Past Exhibitions
Marvels and Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics, 1942-1986 and Alt.Comics: Asian American Artists Reinvent the Comic
September 27, 2012 - February 24, 2013
The Museum of Chinese in America launched two connected exhibitions on the relationship between Asian Americans and comics: Marvels and Monsters examines stereotypical and politically charged depictions of Asians and Asian Americans, while Alt.Comics presents Asian Americans using the medium to craft and present their own narratives.
America through a Chinese Lens
April 26 – September 9, 2012
America through a Chinese Lens surveys photography of American life as shot by contemporary Chinese and Chinese American artists, documentary photographers and non-professionals, identifying the specific ways in which the Chinese have used the camera to see this country - its beauty, contradictions, and realities. The exhibition spans many generations of photographers: contemporary artists who use the medium as well as snapshots taken by new immigrants from the 1950s to today which have been selected from MOCA’s permanent collection. During the run of the show, new media artist and design strategist An Xiao will be shooting and posting photographs regularly as she travels throughout the west and southwest, offering a live visual essay about her America on our tumblr page: chineseinamerica.tumblr.com.
Lee Mingwei: The Travelers and The Quartet Project
October 20, 2011 – March 26, 2012
For over a decade, Taiwan born American artist Lee Mingwei has been at the forefront of an artistic impulse that has gained traction in recent years: participatory art. This fall, MOCA will present a solo exhibition of Lee, including two of his participation-based projects, The Travelers, a MOCA commission, and The Quartet Project.
UNEARTHING
Works in Clay and Mixed Media by Carole Wong Chesek
May 5-September 19, 2011
The exhibit Unearthing presents an unprecedented selection of Carole Wong Chesek’s oeuvre, focusing on work from her mixed media assemblages and selections from two series of recent ceramic pieces. Constantly questioning and investigating for better understanding and interpretation, her work reflects some of the quintessential American issues of assimilation and identity.
Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind
November 6, 2010-September 5, 2011
China’s rich tradition of puzzles and fascination with puzzling objects is thoroughly embedded in its arts and culture, and has been a popular cultural export to America since the 19th century. The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) presents Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind, curated by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen.
Chinatown POV: Reflections on September 11th
September 11, 2010-November 29, 2010
Chinatown POV: Reflections on September 11th presents first-person accounts and perspectives of residents, workers and stakeholders of New York Chinatown, a neighborhood just ten blocks away from Ground Zero. On view are the community photo-documentation, studies, reports, artwork, and ephemera related to Chinatown and its recovery that the museum began collecting shortly after the tragic events of September 11th.
Chinatown Film Project
Chinatown is an evocative place. It exists in our cities and our imaginations, on our television screens and in our memories. Chinatown is a vibrant, sprawling immigrant community and a forgotten strip mall of buffet restaurants; it's the exploited Hollywood metaphor and yet a dense signifier of American noir.
The Chinatown Film Project tackles Chinatown's elusiveness and its stereotyped representations by constructing new images for the viewer. The project starts locally, where we asked ten of New York City’s most exciting filmmakers to present their unique vision of this global icon. This project will be showcased as one of the inaugural exhibitions in MOCA's expansive new space.
Featured award-winning filmmakers include:
* Wayne Wang
* Miguel Arteta
* So Yong Kim and Bradley Rust Gray
* Jem Cohen
The Chinatown Film Project features an online site where anyone can upload videos about Chinatowns around the world. This virtual community of makers and viewers speaks to a re-imagining of Chinatown as one interconnected global locality.
Both Here and There: Yale-China and a Century of Transformative Encounters
September 2, 2010 - October 11, 2010
This fall, the Museum of Chinese in America explores the hundred-year history of the Yale-China Association and the personal narratives behind its long history of cross-cultural exchange. Both Here and There: Yale-China and a Century of Transformative Encounters includes personal accounts, images, and artifacts that together explore the profound power of grassroots exchange on communities, cultures, and individuals an ocean apart. Since 1901, the Yale-China Association has built U.S.-China relations through programs in education, health, public service, and the arts. Both Here and There, organized by Yale-China, will be on view at MOCA from September 2 through October 11, 2010.
Here & Now: Chapter III Towards Transculturalism
On View from February 11-March 28, 2010
Presented in Chapter III of Here & Now: Chinese Artists in New York, Towards Transculturalism includes 4 artists of Chinese descent who endeavor to be part of the transculturalism trend in the era of globalization. Working in varied medium and style, the four featured artists, Emily Cheng, Hung-Chih Peng, YoYo Xiao and Shen Chen share interest in using universal language in their art creations. Although they all have more or less connections with the Chinese art tradition, they pursue methods that are understandable and acceptable to a larger audience on the international level.
Here & Now: Chapter II Crossing Boundaries
November 19, 2009-January 4, 2010
Chapter II: Crossing Boundaries explores four artists’ diverse approaches to cultural boundaries. Ming Fay, Zhang Hongtu, Long-Bin Chen and Shiyi Sheng relocated to New York from different places at different times, with disparate educational and life experiences. Before the artists’ relocation to New York, issues of cultural identity were scarcely of their concern, as the Han Chinese culture was, and still is, the predominant culture in their homelands. It was only after they had settled into the life and culture of New York that they individually realized they could not avoid cross-cultural issues, both in life and art. A certain hybridity in their works evinces a focus on cross-cultural issues, but their responses to those issues vary greatly in their approach.
Here & Now: Chinese Artists in New York Chapter 1
Opening on September 22, 2009
This exhibition showcases twelve contemporary artists of Chinese heritage, who over the last two decades have established their careers in the global metropolis of New York. Presented in three consecutive chapters—Part I: Visual Memories, Part II: Crossing Boundaries, and Part III: Towards Transculturalism—Here & Now examines the shifting relationship between the artist and tradition, the crossing of boundaries in a multicultural environment, and the reinvention of culture. In a swiftly globalizing world, with China quickly emerging as a new superpower, New York’s Chinese artists are asking themselves, “Why still here?” and “Why still now?”
Where is Home? Chinese in the Americas
Until February 16, 2008
MOCA's current core exhibit, Where Is Home?, is an evocative, interpretive display of the museum's growing collection of artifacts and personal testimony documenting the Chinese Diaspora to the Western hemisphere. The installation, designed by Billie Tsien, is divided into sections dealing with themes such as migrations, abandonments & reclamations, faiths & customs, women, and home.
Many True Stories: Life in Chinatown On and After September 11th
Until February 16, 2008
As residents of Chinatown, students from the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Middle School 131 Oral History Club experienced firsthand the impact that September 11th had on their community and wanted a way to candidly capture the events and its aftermath without having to rely on second-hand sources that glossed-over or excluded their neighborhood.
Mapping Our Heritage Project
Until February 16, 2008
Wandering the streets of New York City Chinatown and observing the diverse architecture and dramatic streetscape, it’s not uncommon to wonder, “If these walls could talk, what would they say?” The Museum of Chinese in America begins to take the guesswork out of the question when it unveils the prototype of its Mapping Our Heritage Project – a pioneering three-dimensional, interactive map of New York’s “Old Chinatown” district. Mapping Our Heritage Project is a national model for how technology can be applied to a neighborhood’s cultural and historical preservation.
Ground One: Voices from Post-911 Chinatown
Ongoing, Online
To better understand the consequences of 9/11 on Chinatown and Chinese New Yorkers, The Museum of Chinese in America partnered with the Columbia University Oral History Research Office (OHRO), the September 11 Digital Archive (911 DA) at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and New York University's Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute (A/P/A) to create Ground One: Voices from Post-911 Chinatown. Ground One aims to provide an in-depth portrait of the ways in which the identity of a community, largely neglected by national media following 9/11, has been indelibly shaped by that day.
