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Though it was a fairly mixed crowd that night, I'm not sure if I was there to appreciate the art exhibit like others seemed to be doing or if I was there to be valorized once again as the exotic Asian. I mean not a single person spoke to me, well, at least not with their mouths. Predatory eyes were busy, hungrily feeding from all corners of the room, exerting questions and curiosities about Singapore sensations, Thailand tricks, and Cambodian call girls that, to them, I seemed to know all about. In fact, I'm pretty sure someone blurted out how much I was charging not for one but two hours, and “Have I learned any new tricks lately?” Thursday, September 8 th , 2003 at 7:00 pm in the Chelsea district of New York, I attended my very first formal informal gallery opening. It's not that I haven't been to an opening before, but it might as well have been my first. The craziest thing was that I came to see my friend Brett Dizney-Cook's Revolution opening and I just happened to glance at the inside of the exhibit in the adjacent gallery. It must have been the big colored photographs and the belching hiss from spectators' abdomens. I was on my way out the door when a definite something motioned me to make a necessary detour and be late to my dinner engagement.
Not a single person spoke to me, well, at least not with their mouths. Sex in Asia by Reagan Louie. There were perhaps over 20 photographs of various Asian women dressed or posed quite provocatively in his exhibit. Some were portraits, while others were straight scenes of pornography. I couldn't believe it. I mean I was literally in New York, a leading cultural center in a trend-setting world, and in the year 2003. Whatever happened to political correctness? In fact, forget being PC. What about just being appropriate, humane, and respectful? Within seconds I go from being a stunned and bemused spectator to being one of the women displayed on the wall. In the eyes of many of those culturally hip visual art goers around me, I am present-day Sex in Asia , live and in the flesh. Suddenly, I felt gawking whispers land on my back, rub my shoulders, and caress my neck, speaking in a language even foreign to my own. “Pssst!” and puckered lips violated cultural norms. I felt my blue denim jeans rip apart and magically turn into a pink ruffled skirt to match the disco-sequenced tube top that, all of a sudden, is suffocating my upper torso. I felt nudges around my ankles, attempting to break open my legs. “Oh, c'mon, you know you like it.” I do? I felt beautiful because others thought I was beautiful even though every inch of my body distrusted and my mind reasoned I wasn't. In an instant I embodied and assumed that very old yet still reigning exotic, me-so-horny Suzy Wong, submissive bad-girl stereotype in movies and television. “Yeah, baby, I like. You so nice. How much you pay?” Forcibly but undeniably, I joined the ranks of the crudely represented teenage sisters in Louie's photographs, some probably mothers by now, and felt their desperation to do what's necessary to survive. I mean, factories are closing down, sweatshops are unpredictably moving, and farmlands have been taken over by big businesses. I don't know what's worse, the number of jobs decreasing or that menial workers have become globally dispensable. Whichever the case, one thing is for certain. My sisters and I carry the burden of economic turmoil and use our bodies as shields. And here we are, live and literally in the flesh. After a thorough investigation of each photograph but quick to reach the last, I imagined what the experiences of women in the exhibit were like. What situations and conditions were they faced with every single day? What positions were they subjected to in order to make ends meet? And what mechanisms were available to them to change these limiting life choices? Meanwhile, what can we do? I wondered as I wandered out. Did Louie the photographer bother to ask any of these questions? Given the nature and content of his photographs, I doubt that he did. ____________________________ My sisters and I carry the burden of economic turmoil and
Nowhere in the gallery was an explanation, a description, a critical perspective on why Sex in Asia exists in the first place, or why it has now become the number-one industry that lulls overseas contract workers to leave families behind. Perhaps I should consult with several of those in my own. Maybe then he can offer something more substantial. In my mind this is irresponsible art by an irresponsible artist. Aesthetically, I give Louie his props. His photographs were vivid and moving in every possible way. The composites detailed the kind of color, texture, angle, and symmetry that is pleasing to the eye. Maybe that's the point - to entice and to make a statement! This writing is an indication that the collective work has done just that. If I had on only my oblivious-to-struggle, aspiring photographer lens that night, then maybe it would have not been such a big deal, spilling words onto a moleskin notebook in order to invite you (the reader) to partake in that moment with me through this text. If the subjugation and commoditization of women were simple, then I would have simply applauded Louie and went on about my business. Unfortunately, as cultural beings we are much more complicated than that. We traverse multiple worlds with different discourses and lenses. We speak in voices. And sometimes, as I found in that very instant, there are contradictions in them. What I am suggesting here is that art is not all about symbolic aesthetics; it is also about human and physical aesthetics. Just like what I saw next door through Dizney-Cook's Revolution , art could be so influential that it connects people in various ways. Art should be life-changing. Art should be thought-provoking. Art should be about uplifting the form and uplifting ourselves in ways that move us forward (not back), a sort of multicultural activism, so to speak. In fact, art should be revolution. Rather than perpetuate the same old static notions about Asian women as exotic beings, perhaps we need to challenge them and create bridges and in-roads to transform them. Nowhere in what I witnessed in Louie's so-called “art” is close to that effect. When I left Chelsea that night, I rushed to my next engagement only to be reminded by others on the R-train of the same curiosities still caressing my skin. I heard Sex in Asia is coming to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). I hope that Louie realizes and curators think twice about demanding more. Because, as women and as human beings, we do. Postscript: Sunday, November 16, 2003. On the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle are two young vixens dressed in a schoolgirl tease uniform with high socks and short pleated skirts. Louie's Sex in Asia is now at SFMOMA and has received mixed reviews. In the midst of a conversation about prostitution, friends asked me if I would go see the exhibit. I said that I had seen it in New York, gave a shrug, and sighed away my frustration. This article first appeared in Maganda magazine, 2004.
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