Identity-Based Work Looks Dated in ‘Shifting Perceptions’

For a few years in the mid-1990s, art based on the identity of its maker was all the rage. Driven by a laudable desire for diversity, curators, critics, educators and funders seemed to be more concerned with the social experiences behind a particular work than with the experiences it generated when a viewer or two actually interacted with it.

While this approach provided opportunities for artists from an increasingly wide range of cultural backgrounds, it often backfired-- especially when minority artists were all but required to make works that only addressed their cultural status, while white males were not limited to such subjects. As a movement, identity-based work eventually went the way of all art-world trends--it died a natural death. That is, individual bodies of work that rose above their sources lived on, while the genre as a whole was passed over by the next crop of artists.

At Pasadena’s Pacific Asia Museum, “Shifting Perceptions: Contemporary L.A. Visions” revisits the heyday of the multicultural imperative in an attempt to save identity-based work from the dustbin of art history. This uneven exhibition features the diverse works of 17 Los Angeles-based artists of Asian descent, some of whom directly address their ethnicity and others who choose not to.

Organized by artist, Pacific Asia Museum registrar and guest-curator Betty Phoenix Wan, the sprawling show includes more than 110 works, which, in addition to filling two large galleries, are also interspersed among the historical works throughout the museum. A flat-footed banner by Betty Lee adorns the building’s exterior and a kinetic sculpture by Carl Cheng adds to the relaxing atmosphere of its charming courtyard.

It even spills over into other venues. At the Pasadena Public Library, several display cases contain modestly scaled paintings, drawings, photographs and assemblages by about half of the artists, and at One Colorado, an empty storefront in Old Town, hang still more pieces by 11 of the artists. (In July, two more related shows are scheduled to open, at Pasadena Art Space and the Pasadena Historical Museum.)

As a whole, “Shifting Perceptions” feels dated. Over the past six years, the question of whether or not artists should use their works as platforms for the discussion of cultural identity has given way to the question of whether or not they are able to make compelling pieces, period. These days, anything goes--as long as it takes viewers with it.

In any case, contemporary art only makes sense on a case-by-case basis. For an exhibition to strive to resuscitate an entire genre is to put the cart before the horse.

The exhibition’s time warp atmosphere doesn’t do justice to a respectable percentage of the works in “Shifting Perceptions.” Two videos by Art Nomura steal the show by blending poignant, potentially painful memories with lighthearted humor. “Wok Like a Man” turns a tune by the Four Seasons into an impressionistic reflection on cultural fusion, while “Buckaroo Boy” tells the tale of Nomura’s childhood desire to be a cowboy. His subtly sophisticated videos branch off to touch on dozens of subjects as they articulate the pragmatic resilience of an everyday hero whose indomitable spirit is as admirable as it is infectious.

Also strong are Suong Yangchareon’s haunting paintings of anonymous intersections and family-run businesses, in which decades run together and shadows and sunlight silently collide. All of these tensely visceral canvases give stark form to the hard-boiled forcefulness of streetwise parables.

Rounding out the show’s most engaging pieces are Mineko Grimmer’s reflecting pool-cum-music box; Carl Cheng’s strangely shaped cases containing organic substances; Dinh Q. Le’s C-prints that have been cut into strips and interwoven like floor mats; and Ben Sakoguchi’s paintings of fictitious orange-crate labels, in which commercial culture, art history and current events mix in an unsettling stew.

Among the least interesting works are the most formulaic, including Margaret Honda’s designer traps, Bari Kumar’s watered-down riffs on Manuel Ocampo’s sensationalistic paintings, Kai Bob Cheng’s cliche-laden pastiches, and Yong Soon Min’s mechanical bride, which bows continuously as a taped recording repeatedly intones: “Where is my demilitarized desire? Where is my decolonized body politics?”

More focused on following trends and fitting into prescribed categories than in doing their own thing, these uninspired pieces illustrate the worst aspects of identity-based art. Failing on their own terms, they lay claim to identities so nondescript, generic and uninflected by the vicissitudes of firsthand experience that they could only be of interest to someone who works at the Census Bureau.

Paradoxically, the most interesting reading in the handsome catalog stems from a similar methodology. In place of a traditional essay, Wan presents an edited version of the responses the 17 artists supplied to a questionnaire she formulated in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition and advisory committees.

The ways the artists address what it means to be an Asian American artist go far beyond what their works do to answer this question. This makes sense. After all, art does not answer questions, it raises them. And Q-and-A surveys do not serve as suitable foundations for exhibitions of visual art. Showing herself to be a better sociologist than curator, Wan reveals that her interest in revisiting identity-based issues is better served by the catalog than the exhibition.

Pacific Asia Museum, 46 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena, (626) 449-2742, through Oct. 29. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. $5 adults; $3 students and seniors.