Zài ni fāngbiàn de shíhòu (WHEN IT’S CONVENIENT FOR YOU, 2021. Acrylic on canvas with Toyota Camry door. 72 x 72.”
This large scale painting was made in response to the wave of anti-Asian violence that affected New York City during the coronavirus pandemic. Inscribed across overlaid scenes of Chinatown, the repeating phrase “WHEN IT’S CONVENIENT FOR YOU” critiques society’s collective understanding of representation as a pathway to acceptance and belonging, positing such promises as harmful conflations.
Included beneath the paint surface, archival print materials document various critical texts, comic book images, news clippings, and communication documents circulated in the 1990s by the Godzilla group– one of the earliest art collectives to organize around the premise of an Asian-American identity politic. The focal point of the painting features the image of an autoworker smashing a Toyota– one of the prevailing images from the influential documentary, Who Killed Vincent Chin?
This large scale painting was made in response to the wave of anti-Asian violence that affected New York City during the coronavirus pandemic. Inscribed across overlaid scenes of Chinatown, the repeating phrase “WHEN IT’S CONVENIENT FOR YOU” critiques society’s collective understanding of representation as a pathway to acceptance and belonging, positing such promises as harmful conflations.
Included beneath the paint surface, archival print materials document various critical texts, comic book images, news clippings, and communication documents circulated in the 1990s by the Godzilla group– one of the earliest art collectives to organize around the premise of an Asian-American identity politic. The focal point of the painting features the image of an autoworker smashing a Toyota– one of the prevailing images from the influential documentary, Who Killed Vincent Chin?
