No Ocean Between Us
December 17 – December 17, 2020
December 17 – December 17, 2020
San Antonio, TX—December 17, 2020—On February 12, the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) will open No Ocean Between Us, an exhibition that explores the art of Asian diasporas in Latin America and the Caribbean. The exhibition features approximately 65 works of modern and contemporary art by Latin American and Caribbean artists of Asian descent, including painter and printmaker Wifredo Lam; installation artists Carlos Runcie Tanaka and Eduardo Tokeshi; painters Manabu Mabe and Tomie Ohtake; and video artist Laura Fong Prosper, among numerous others. The works included range from paintings and works on paper to installation and new media. No Ocean Between Us: Art of Asian Diasporas in Latin America & the Caribbean, 1945–Present will remain on view through May 9, 2021.
The exhibition is organized around Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Panels within the exhibition provide brief descriptions of Asian diasporic communities and cultures in these countries as well contexts for the histories of migrations from China, India, Indonesia, and Japan. Global forces such as colonialism, plantation labor, and war shaped the courses of Asian migration to Latin American and the Caribbean.
Some artists featured in the exhibition engage directly with these histories of migration and diaspora, the intergenerational Asian Latin American experience, or the hybridity of cross-cultural exchange. Many of the featured artists converse with global artistic movements of their moment. For example, the art of Wifredo Lam engages with the legacies of colonialism and enslavement in his home country, Cuba, while deploying the aesthetic language of cubism and surrealism. Peruvian artist Carlos Runcie Tanaka has leveraged the formal qualities of ceramics, origami, glass, and video installations to break down and examine existing cultural understandings of identity and history. The exhibition also features American artists who identify as part of these communities, including Guyana-born, Denver-based artist Suchitra Mattai, whose works in painting, fiber, drawing, collage, and video question historical narratives and colonialism and reclaim cultural materials.
“Cross-cultural exchanges and dialogues have had an incredible impact on the development of global art movements and continue to shape the creation of art today. No Ocean Between Us offers an opportunity to learn about the under-explored influences of Asian artists in Latin America and Caribbean, as well as the history and contemporary identities of the region. This is a growing area of study, and I am excited to share the incredible work of the featured artists with our audiences,” said Lucía Abramovich Sánchez, SAMA’s Associate Curator of Latin American Art. “This exhibition also establishes interesting connections with the Museum’s extensive Latin American and Asian art collections, expanding the narratives that we can tell across our permanent and special exhibition galleries.”
No Ocean Between Us was inspired by the permanent collection of the OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of American States, with additional loans from public and private collections. It was originally conceived by Adriana Ospina, OAS AMA’s Collections Curator and Educational Programming Manager, under the title Cultural Encounters: Art of Asian Diasporas in Latin America & the Caribbean, 1945–Present. At SAMA, the exhibition is being curated by Lucía Abramovich Sánchez, Associate Curator of Latin American Art, and Yinshi Lerman-Tan, Acting Associate Curator of American and European Art. Following its presentation at SAMA, the exhibition will conclude its tour at OAS AMA, opening there on June 5, 2021.
Caption: Tomie Ohtake, Untitled, 1968, oil on canvas. © OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas Collection.
About the San Antonio Museum of Art:
The San Antonio Museum of Art serves as a forum to explore and connect with art that spans the world’s geographies, artistic periods, genres, and cultures. Its collection contains nearly 30,000 works representing 5,000 years of history. Housed in the historic Lone Star Brewery on the Museum Reach of San Antonio’s River Walk, the San Antonio Museum of Art is committed to promoting the rich cultural heritage and life of the city. The Museum hosts hundreds of events and public programs each year, including concerts, performances, tours, lectures, symposia, and interactive experiences. As an active civic leader, the Museum is dedicated to enriching the cultural life of the city and the region, and to supporting its creative community.
Admission to the Museum, which includes the exhibition, is $20 for adults, $17 for seniors, $12 for students and military (with ID), and $10 for youth (13-18). Children 12 and under are always free. Please note during our Bexar County free general admission hours (Tuesdays from 4–7 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m.–12 p.m.), there is a $5 surcharge to see the exhibition.
For information about upcoming exhibitions and programs, please visit:
https://www.samuseum.org
About the OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas:
The OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas is the oldest museum of modern and contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Art in the United States. It is part of the Organization of American States (OAS), an international public organization whose aim is to promote democracy, peace, justice, and solidarity among its 35 member countries. AMA’s origins date back to the Visual Arts Unit of the Pan-American Union (now the OAS), and in the mid-twentieth century grew as one of the first catalysts of the parameters of modern art in Latin America and the Caribbean. Today AMA’s permanent collection has more than 2,000 works complementing and documenting this international focus.
###
