Exhibitions

• Chimaera

  GAYE CHAN
  May 11–June 15, 2002

  barely speaking english

  we gave ourselves names of presidents

  abraham fong

  jackson fugimoto

  truman sanchez

  In the context of Vancouver’s Asian Heritage Month, Artspeak is pleased to present the perspective of an established American artist working with diasporic experience.

  Forty three photographic portraits, infused with strong colour, are installed high on the gallery walls and angled down toward the viewer. Penetrating the photographs are drawings made by pin pricks taken from official portraits of American presidents from 1789 to 2002. The pinprick drawings rupture the associations of the private family portrait of Asian American men and women and complicate notions of national identity particular to the U.S. The Chimaera, with its overlapping associations of ‘monsters compounded of incongruous parts’ and ‘an unrealizable dream’, serves as a linchpin for this installation.

  Artspeak gratefully acknowledges the support of the Victorian Hotel in Vancouver for this exhibition. (www.victorian-hotel.com / 1-877-681-6369)

  Postscript 02: Joy Russell on Chimaera (PDF)