tomie Arai distributed signed, audience-selected Free Art chosen at the Opening. Learn more.

Poster for the Zero Capital CLUSTERBOMB! Exhibition
Zero Capital artists:

An Exhibition of Tibetan Thangka Paintings

January 26 – March 27, 2009

A three hour talk by Lama Tenzin presented at the opening reception.

A Tibetan Thangka Painting of Medicine Buddha

Art & the Asian Hemisphere

April 29, 2009

A talk by Robert Lee at Central Connecticut State University for Professor Ki Hoon Kim on April 29, 2009. Based on book by Kishore Mahbubani entitled The New Asian Hemisphere: THe Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.

America’s Chinatown Voices 藝匯唐人街

May 9 – August 8, 2010

Columbus Park becomes the site of a special outdoor art throughout the Summer where artists & volunteers install, rotate and maintain about 80 painted panels on which community people, children, artists and other New Yorkers can express themselves in written Chinese or English and painted images. People who live in Chinatown, as well as people who enjoy and care about this corner of New York City, are given the opportunity to speak their mind or simply to express their joy. Learn more: photo album 1, 2, 3, NYC parks, artwork, artist profile 1, 2.

Three black on red panel paintings by Avani Patel and Natalie Pham
Participating artists:

ARTSLAM 2009

July 3, 2009

Comments by Gregory Coates and Bob Lee. Learn more.

Participating artists:

SPECIAL ARTSLAM

July 8, 2009

Artist Talk by Kerry Ann Lee. Kerry Ann Lee is an artist, designer and educator based in Wellington, New Zealand. Her work, “Home Made: Picturing Chinese Settlement in New Zealand,” celebrates an alternative cultural history through cut-paper, paint, found text and images. She presents both personal and local experiences of the Chinese settlement in New Zealand, those that the Chinese face behind the takeout counter as well as the home customs housed behind the plastic ribbon curtain. Learn more.

artasiamerica launch!

July 28, 2009

AAAC announces the digital archive, artasiamerica.org, marking the start of this expanding resource for the history of Asian American contemporary art. It consists of historical images and documents focused on Asian American visual culture from 1945 to the present. The digital archive, selected from our physical archive of 1500 entries, is a professional collection of Asian/Asian American contemporary visual artists. The second phase will continue to cull the artists who were important in articulating the subject of Asian American Art and the issues of diversity in America.