SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Chinese Culture Center presents its fifth Present Tense series with a group art exhibition that reflects on the complexity, gravity, and responsibility of remembering. Marking the thirtieth year of the global, cultural, and political upheavals of 1989, including the protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Present Tense 2019: Task of Remembrance looks broadly at struggles for freedom, the weight of history, and ways in which artists and their communities build and engage with memory.
Working in a variety of media from sculptural installation to experimental film, the participating artists and art collectives, based in the Bay Area and beyond, include Sofía Córdova, Yan Jun, Hung Liu, Ming Mur-ray, Lam Tung-pang, Related Tactics, Xu Tan, Tina Takemoto, Jenifer Wofford, Gao Xia, Li Xiaofei, Wu Yuren, and Stella Zhang. Together, these artists explore the charge of remembering, especially in light of threats to democratic forms of government, rising global xenophobia, the impact of regressive policies on the lives of migrants and refugees, and the retrenchment of systematic violence and racism.
“I do want to emphasize that this is not an exhibition that solely focuses on Tiananmen; rather, it is a point of departure, an opportunity, to explore the failures of memory and the labor involved in remembering,” says CCC Curator Hoi Leung. “Remembering seems like a passive act, but it can be an empowering tool to actualize one’s own agency. Many of the artists felt that they wanted to create something new—to push the boundaries of collective remembrance, their own memories, and their artistic processes.”
The exhibition includes nine commissioned works created specifically for this Present Tense. Tina Takemoto contributes a newly-created experimental film work entitled May 35th, a piece that explores the mutability of memory by transferring a single well-known image from Tiananmen Square to film and manipulates it beyond recognition. Stella Zhang, who was an art student in Beijing at the time of the protests, uses materials she kept from that time within a new sculptural installation. Wu Yuren also contributes an installation work inspired by the extreme conditions his body endured while jailed in and exiled from China. A new film work by Xu Tan focuses on Chang Jok Lee, a prominent Chinatown housing activist who participated in the I Hotel protests in San Francisco.
Other works selected for the exhibition include one of Lam Tung-pang’s erased drawings and a sound work by Yan Jun that includes historical recordings that begin to distort as if the audio player’s batteries are running out. Sofía Córdova’s 2018 series of posters, A Body Reorganized, created for San Francisco’s main thoroughfare, Market Street, features portraits of and interviews with individuals from groups underrepresented in the contemporary discussion of “sanctuary.” Ming Mur-ray’s Beyond Words is a response to the 2016 American presidential election and combines photographs with words she collected from friends about their feelings at that time. As 1989 is the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake as well, Jenifer Wofford contributes a work that examines the significance of the temblor’s aftermath for the San Francisco Chinatown community. Wofford explores both the geophysical and psychological effects of ruptures along the Pacific Rim.
The exhibition also includes ephemera from the archive of the Asian American Art Centre (AAAC) in New York related to the protests it staged and an exhibition it organized as an immediate response to June 4, 1989, the day Chinese troops and security police stormed Tiananmen Square, firing into the crowds of mostly student protesters.
Celebrating a significant 10 Year Anniversary, the Present Tense series was initially created as a group exhibition that fosters discussion and provides a survey on current issues. “The first exhibition was a turning point. This iteration solidifies CCC as a hub for risk-taking, exploration, and equity in the arts,” says CCC Board Co-chair Tatwina Lee. The 2019 Present Tense continues to promote robust artistic dialogue around issues relevant to the community with Chinese, Chinese diasporic, and non-Chinese local artists.
