QUEENS, NEW YORK.- The Queens Museum of Art presents "Queens International," on view through November 3, 2002. This is an exhibition of more than forty artists and artist groups who live or work in Queens.
Multiculturalism was an art world trend in the 1980s, but on the streets of Queens, the mix of international and local is an everyday reality. According .to the latest census figures, Queens is the most culturally-diverse county in .the nation. Over 50% of the households in Queens are headed by people not born in the United States and close to 160 languages are spoken in the borough. Queens International recognizes and highlights the boroughís residents and their extraordinary talents as one of its most valuable and distinctive resources.
For artists in this group, whose family ties and professional activities can easily mean they spend a portion of the year in Bogot·, Beijing, or Lahore, ethnicity and identity often may influence style and subject matteróbut not always. Reflecting a broad range of artistic and social concerns, the painting, photography, sculpture, video, and web projects in this exhibition that demonstrates how, for an international artistic community, Queens is particularly fertile ground.
Artists were selected by invitation, an open-call jury process, and word-of-mouth, and include Jaishri Abichandani, Paul Anthony, Augusto Arbizo, Jorge J. Aristizabal, Jaime Arredondo, Eric Brown, Chien-Chi Chang, Jason A. Cina, Dorothy Deon, Flux Factory (Jean Barberis, Stefany Anne Golberg, Dana Gramp, Morgan Meis, Nick Jones, James Andrews/nsumi, Jason David Brown, Sebastien Santamaria, John Reineck, Alita Edgar, Aya Kakeda, Alice-Mary Higgins, Ronan Coyle, Yuki Maruyama, Dan Mulcare), Rosalie Frost, Susan Gamble & Michael Wenyon, Marietta J. Ganapin, Gerard H. Gaskin, Eduardo Gil, Audrey Gottlieb, Shawn Greene, Tahir Hemphill, Leslie Hewitt, Eric Hongisto, Emily Jacir, James Johnson, Jason Kakoyiannis, Jena H. Kim, C. J. Lee, Corky Lee, Larry Litt, Margot Lovejoy, Crysta Lunsford, Evie McKenna, Dave McKenzie, John L. Moore, John Morris, John Norwood, Rie Oishi, Michael Rakowitz, Arthur Simms, Javier TÈllez, Gilberto Triplitt, Xing Danwen, Patricia Zarate, and Zhang Hongtu. Hailing from twelve countries, this group represents a fraction of Queensí more than 100 nationalities.
