One year ago, I met Robert Lee, the executive director of the Asian American Arts Centre and his wife Eleanor Yung, the Arts Centre's founder. Since then, I have been able to consult with AAAC, curate a show in collaboration with them with writer Richard S. Chang for Dreamsomuch, an underground artist community we founded, but most importantly, I've learned about Asian American art. The subject is one that has not yet had its time in the mainstream vogue, nor has it prominently been seen in our museums and galleries. Just ask someone on the street to name three Asian American Artists and it will be a long wait for the answer if one can be produced at all. It is a subject that has endured many battles of definition, stereotype and condemnations of selectivity and authenticity. However, that Asian American Art brings up the important ideas of multiplicities of identity, heritage, trauma, and culture in relation to art is important for the very basis of the idea of democracy, creativity and liberty of mind. Most importantly, the AAAC is an open and inviting place where artists, whether established or emerging, are truly given the opportunity to show their work.

The forthcoming AAAC exhibition in December brings us a curator who is also an artist-in-residence at New York University's Asian Pacific American Studies Program and Institute-the photographer Corky Lee. The exhibition is called Not Your Chop Suey Chinatown: Photographers Selected by Corky Lee runs from December 6, 2002-January 17th, 2003 with the Opening Reception at the AAAC on Friday, December 13th, 5:30pm to 8:00pm and the Artists Talk at the AAAC on Friday, January 6th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. These events are all free and open to the public.

Not Your Chops Suey Chinatown brings together the important photographer Corky Lee with both well-known and emerging artists. Artists including Chien-Chi Chang, Joseph Hsu, Chee Wang Ng, Joseph Songco, among others show us the many faces of Chinatown. Chinatown is a thriving diverse community but stereotype images from the era of Arnold Genthe's photography still persist. One-hundred-and-thirty-three years after the completion of the transcontinental railroad, this photographic exhibition features humanistic aspects of the community as well as extraordinary aspects of day to day life thru the lens of Asian Pacific American local photographers, projecting images only the community could express in its own inner voices. From the lens of awarding winning photojournalists and community activists to the eye of a conceptual still life artist, each offers a different take that juxtapose with the other, expressing the contemporary world of Chinatown in our global society.

The AAAC is now in its 27th year and currently has its 12th Annual Exhibition installed called Contrary Equilibriums until November 22nd, 2002. The gallery is open from 12:30 PM until 6:30 PM every day and until 7:30 PM on Thursdays. The Arts Centre hopes that artists and those interested in the arts will come to the gallery and use the extensive artist archive, speak with us and help make the AAAC a vibrant place for discussion, scholarly work and exhibitions. The AAAC gallery, archives and offices are located at 26 Bowery in Chinatown just below Bayard Street on the 3rd floor. If you would like more information about the Asian American Arts Centre, please visit www.artspiral.org and feel free to email me at ac953@nyu.edu.

Notes on the Artists in Not Your Chop Suey Chinatown

Corky Lee
Born and raised in New York City, Lee is the eldest son of a second-generation Chinese America. Known as the "undisputed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate," Lee has covered the day-to-day lives of Asian Americans as well as historical moments in American history for well over 30 years. His work, which has been described as "only a small attempt to rectify omissions in our history text books," has appeared in countless books and magazines including "Time" magazine, "The New York Times," "The Village Voice," and "Associated Press." Lee's dedication to community involvement has earned him a Pioneer Award from the Organization of Chinese Americas, an award from the New York Press Association, among others. He was recently featured on the cover of the Arts Section of New York Times, and he is also the 2002 Artist-In-Residence at New York University Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program & Institute.

Chien-Chi Chang
Over the past decade, Chien-Chi Chang has lived and worked in New York's Chinatown, documenting the lives of immigrants there. These pictures of illegal aliens stranded on an island within an island have appeared in "National Geographic" magazine, as well as "The New Yorker" "Times" and "German Geo." This series earned Chang first place in the category "Daily Life Story" from World Press Photo in 1999. The same year, he also won a grant from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund for humanistic photography and was awarded the Visa d'Or in magazine photography in Perpignam. He was named the Missouri/NPPA 1999 Photographer of the Year. His works had been exhibited at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2001), La Biennale di Venezia (2001) and the Bienal de Sao Paolo (2002).

Joseph Hsu
In his job as the press photographer for The World Journal, New York Chinese daily newspaper, Joseph Hsu has shot just about every possible event in all Chinatown in his normal daily routine. Yet, his own Chinatown is a more private and personal one. The study of still life on its back street in the morning or a moment in the day of the sweatshop worker - this is the life and soul of Chinatown.

Chee Wang Ng
Chee Wang Ng is a multidiscipline artist in New York City. Trained in architecture, he graduated from Rhode Island School of Design. Born in Malaysia to a traditional Chinese family, his conceptual monumental size photographic series "Eaten Your Fill of Rice?" explores the identity of the Chinese Diaspora in the global society by reevaluating, challenging, and modernizing traditional Chinese allegory that draws upon ancient literature, metaphor, and mythology. The first part of this on-going series was featured in the photographic journal, Nueva Luz. His "September 11th" memorial installation was chosen for the "In Response," a tribute to the heroes and victims of September 11th, 2001, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA.

Joseph Songco
Joseph Songco left New York two years ago for Seattle, WA but he still calls New York home especially after September 11th. New York is such a large part of his Chinatown as it is filled with both sadness and hope; his view captures a moment of silence in the hustle and bustle of Chinatown that most people miss. Songco graduated from SUNY, Geneseo, NY and was awarded the Artist In The Marketplace program from the Bronx Museum of the Arts. He had both solo and group shows, from the Philippine Consulate in New York to the Uireobo Gallery in Seattle.

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