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Sept. 26 - Oct. 16, 1988. Chisenhale Gallery London, England YELLOW PERIL: NEW WORLD ASIANS looks at the work of producers of Asian descent living in Canada. The exhibition includes work done by artists who are first, second and third generation Canadian. They use video - the tool of multinational communication networks - and photography to explore their own priorities and experiences, as part of a cultural heritage and as individuals. Over the past two decades, the development of a 'non-commercial video culture' has spawned a plethora of site-specific, community-specific and issue-specific productions: video art, feminist video, new narrative, social/political works, performance art video and tapes that analyze mass media. This unique selection of videotapes by Asian Canadians reflects many of the same categorizations. What we have on view is a genre within a genre of cultural production. A YELLOW PERIL: NEW WORLD ASIANS sensibility is more than eating sushi or shop suey with chopsticks. It is a way of seeing, understanding and producing. These video and photo-based works include pieces of a wide-eyed experimental nature as well as more accessible works intended for broad-band distribution or major art gallery status. It includes work by many award-winning producers. YELLOW PERIL provides the ardent viewer, and the novice viewer, with a unique way of 'seeing is believing'. This showcase of videotapes and exhibition of wall art reflects the diversity and vitality of a growing and living community of contemporary media artists - visible artists of the new world. Paul Wong Vancouver June 1988 |
