In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Bay Area art website 8-bridges will debut a new online exhibition dedicated to artists of the Asian diaspora.
The project, announced on Thursday, April 22, is scheduled to debut on the website May 1 and will be online through the end of the month. It’s curated by founding 8-bridges member and art advisor Kelly Huang of KCH Advisory and Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Cantor Arts Center assistant curator and co-director of the museum’s Asian American Art Initiative.
“With everything going on in the world right now with violence against the AAPI community, it felt like it was more urgent than ever to put a spotlight on these incredible artists,” says Huang.
The show will be among the largest ever on the 9-month-old platform (including the January Art Week presentation, which sought to re-create the live art fair experience online) with more than 20 galleries presenting four works each.
The online exhibition will highlight historical, mid-career and emerging artists. The show takes its title, “Do We Dream Under the Same Sky?,” from a featured mixed-media work by Rirkrit Tirivanija. Other confirmed works include conceptual, technology-driven installations by Nam June Paik (the subject of a retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this May) and sculptures by Anna Sew Hoy that combine handmade elements with emblems of consumer culture.
In a first for the Bay Area-focused site, galleries outside the region will also be part of the show, like Gagosian, which closed its San Francisco location in December. Other featured artists include Stephanie Syjuco (Catharine Clark Gallery), Maia Cruz Palileo (Monique Meloche and Jessica Silverman), Carl Cheng (Friends Indeed) and Barry McGee (Ratio 3.)
“We wanted to still be true to our mission of 8-bridges, which is to really support the values of the art community in the Bay Area,” says Huang, noting that the majority of participating galleries are local.
The Bay Area has long been a center for Asian American art, studies and community: The term “Asian American” first came to wide use in the region, coined by the Bay Area’s Asian American Political Alliance in 1968 as a move away from the then-common use of the Eurocentric and racist term “Oriental.”
Huang hopes that by centralizing a wide swath of AAPI artists on 8-bridges, they can “increase visibility, foster interest and support the diversity of these artists’ practices.”
In a climate where violence against the AAPI community continues to be a national issue, Huang says she sees the show as a way of celebrating the strength of the community while also creating opportunities for audiences to discover new artists.
Additional programming, including virtual tours and talks, will be announced at a later date.
“Do We Dream Under the Same Sky?”: Online exhibition. Saturday, May 1, through May 31. Free. www.8-bridges.com
