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Chimaera (2001) |
Reprinted from Post Script 02 - ArtSpeak, Vancouver
by Joy Russell In my childhood photo album, there is a tattered brown news clipping taped
to the inside cover. It features me as George Washington, looking as earnest
as a seven-year old in shorts can. I'm pointing straight ahead across
a make-believe frozen river leading other girls who are pulling imaginary
oars. "Charades," the caption reads,". . . Helen Zia,
as Washington." With the daguerrotype everyone will be able to have their portrait taken -
formerly it was only the prominent: and at the same time everything is
being done to make us all look exactly the same - so that we shall only
need one portrait. The complexities of immigrant communities taking on the 'American Dream',
or nightmare, has occupied our attention/s, particularly in light of the
articulation of 'identity politics' and the rise of the US as potentially
the greatest power-wielder on the globe. The line between the dreamer
and the dreamt is a chasm, perhaps, too wide to embrace, or, a skin, too
close to delineate boundaries. Honolulu-based artist Gaye Chan's exhibition
Chimaera investigates these issues and discomforts with specific reference
to Asian Americans, illuminating the dangers of assimilation in the pursuit
of that dream.
Entering Artspeak, Chimaera hits, then envelops and borders - a rectangle of red,
composed of forty three portraits, mounted six feet high at a downward
angle towards the viewer.
On the wall nearest Carrall Street, we find the first portrait: a photograph
of a man, his face indistinguishable in soft black. Red and black reveal
his jacket, bow tie and carnation. With his portrait - another portrait:
George Washington, the first American president in 1789, his image dominating.
Moving right-ward, in chronological order to 2002, are forty two double-portraits
composed of drawings of American presidents taken from official portraits,
made by pin pricks penetrating into photographic portraits. The photographs
are of people whose names we do not know, they are most likely Chinese,
Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Portugese and mixed race: immigrants
in Hawaii's plantation era. Lapels, floral prints, thick-rimmed glasses
and bouffant hair, give clues to a period somewhere between the late fifties
and seventies. They are children, middle-aged, teenagers, students, a
'Charley's Taxi & Tours' driver, the glamorous, professionals and
working class. Shy, sincere, serious - few smile - a poignant sadness
and melancholy permeates.
Viewing the portraits - depending on your height, requires an upward tilt of the
head. Chan installed the portraits to parallel the positioning of official
portraits of presidents, board members and royalty, thereby raising questions
around authority, honour and stature. The portraits emerge from red: cherry,
blood, fire, wine, siren. Mysterious, dramatic contrasts are created in
hard, soft, berry, charcoal blacks. White, orange yellows appear on faces
as hot spots, flare-ups, evoking another presence; rise from a man's torso
suggesting combustion. Chan uses these colours to conjure degrees of heat,
the rhythms of fire - coals that burn eternally - to remind us the past
is bound to the present; to oppose the 'dream' whereby every day is anew,
the reconstruction of self is severance from history, and amnesia a prerequisite
for success.
Pin pricks appear as scars, tattoos, blisters, tracks, punctures, stitches,
miniature bullet-holes. White fleshes out in ruptures made from the back
of the photographs. Here, Chan plays with temporalities, letting them
cross-reference and echo. While the president's image invades from behind,
invasion also occurs on the front. Faces merge, appear ghost-like, suffocating,
entrapped by the presidential gaze, while others seem to willingly take
on the mask for safety and refuge.
Within this tension, it is difficult to separate exactly who is who. Symbiosis
is suggested in overlapped eyes, the interchange of torsos, buttons aligned
perfectly, a beard made from a president's face, faint red flower petals
in a woman's hair exploding from President Carter's head. Meanings can
be read: a glamorous woman's tilted, darkened face haunts Lincoln's portrait,
hinting at the legacy of slavery; in dazzling red, Nixon smiles through
a Chinese woman with glasses - China and America 'seeing' each other;
President Bush appears cartoon-like on a portrait so dark, only glasses
are barely visible, warning us to times of extreme darkness.
Chimaera challenges, engaging us in its complex subtleties and layers. It serves
as a perfect critical inquiry into the degree to which communities of
people are prepared to subsume themselves to a dream that perhaps is never
really achievable, or even genuinely on offer, and ultimately, the price
that is paid.
Works cited: Chimaera was shown at ArtSpeak from May 11 to June 15, 2002. |