Audrey Chan

Chinatown Abecedario: A Folk Taxonomy of L.A.’s Chinatown (2012) is featured in “Counter Cliché: The Asian and Latino Bi-Cultural Experience,” an article by Carren Jao for KCET Artbound. The article also features the work of artists Shizu Saldamando and Clement Hanami.

UPDATE: Vote for this article to be made into a short video documentary!

EXCERPT:

California hosts both the largest Hispanic and Asian population of any state — and it’s growing even faster. As the state’s demographic continues to be in flux, so does its character ebb and flow. The Land of Sunshine is one that resists the matter-of-factness of census tick boxes. Instead, its artists investigate the gray areas that exist in between, and in the process, they surprise audiences into recognizing the multiple streams of heritage they ford themselves.

Inspired by the Mandarin flashcards her parents used to give her so she could learn Chinese, artist Audrey Chan created “Chinatown Abecedario,” for the recent (de)Constructing Chinatown exhibition at the Chinese American Museum. In the video, Chan turned wordsmith and used alliteration to great effect, teaching her audience the ABCs of multicultural Los Angeles’s Chinatown.

–Carren Jao (March 13, 2013)

Read more: http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/bi-cultural-audrey-chan-shizu-saldamando.html

3 Solo Projects: Audrey Chan, Elana Mann, and Chan & Mann
June 22-August 30, 2013
Opening reception: Saturday, June 22, 4-6 p.m.

Ben Maltz Gallery
Otis College of Art and Design
9045 Lincoln Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90045

PRESS RELEASE

This exhibition is the third in a successful series called 3 Solo Projects curated by Meg Linton that began in 2004 in an effort to highlight and support new work by Southern California based artists. The Ben Maltz Gallery is divided into three equal parts to create a project space for each artist. In this case, we are presenting the poignant and political work of two artists in three parts: Audrey Chan, Elana Mann, and the collaborative artwork they create under the name Chan & Mann.  The nature of the series 3 Solo Projects is to give artists full reign of the space to experiment and develop new work over a one-year period. Chan and Mann’s multidisciplinary work often incorporates video, performance, public engagement, sound, painting, photography and installation.

From a recent published interview with the artists by Micol Hebron in ArtPulse, Summer 2012:

Chan is an artist, writer and educator whose work addresses civic discourse, rhetoric, and the feminist construct of the ‘personal is the political.’ Mann’s multidisciplinary artwork explores alternative economies, empathetic exchange, and the politics of resistance. Chan and Mann’s collaborative work asks important and honest questions about feminism, acknowledges the still prevalent influence of past feminists, and fuels the hope and action of current feminists. Through the production of significant conferences, symposia, and performative events around the country (and soon the world), the duo’s projects boast an inclusive and discursive dialogue.

For more information about these two artists visit: www.audreychan.net and www.elanamann.com

Image: Chan & Mann, Chan & Mann’s New Fantasy (The Video), production still of HD video, 2013

Audrey Chan, Chinatown Abecedario: A Folk Taxonomy of L.A.’s Chinatown, HD video with voiceovers in English, Cantonese, Spanish, and Mandarin, 14 min. running time, 2012

For more information, please visit: http://audreychan.net/chinatown-abecedario-2012/

My 2011 public performance Walk of Cunts (Study After Judy Chicago) on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood was featured in the LA Weekly (November 23-29, 2012) article “Alternatives to the Alternatives: 10 L.A. Art Spaces That Change Our Idea of What an Art Space Is” by Carol Cheh. The performance was created for Stephen van Dyck’s Los Angeles Road Concerts series. Photo credit: Elana Mann.

From the article:

Los Angeles Road Concerts: Art along a boulevard

Los Angeles Road Concerts is an ongoing series of daylong art, music, literary and performance extravaganzas that take up the entire length of one of L.A.’s iconic boulevards. Happening roughly annually, Road Concerts has had three iterations so far, occupying San Fernando Road, Washington Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard.

Organizer Stephen van Dyck, an artist with a background in music and writing, says the Road Concerts are a direct reflection of the city’s vast and untamed diversity. Van Dyck puts out a wide call for submissions and doesn’t turn anyone down; at the Sunset Boulevard event in 2011, 113 projects took place from downtown all the way to Pacific Palisades.

It would have been impossible to see everything, but Van Dyck has his favorites — like old punk-rockers Artie Vegas and Tequila Mockingbird plugging into the Sunset Grill and rocking out on the street; and performance artist Kate Durbin creating a colorful pile of donated used panties in the middle of the sidewalk.

The next event will take place Dec. 9 along the length of Mulholland Drive. laroadconcerts.org.

–Carol Cheh

Election Day Eternal Telethon: Eternal Talk-a-thon!
Pomona College Museum of Art
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
12–5pm PST
http://www.eternaltelethon.com/
http://pomona.edu/museum/events/2012/nov-6-bureau-of-experimental-spch.aspx

WATCH ONLINE:

Live broadcasting by Ustream

The Eternal Telethon is an online, artist-run telethon whose goal is to raise funds to build a convalescent home for retired artists located at the Salton Sea. It’s a variety show featuring dozens of artists’ lo-fi performances, including music, skits, lectures, rants and more. The variously themed telethons occur at different locations for each broadcast, and can be seen live on the Internet via Ustream. Convened on Election Day 2012, the Eternal Talk-a-thon will focus on public speaking, political speech, casting spells, and politicking on behalf of artists so that they might one day find some respite at their new home, the Salton Sea. http://eternaltelethon.com

The Eternal Talk-a-thon will feature artists Michael Gerald Bauer, Jennifer Bruce, Johan Buverton, Audrey Chan, Marco di Domenico, Alexis Disselkoen, Jack Heard, Gustavo Herrera, Sally Spitz & Christine Wang, Johnnie JungleGuts, Elana Mann, Adam Overton, The People’s Microphony Camerata, Christy Roberts, Cindy Short, Matt Siegle, Marcos Siref, Niko Solorio, Vitamin Wig C, and James H. White, II as Leopard Full of Book Club!!

The People’s Microphony Camerata (PMC) is a radical choir based in Los Angeles that explores the emergent technology of the People’s Mic, popularized during the Occupy Movement. The PMC was founded by ARLA (Audile Receptives Los Angeles, or A Ripe Little Archive, or Annie, Rachel, Linda, Alice) members, Elana Mann and Juliana Snapper in 2012. They have been collecting scores from artists, composers, and activists to be performed via the PMC at future events, and will be leading a workshop and performance with students in Claremont. http://elanamann.com/project/peoples-microphony-camerata

About BESHT:

“Project Series 44” consists of artist Adam Overton’s newest consortium, The Bureau of Experimental Speech and Holy Theses (BESHT). An experiment in public address, BESHT explores the commingling of speech, authority, and performance.  Visitors will witness the artists, writers, performers, and designer of BESHT delighting in various forms of rhetorical play, ranging from dictation to meditation to proclamation. The exhibition and related projects feature a series of weekly events that temporarily convert the Pomona College Museum of Art’s project space into an experimental public speaking hall.
http://pomona.edu/museum/exhibitions/2012/project-series-44/

Poster design: Tanya Rubbak

http://sharesandstakeholders.com/video/

https://vimeo.com/channels/sharesandstakeholders

Read more »

AUDREY CHAN speaking at “Art Practice, Activism, and Pedagogy: Some Feminist Views” a symposium at Parsons School of Design from Feminist Art Channel on Vimeo.

Audrey Chan is a Los Angeles-based artist, writer, and educator whose multidisciplinary work addresses civic discourse, rhetoric, and the feminist construct of “the personal is political.” This is her presentation in the third group of speakers at “Art Practice, Activism, and Pedagogy: Some Feminist Views” a symposium organized by Mira Schor, which was held at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City April 5, 2012. The conference considered feminist art as a zone of multi-disciplinary art production associated with a radical critique of gendered power relations in society. Participants about their current work, their history within feminism, and the relevance of feminist identification and communities to their creative endeavors and they discussed what it means to be a feminist artist today within an extended range of diverse political engagement. Chan spoke after Caitlin Rueter and Suzanne Stroebe on the third panel of the day. More information on Audrey Chan @ http://www.audreychan.net

Review of “Chinatown Abecedario” in Catherine Wagley’s “Five Artsy Things to Do This Week,” LA Weekly, August 15, 2012:

2. High hipsters at Hop Louie
Audrey Chan’s video Chinatown Abecedario, illustrated like a children’s book, gives one Chinatown truth or cliche for each letter of the alphabet. For “G,” galleries are the gateway to gentrification. For “H,” hipsters get high outside of the bar Hop Louie. For “W,” Wal-Mart moves in to lower wages in the neighborhood. Then the video repeats, in Spanish, Cantonese and Mandarin, though, of course, the fact that it’s based on the ABCs means English still dominates its structure. Chan’s piece is part of “(de) Constructing Chinatown” at the Chinese American Museum, along with work by other contemporary artists trying to understand how the kitsch, the upstart art spaces and the strange history feed into what Chinatown is now. 425 N. Los Angeles St.; through Nov. 4. (213) 485-8567, camla.org.

“‘Deconstructing’ Chinatown Clichés”

by Phoebe Unterman
Los Angeles Downtown News, July 30, 2012

[EXCERPT]

Growing up somewhat isolated from a Chinese American community in Chicago, Chan’s parents gave her flashcards to learn Mandarin as a child.

The simplified imagery on them stuck with her and were part of the basis of her video work, Chinatown Abecedario (Spanish for alphabet). Chan drew simple images for all 26 letters of the English alphabet and wrote a line of alliteration about one aspect of Chinatown that began with each letter.

She then scanned and animated the images, and translated the text into Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese, looping the series of “moving flashcards” to play continuously in all four languages, with the hope that all the museums’ visitors would be able to understand at least one language.

“Even if just on a more abstract level, I want people to not see languages as a barrier so much, and I wanted it to read like a language lesson — it’s purposefully very didactic, almost like Sesame Street, which I like,” Chan said.

The content — 26 different facts about Chinatown — illustrate both the history of the area and some of the neighborhood’s more contemporary phenomena.

While Chan’s project has the look and feel of a simple language lesson, the statements about Chinatown aren’t necessarily neutral. The language in the work includes lines about xenophobia and cultural clashes.

Read the article online

Download a PDF of the article

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“Putting the Words Back into the F-Word. An Interview with Audrey Chan and Elana Mann”

by Micol Hebron
ARTPULSE Magazine, No. 12 Summer 2012

Audrey Chan and Elana Mann, organizers of Shares and Stakeholders: The Feminist Art Project Day of Panels at the 100th Annual College Association Conference, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2012. Podium skirt designed by CamLab. Photo: Jean-Paul Leonard.

[EXCERPT]

Since 2005, Los Angeles-based artists Audrey Chan and Elana Mann have been revitalizing feminist practice with their collaborative projects that engage historic models of first- and second-wave feminist strategies fused with contemporary relational aesthetics and social engagement.

Chan is an artist, writer and educator whose work addresses civic discourse, rhetoric and the feminist construct of “the personal is political.” Mann’s multidisciplinary artwork explores alternative economies, empathetic exchange, and the politics of resistance. Chan and Mann’s collaborative work asks important and honest questions about feminism, acknowledges the still prevalent influence of past feminists, and fuels the hope and action of current feminists. Through the production of significant conferences, symposia, and performative events around the country (and soon the world), the duo’s projects boast an inclusive and discursive interdisciplinarity that is substantially promoting and expanding the feminist dialogue.

In this e-mail exchange they talk with me about their generational perspectives on both old and new challenges of feminism as they discuss their particular feminist tactics, the shift in feminist agency from ‘self’ to ‘group’, collective focus from self to group, the influence of feminist movements past, and the hopes they have for future feminists.

Read the full interview online:

(de)Constructing Chinatown
July 26 - October 28, 2012

Members and VIP Reception: July 26, 5-7 PM
Opening Reception (FREE to the public): July 26, 7-8 PM

The Chinese American Museum is proud to present its newest exhibition, (de)Constructing Chinatown.

Los Angeles’s Chinatown is a product of diverse peoples and perspectives, both created and reimagined by those who visit and those who call it home. (de)Constructing Chinatown explores the complexities of a neighborhood and its communities by challenging preconceived notions about the area. Presented by the Chinese American Museum and curated by Steve Wong, the exhibition features new and recent works by Los Angeles-based artists Heimir Björgúlfsson, Audrey Chan, Phung Huynh, Betty Lee, James Rojas, Michael Sakamoto, Shizu Saldamando, and Matthew Winkler.

Join us for an unforgettable night of art, community, and fun as we celebrate the opening of (de)Constructing Chinatown. The evening will feature special guest speakers, delicious refreshments, and the debut of new exhibition catalogs.

RSVP required: Call (213) 485-8567 or email rsvp@camla.org by Tuesday, July 24.

Chinese American Museum
425 N. Los Angeles St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
camla.org

Location: The Chinese American Museum is located in the red-bricked historic Garnier Building, located at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument across from downtown Los Angeles’ Union Station. Just follow the hanging lanterns, south of Olvera Street, to find the museum site.

Audrey Chan, Chinatown Abecedario: A Folk Taxonomy of L.A.’s Chinatown (video stills), HD video with voiceovers in English, Cantonese, Spanish, and Mandarin, 13:45 min. running time, 2012