“Re-envisioning Asian-American Art History” is a three-week college and university teachers institute at New York University for twenty-five participants on pivotal developments and critical issues in Asian-American art history. The institute, co-directed by historian John Kuo Wei Tchen (New York University) and art historians Margo Machida (University of Connecticut) and Alexandra Chang (New York University), focuses on “pivotal developments and critical issues” in Asian-American art history. Rather than adopting a monographic approach, the institute contextualizes Asian-American art within diasporic and transnational frameworks—that is, “globalized circuits along which artists, ideas, and artistic influences continue to flow.” In week one, art historian Mark Johnson (San Francisco State University) provides an overview from the early twentieth century through the post-war period; curator Karin Higa (Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles) focuses on Japanese-American artists and modernism, 1919-1945; and art historian Tom Wolf (Bard College) explores the careers of painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. During week two, Jeffrey Wechsler (Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University) presents on the East/West synthesis of Asian-American painting, Midori Yoshimoto (New Jersey City University) speaks on Japanese Americans in the Fluxus art movement, and Margo Machida discusses oral histories of living artists. During the third week, co-director Chang focuses on Asian-American art after 1990 and, with her colleagues, leads study tours of museums, studios, and galleries. Readings include G. Chang, et. al. (eds.), Asian American Art: A History 1850-1970; C. Benfey, The Great Wave; M. Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral History; and A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
