Womans Art Inc.Cultural Collisions Identity and History .docx

Woman's Art Inc.
Cultural Collisions: Identity and History in the Work of Hung
Liu
Author(s): Allison Arieff
Source: Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring - Summer,
1996), pp. 35-40
Published by: Woman's Art Inc.
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
Identity and History in the Work of Hung Liu
By Allison Arieff
D eceptively simple, Hung Liu's recent paintings address
such diverse and complex issues as footbinding and
Western art-historical tradition. The tension inherent in
her conflicted personal identity as a Chinese-born woman artist
living in the West informs her art. Liu's images of women form
a
cultural critique, simultaneously referring to and challenging
artistic and social traditions of East and West. In basing her
sub-
ject matter on Western-influenced photographs of turn-of-the-
century Chinese prostitutes, Liu further objectifies representa-
tions of women as a basis for criticizing both the way "we"
(West-
erners) view Chinese culture and the way that Chinese culture
has looked at women. She assumes the difficult task of
critiquing
China's oppressive patriarchal system, alerting her audience to
past transgressions in the hope that knowledge and awareness
may serve as an impetus for change.

Political content notwithstanding, the artist's work, as Lisa Cor-
rin points out, "cannot be reduced to the cliche of an artist
longing
for democracy."' Liu's painting style both reflects and subverts
her
traditional art training. Her canvases are deliberately flattened
and
distorted, simulating the photographic images she appropriates
while at the same time rebelling against stringent academic ren-
dering. Forced to paint in a Socialist Realist style in China, she
now eagerly embraces the techniques of collage, installation,
and
assemblage. Liu also mocks traditional Western portrayals of
women by referencing the iconography and using the titles of
canonical artworks such as her Mona Lisa I, Madonna, and La
Grande Odalisque.
Liu's paintings can perhaps best be read as allegories, given
their metatextuality-one text is read through another. She does
not invent her imagery but confiscates or appropriates it from
oth-
er sources. At times she may even project the photographic
image
onto the canvas and paint from there. In her hands then, the im-
age becomes something other than it was originally intended to
be. Liu's manipulation of the original images lessens their intent
and authoritative claim to meaning. By generating images
through
the reproduction of found photographs, Liu alters their signifi-
cance. The women in her paintings can be viewed as more than
objects for the male gaze. Her representation of prostitutes and
concubines and, most recently, Qing Dynasty court figures,
allows
for new ways of seeing.

Liu, writes Moira Roth, has "developed more fully and con-
sciously her presentation of the interplay of gazes: European
and
Chinese, male and female, past and present, artist's and
viewer's."2
The struggle between opposing elements is continual. The artist
explains, "sometimes I feel more labeled than embraced...la-
beled...as a minority artist...an artist of color, a woman artist
(feminist?)...I am an artist from China and in China the terms
by
which I am defined here make little sense."3 She likens the
process
of her artwork to an excavation where there are so many layers
that she is still trying to understand and analyze them all. Liu's
move to the United States and the shift in her work from
Socialist
Realism to Social Realism resulted in what she describes as "a
cri-
sis of cultural collision." Perhaps out of necessity, Liu's is an
art of
subversion. She is attempting to invent for herself a way to
prac-
tice as a Chinese artist outside of Chinese culture. The shift
from
her classical training in Chinese art to contemporary Western
art
practice has in effect become the subject of her work. She chal-
lenges and reinterprets existing social and cultural conventions
so
as to forge her own personal and artistic identity.
Hung Liu was born in northeast China in the city of Chang
Chung in 1948. Her father, a military officer in the Nationalist
army of Chiang Kai-shek, was captured and jailed by the
Commu-

nists when she was only six months old. Liu's mother was
forced to
divorce her husband, who had fought on the "wrong side" and
was
considered the enemy. Liu, an only child, met her father for the
first time in 1994. Her mother still lives in China. Liu received
most of her education in Beijing. In 1966, when she was just 18
and looking forward to college, the Cultural Revolution
occurred.
For years the schools were closed. Considered an intellectual,
giv-
en her high school education, Liu was sent to a military farm in
the countryside for reeducation. There, with other
"intellectuals,"
a diverse group that ran the gamut from actors to junior high
school students, she was forced to work in the rice, corn, and
wheat fields and to take care of the horses as a means of ridding
her of elitist thought. Later, as an artist, she was perceived as
too
independent and was thus periodically subjected to reeducation
programs aimed at eradicating politically unpopular ideas. She
never stopped thinking about art, though. She made the best of
her circumstances, befriending peasants who realized that she
and
other girls had been sent to the fields as punishment, not for bad
behavior but simply for being from the city. Ironically, her
forced
peasant status worked to her advantage: Toward the end of the
revolution, under a policy to provide education to the working
class, she was able to enter the Revolutionary Entertainment
De-
partment at Beijing's Teachers College in 1972.
As an art student at college, Liu had no creative freedom. Un-
der Communist rule, art was not about individual expression or
in-

spiration. The true purpose of art, Mao Tse-tong believed, was
to
serve the masses. The "rich legacy and the good traditions"
from
China's past were to be reappropriated for the people and trans-
formed into something revolutionary. Art had a definite and as-
signed position in Communist Party politics. Cultural and
artistic
policy is still set by the Department of Propaganda. All art
publicly
exhibited or reproduced is required to meet current art policy
standards. "When I was in China," Liu explains, "artists were
ex-
pected to be the tools of propaganda. Abstract and
individualistic
paintings are not acceptable in schools or for public
exhibition."4
But Liu drew secretly with a small, hidden paint box. She was
subsequently criticized for paying too much attention to art and
not enough to politics. Her first job upon graduation was
teaching
art at an experimental school where the young students were in-
structed how to paint the red flag of Communism. She wanted to
SPRING / SUMMER 1996
2014 20:15:45 PM
continue her education but on- R E S I E
ly classes related to the revolu- _ . .~i E [

tion were offered. On her own,
she studied books on WVestern (
and Chinese art history and
criticism, making her eligible,
eventually, to attend the Cen-
tral Academy of Fine Arts in
Beijing. A ~ L
Once at the academy, Liu
wanted to study mural painting.
Because of its roots in Buddhist .' a
and Taoist traditions, mural
painting seemed at first to allow
for some measure of artistic
freedom and individual style.
However, the muralists, too, Fig. 1. Hung Liu, Resident Alier
came to be considered a threat Courtesy of Steinbaum Krauss
Ga
to the officially entrenched
styles of Socialist Realism and Chinese ink painting, and were
forced to produce propaganda.5 "Everybody hated politics
because
it meant we had to obey everything the government, the party,
said. We tried to get as far away from politics as we could,""
Liu
explains. Although pressured to glorify party leadership, she in-
stead produced a mural celebrating Chinese music-a little per-
sonal rebellion against authority that characterizes her later
work.
The mural still stands at the Central Academy. Unhappy with
the
People's Republic of China's requirements for art-that it be

completely politicized, its messages blatantly obvious and
propa-
gandizing, and anonymous,' Liu applied and was accepted to
grad-
uate school at the University of California, San Diego, in 1981.
It took nearly four years for Liu to get a passport and
permission
to leave. It was difficult for her Chinese friends to understand
why
she would want to go to the United States, since Western art
was
"degenerate." But she persisted, saying that she just wanted an
op-
portunity to look and learn.
Meanwhile, the university wait-
ed for the "Chinese artist who
never showed up." Arriving fi-
nally in the United States in
1984, she found the transition
somewhat eased because she -
had learned some English in el-
ementary school. But once giv-
en the freedom of expression
she had so wished for, Liu real-
ized she did not really know ex-
actly what she wanted to do
with it. She continued doing
what she knew best-murals-
and waited to see how her work
would evolve.' Liu credits her ,

advisor, artist and critic Allan
Kaprow, for changing the way
she thought about and ap-
proached art. f
Liu's first major work in the
United States was a mural and
site-specific installation at the . ...
i '
Capp Street Project art gallery
in San Francisco. This 1988 Fig. 2. Hung Liu, Half of the Sky
(1991
work was a turning point for the 60" x 60" x 12". Courtesy Ren
artist. She had begun to exam- Photo: Jac(
0
N T A L I E N ine historical photographs of . _._._._......_
Chinese immigrants in San
Francisco's Chinatown and
wanted to relate their experi-
ences to her own. One result
.1 . ,was Resident Alien (Fig. 1), es-
i { a sentially a self-portrait con-
*-, v AS ... . ' structed around a U.S. Depart-
*1 _, 7 3 q ment of Justice Immigration
: .....r ' .: _, and Naturalization Service
L/ ,l (green) card belonging to the
L j '; , t immigrant "Fortune Cookie"

s >^ * I ~ (alias Hung Liu). Text accom-
,-f-it
'
X ,. panying the piece reads: "Five
/o>~ ~' ^thousand year-old culture on
my back. Late twentieth centu-
n (1988), oil on canvas, 60" x 90". rv world in my face..." The
Ilery, New York. Photo: Ben Blackwell. themes and styles she
explored
in this work, which combined
the traditional medium of painting with the display of objects to
create complete environments, were continued through the early
nineties. Although this juxtaposition of elements is common to
much Postmodern art, in Liu's work it resonates with her
personal
conflicts of identity. In Resident Alien, the image on the green
card reappropriates her own identification card photo, and her
ironic use of the name "Fortune Cookie" is sexually connotative
and signifies Western manipulations of Chinese culture. Liu
views
the fortune cookie as an apt symbol of her status because "it is a
hybrid-it exists between cultures...it's not Chinese and it's not
American."" (The fortune cookies reappear later, piled atop rail-
road tracks, in her 1994 mixed-media installation Jiu Jin Slhan:
Old
Gold Mouintain at the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum.)
Residentt Alien also signals the beginning of the incorporation
of
photography in her art. Working from photographs rather than

live models was discouraged in China, and Liu views her use of
photography as artistic defi-
ance, a rebellion against the
academy and her education.
Liu's primary source of imagery
comes from books of photo-
graphs. One such book, The
Face of China, published in the
United States, features images
taken by foreign tourists in Chi-
na between 1860 and 1912.
Two other books she found in
China when she returned to xis-
it in 1991 contain images of fa-
mous prostitutes, a kind of cata-
logue of availability; they amaz-
ingly had survived the Cultural
Revolution book burnings. She
mines the old photographs for
information and insight. "I put
them through rituals. I see it al-
most like research or some kind
of scientific observation. I mnove
from square inch to square
inch. I find out a lot of things."'"
i61 -Liu returned again to China in
), oil on canvas, lacquered wood, ceramic, the sumtmer of 1993,
discover-
la Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. ing more pictures, some
from
ques Cressaty. magazines dating from the
WOMAN'S ART JOURNAL

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twenties, thirties, and forties.
Her 1995 exhibition, "The
Last Dynasty," at the Stein-
baum Krauss Gallery, featured
imagery culled from historic
photographs documenting
members of the Qing Dynasty

Court (1644-1911). :j ! 1
Liu's found images of Chi-
na are reprocessed with con-
temporary Vestern materials
and modes of display but at
the same time refer to tradi-
tional Chinese artmaking
processes such as copying as
an act of homage. Her simu- Fig. 3. Hung Liu, La Grande
Odalisqu
lation of photography allows antique architectural pieces,
the works to preserve their Eric and Barbara Dobkin Collection.
Ph
documentary status even
when they are being interpreted formally. Where the paintings
of
the early nineties were often quite finished, truer to their photo-
graphic source, more recent pieces give increasing primacy to
the
painterly gesture. "Saturated with oil and mediums, my
paintings
sort of perform themselves," she explains. "They drip, they
stain,
and wash the images in a way that opens them to time, the
literal
time of gravity pulling oil to the bottom edge of the canvas.""
Liu seeks to amplify "the historical moment, bringing it into fo-
cus, exposing its...humanness"
to insure that the viewer under- T j -'l
"-

stands that these images reflect I
:~
reality.12 She feels that her im- .
ages of 19th- and 20th-century .
Chinese women reveal the suf- : i'
ferings of these women through
centuries of spiritual and physi-
cal oppression. Her desire is to
expose the generations-old
wounds of her mother, grand-
mother, and great-grandmother. *.
"Although I do not have bound
feet, the invisible spiritual bur-
dens fall heavy on me," she ex-
' <
plains. "I communicate with the
i
characters in my paintings, pros- t
titutes-these completely subju-
' ; i' t ! t
^"
gated people-with reverence,
sympathy and awe. They had no r
real names. Probably no chil-
dren. I want to make up stories
' ' *
for them. Who were they? Did J

they leave any trace in history?"'3 '
Liu's desire is to give these
women their place in history.
Her paintings expose the pain of
the traditional roles women
f
i
were assigned, regardless of J i ^
their status, according to the
"three obediences" of Confu-
cianism-to father, to husband,
and to son. Before Communism,
Confucianism had provided the
model for proper family life. It Fig. 4. Hung Liu, Cherry Lips
prescribed a patriarchal, patrilin- Nancy and Peter Gennet (
je (1
mixe
hoto:
(199
Colle
._92),~ o n q o.eal, and patrilocal family sys-
tem. The roles, privileges,
duties, and responsibilities of
the individual were dictated
by sex, age, and generation.
cilia itef,Aa n Confucianism officially sanc-

tioned the dominance of men
over women and old over
young. Individual identity
was virtually a non-issue-
one's needs were subordinat-
ed to those of the family
__: argroup.l' Females suffered
greatly under this system-
often they were not even
992), oil on canvas, lacquered wood, named. Their lack of
autono-
.d media, 521/2" x 95" x 8". my and their exclusion from
Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York. public life was
considered es-
sential for the preservation of
civilization itself.' An ancient ode confirms this: "The wise man
founded the city; But the wise woman destroys it...Disaster does
not descend from Heaven; It comes from WN'oman."'"
Conditions were supposed to change under Communism. Al-
though Mao once commented that "Women can hold up half the
sky," women were granted little power or autonomy under the
Communist regime. In Half of the Sky (1991; Fig. 2), Liu re-
sponds with irony to the contradiction between what is said and
what is actually meant. The
nf ~S I Manchu woman, who appears
/ :!: . 4' to be a concubine, has bound
i: .: feet and long fingernails and is
J ::
. : garishly made-up. Her formal

attire immobilizes her-she ap-
t ";./";.! pears unable to rise from her
';l, ;~, : chair. The servant girl to her left
L symbolizes the woman's wealth
-i and status. Regardless of her so-
cia l standing, she possesses no
power or autonomy. She is as
:iSjl elaborately decorated and oh-
jectified as the vase to her left.
A ? The work's monochromatic ren-
' / dering in tones of blue adds to
its status as a historical docu-
ment. The blue is cold and dis-
f * ?$~ j tant, echoing the icy stare on
the woman's face.
Nowhere was women's sub-
i! jugation more explicitly ex-
?, pressed than the practice of
footbinding. Popularized in the
Sung Dynasty (960-1279), foot-
binding is chilling in its associa-
tions of manipulation and con-
.-?- .~r. aMfinement. Liu views bound feet
as a vivid metaphor for both the

shaping of women as objects of
male desire and the distortion
of the larger society through
various forms of domination.
Disturbing as the practice
'5), oil on canvas, 84" x 60". now seems, for centuries foot-
,ction. Photo: Adam Reich. binding was easily justified. Ini-
0
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2014 20:15:45 PM
tially, its appeal was purely aesthetic. Courtesans and wealthy
women had bound feet; women who worked did not-it was a
marker of class, a symbol of conspicuous leisure. But as the
treat-
ment of women became increasingly oppressive, footbinding
was
tied to a wide range of behavioral expectations. It was an
indicator
of good breeding and became necessary for obtaining suitable
marriage proposals.'7 Men were thus guaranteed subservient sex
objects, while women were left with a pair of three inch stumps
that caused lifelong pain and made even the simple act of
walking
excruciating.

Footbinding transformed woman into a fetish and thus a pure
object of love. Liu's paintings of prostitutes or concubines with
startlingly tiny feet (termed "golden lilies" or "lotus petals")
posing
for clients document this phenomenon. Freud saw the custom of
footbinding as a symbolic castration of women, a claim which,
ac-
cording to French philosopher Julia Kristeva, Chinese
civilization
was unique in admitting."8 Kristeva takes this idea further,
explain-
ing that "if by castration we understand the necessity for some-
thing to be excluded so that a socio-symbolic order may be
built-
the cutting off of one part of the whole, so that the whole as
such
may be constituted as an alliance of homogeneous parts-it is in-
teresting to note that for Chinese civilization, this superfluous
quantity was found in women."19 The various oppressive
practices
directed at the female population-female infanticide, filial
piety,
chaste widowhood, namelessness, lack of educational opportuni-
ties-sustained China's long-established male hierarchical
system.
Most of the women Liu depicts have bound feet. But in God-
dess of Love, Goddess of Liberty (1989), she takes an
especially re-
bellious swing at her country's authoritarianism by showing a
woman with her bound feet exposed. The painting juxtaposes a
Ming vase decorated with a nude couple making love on the
left,
with a seated woman, solitary and complacent, as if resigned to
her

fate, on the right. The vivid red of the background is the color
of
fertility and of happiness in traditional China but also the
symbolic
color of Communism. The vase (or vessel) is a recurrent form in
Liu's work and is either incorporated in painted form or as an
ac-
tual object placed near the canvas. For her, the vases/vessels
"sym-
bolize the fact that women, especially prostitutes, were treated
as
mere decorations, inhuman objects, beautifully made up, but
empty and useless, placed passively in the corner of the room."
These containers are often empty, in keeping with the ancient
Chinese proverb "to be empty of knowledge is a female virtue."
The objects that hang on the wall to the right of the canvas
further
affirm the position of women in China. A child's chalkboard is
blank-a symbol of the blank slate of female education. The
small
broom beneath it represents women's work but can also be read
as
"a symbolic tool used to sweep away disorder and memory"20 A
fig-
ure with a broom was a traditional Chinese character for wife.21
The woman is depicted in monochromatic sepia tones, again en-
hancing the historicity of the work. Clearly something about
this
woman resonated for Liu. Her image appears in Virgin/Vessel
(1990; cover), chest emblazoned with a symbolically charged
scar-
let square. Set within the square is a blue vase painted with an
erotic scene. The woman is featured yet again in Bonsai (1992),
juxtaposed against Liu's re-creation of an ancient Chinese
medical
illustration.

The woman's mangled feet carry the most profound message
here. Never revealed, the bound foot was considered the most
erotic part of the body. A special stocking was worn at all
times-
even during intercourse-to cover it. Chinese artists might have
depicted female genitalia but never a naked, crippled foot.22
Liu
subverts this false sense of propriety by metaphorically unwrap-
ping the bandages. In exposing the feet, she exposes the
woman's
0
pain. Liu's paintings are didactic in their efforts to inform the
viewer of the roles and representations of women in Chinese
his-
tory. "I'm glad I didn't have to bind my feet," she explains, "but
in-
equality is still there." Some viewers do not appreciate Liu's ef-
forts. An elderly Chinese man stormed out of a recent exhibition
in San Francisco after inquiring at the front desk why Liu had
ex-
posed only the ugly aspects of old China and not its tradition of
beautiful landscape and flower paintings. Liu was not surprised
by
this reaction. "I don't expect the gentlemen of our traditionally
pa-
triarchal society, who are so used to treating women as
inferiors, to
be happy to see the pain that (was) caused those women."23
With their references to European art-historical tradition, Liu's
paintings also form a critique of the way women are represented
in Western culture. Some titles, and the passive, reclining poses
she uses, play on masterpieces like Leonardo's Mona Lisa,

Ingres's
Grande Odalisque, and Manet's Olympia. Such depictions of
pas-
sive women are not part of Chinese tradition. Although women
are often idealized, they usually are engaged in some activity-
palace style beauties swatting butterflies or enthusiastic party
members working in the field.
The image of the woman in La Grande Odalisque (1992; Fig. 3)
is taken from the book The Face of China. Liu makes the photo-
graph her own by her use of color, objects, and the gestural
paint
drips at the bottom of the canvas. She presents here an elaborate
stage set, adding an element of theatricality to the work. The
can-
vas rests on a painted platform with generic "Oriental" vases
filled
with gilt flowers at either end and a long-stemmed gilded calla
lily
placed in front. The inanimate objects contrast with the sexually
animated woman. But parallels can be drawn between the two as
well. Both the woman and the objects are viewed as
possessions;
both are used for decorative and utilitarian purposes. "These
kinds
of flowers don't have a life," Liu explains, "they're so highly
pol-
ished and decorative, but cold and detached."24 The same could
be
said for the young woman in the photograph. In Chinese culture,
flowers are associated with women and beauty. Ellen Johnston
Laing has described, for example, how butterflies (associated
with
males) landing on flowers became a way of choosing sexual
part-
ners during the traditional Flower Morning Festival.25 Flowers

symbolize fertility and sexuality and often represent female
geni-
talia. Prostitutes were frequently assigned "flower" names such
as
White Orchid or Sweet Lily. Most importantly, every element in
this work-the vases, the flowers, and the woman-is put on dis-
play. Liu's Olympia (1992) is similar to Odalisque with its
reclining
subject and floral display. It makes reference, of course, to
Manet's
scandalous study of Victorine Meurent, whose confrontational
gaze
caused an uproar in the staid French Salon.
At first glance Liu's passive images seem to cater to the male
gaze, as did the paintings and photographs on which they are
based. The confrontational expressions of her subjects,
however,
subvert that gaze as does the fact that these works have been
painted by a woman. Witness the confrontational sexuality of
the
1995 painting, Cherry Lips (Fig. 4). "The women look directly
at
the camera, which means that when I look at them they look
back
at me," Liu explains. "A man put them there on a couch, a chair,
with the intention to sell them as products. The women had no
control," she adds. "But now that man is gone yet the imagery
of
these women is left. It has survived through time and space,
even
a revolution. When I felt the women looking at me, somehow I
just wanted to empower them."26 In re-appropriating or
"taking"
these images from the patriarchal gaze, Liu gives something
back

to the passive women who have been objectified throughout
histo-
ry. She catalogues past transgressions in an effort to avoid their
re-
currence.
WOMAN'S ART JOURNAL
2014 20:15:45 PM
Liu's work attempts to mount "a sustained and far-reaching po-
litical critique of contemporary representational systems which
have had an overdetermined effect in the social production of
sex-
ual difference" as espoused by art historian Griselda Pollock.
Ways
must be discovered to address women as subjects rather than as
objects of male desire, fantasy, and hatred.27 Sexual divisions
have
resulted from the construction of sexual difference as a socially
significant axis of meaning. Pollock explains that these
construc-
tions are constantly enforced by representations created in the
ideological practices we call culture. Pictures, photographs,
films,
and so forth are addressed to us, the viewer, in an attempt to
win
our identification with the represented versions of masculinity
and
femininity.28 These representations perpetuate existing roles.

The
need therefore is to deconstruct those roles and create new
repre-
sentations of gender and identity. I believe that Liu's work takes
positive steps toward that goal.
A symposium titled "(re) Orienting: Self Representations of
Asian American Women Through the Visual Arts," held in New
York City in 1991, raised the issue that for Asian women in a
pre-
dominantly white society, it was race, not gender, that often was
seen as the primary area of conflict and concern. Panel members
commented that the objectification of Asian women, not just by
gender but even more significantly by race, highlights the need
for
a feminist and multicultural agenda more sensitive to the needs
of
various groups.29 Liu has of course experienced this dilemma
first
hand. In Women of Color (1991), she interprets the politically
cor-
rect cliche literally. Three bust-length images of Asian women,
one red, one yellow, and one blue, are placed friezelike on the
canvas. A shelf holding three vessels in the corresponding
colors is
installed below the painting. Color here becomes an arbitrary,
meaningless distinction. Approaching such a volatile issue with
hu-
mor challenges the viewer to consider the issue of multicultural-
ism as more than skin deep.
Just as Liu's paintings examine how the concept of femininity is
socially constructed, they also explore how the West has
construct-
ed "the Orient." Edward Said explains that the outsider's knowl-
edge of the Orient consists merely of that outsider's representa-

tion of it. The Orient has been presented in binary opposition to
the Occident and has provided the most recurring images of the
"other." The relationship between the two cultures, like the rela-
tionship between men and women, has been one of power, of
domination, and of varying degrees of a complex hegemony.30
By
positing the Orient as "different" and therefore culturally
inferior,
the West assumed a sense of authority over it.
"The Orient," Said writes, "was almost a European invention,
and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings,
haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences."31
Numerous European artists, among them Jean-Leon Gerome,
Eu-
gene Delacroix, Ingres, and Manet invented their own versions
of
an exotic Orient. Linda Nochlin has suggested that for Western
artists, the Orient existed either "as an actual place to be
mystified
with effects of realness" or as "a project of the imagination, a
fan-
tasy space or screen onto which strong desires-erotic, sadistic,
or
both-could be projected with impunity." The function of such
representations was to assure the viewer that the "Orientals" de-
picted were "irredeemably different from, more backward than,
and culturally inferior to those who constructed and consumed
the
product."32
Liu's found photographs further reveal this fascination with the
exoticism and difference of "the Orient." Depicted in the images
are scenes of torture or field labor, veiled brides or rigidly
posed
aging dowagers. Everyday life is selectively filtered to distance

East from West, voiding shared viewpoints. Present are images
of
"bad women" (the title of one of Liu's exhibitions)-prostitutes
or
courtesans who also serve to reinforce the moral superiority of
the
Western photographer. Images of Asian women have long occu-
pied a place in Western imagination, be they "exotic" sex
object,
Dragon Lady, or today's submissive mail order bride. Liu and
oth-
er Asian American women have been attempting to respond to
these stereotypical representations by finding alternate ways to
"name" themselves in a culture unable to encompass the
complex-
ity of their experience.3
Liu's images do not always succeed on a visual and emotional
level. At times the work can be too didactic, weighted down
per-
haps by her anger and the sheer volume of information the
viewer
needs to process. At times her message may be imperceptible,
es-
pecially to those who know nothing of the artist's history. Her
use
of various mediums and modes of display are at times too
referen-
tial to the works of other Postmodern artists. But in general, Liu
has successfully fused Eastern and Western traditions,
combining
the graceful elements of traditional Chinese painting with West-
ern style. The juxtaposition seems inevitable. "I am trying to in-

vent a way of allowing myself to practice as a Chinese artist
out-
side of Chinese culture," she explains. "Perhaps the displaced
meanings of that practice-reframed within this culture-are
meaningful because they are displaced."3
Liu's work can be read as a struggle for artistic identity, but
even more importantly, as a struggle to define her conflicted
per-
sonal identity. "I often feel suspended between the two cultures,
but I see this is as a unique position, hopefully a situation that
will
energize me," she explains. "I can look at things from multiple
points of view. It is a position I embrace rather than feel
bitterness
about."35 Liu's work has been exhibited widely throughout the
United States. She has been included in major exhibitions, such
as
"Asia/America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American
Art" at
the Asia Society Gallery in New York and the "43rd Biennial
Exhi-
bition of Contemporary Painting" at the Corcoran Gallery of Art
in
Washington, D.C., and has done site specific installations in
Balti-
more, San Francisco, and elsewhere. Her numerous awards in-
clude two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and the
Eureka Fellowship from the San Jose Museum of Art. Today Liu
lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, art critic Jeff
Kelly,
and son, Ling Chen. Since 1990 she has been Assistant
Professor
of Art at Mills College, the women's college in Oakland that re-
cently reaffirmed its single sex identity.

Liu's paintings of Chinese women focus on the persistence of
memory. It is of paramount importance to her that the experi-
ences of her subjects are not forgotten. Recovering the history
of
these women acknowledges their relevance in the female
struggle
for equality both then and now. It also aids in forging a place
for
contemporary Asian-American women. Liu continues to work
to-
ward her goal of functioning "much as the ancient scholar-
painters
of my homeland did, so that my art is the consequence of a re-
search process in which images from the past are recovered, re-
evaluated, recognized, and re-presented in terms relevant to my
own and I believe to our multicultural experience today."36
NOTES
1. Lisa G. Corrin, "In Search of Miss Sallie Chu," in Can-ton:
The Balti-
more Series (The Contemporary, Baltimore, March 19-May 28,
1995), n.p.
2. Moira Roth, "Interactions and Collisions: Reflections on the
Art of
Hung Liu," in announcement for exhibit of the same name at the
Bernice
Steinbaum Gallery, New York, May 23-June 27, 1992.
3. Margo Machida, "(re) Orienting," Harbour (August-
September-Octo-
ber 1991), 37-43.
4. Xiarorong Li, "Painting the Pain," Human Rights Tribune
(Spring

0
2014 20:15:45 PM
1992), 12.
5. Joan Lebold Cohen, "Art in China Today," Art News
(Summer
1980), 64.
6. From interview with Hung Liu, September 1993.
7. Ellen Johnston Laing, The Winking Owl: Art in the People's
Republic
of China (Berkeley: University of California, 1988), 64.
8. From interview with Hung Liu, Society for the
Encouragement of
Contemporary Art (SECA) Award (San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art,
1992), n.p.
9. Robin Cembalest, "Goodbye, Columbus?" Art News (October
1991), 108.
10. Liu, SECA Award.
11. Hung Liu, Artist Statement, The Last Dynasty (Steinbaum
Krauss
Gallery, New York, October 14-November 18, 1995), n.p.
12. Jim Edwards, Precarious Links (San Antonio Museum of

Art, July 7-
August 26, 1990), 26.
13. Liu, quoted in Li, "Painting the Pain," 10.
14. Judith Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China
(Berkeley:
University of California, 1983), 32-33.
15. Ibid., 39.
16. Hu Shih, "Women's Place in Chinese History," in Li Yu-
ning, ed., Chi-
nese Women through Chinese Eyes (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E.
Sharpe, 1992), 5.
17. Alison R. Drucker, "The Influence of Western Women on
the Anti-
Footbinding Movement: 1840-1911, in R.W. Guisso and S.
Johanessen,
eds., Women in China: Current Directions in Historical
Scholarship
(Youngstown, N.Y.: Philo Press, 1981), 179-80.
18. Julia Kristeva refers to Freud's perception of footbinding in
About
Chinese Women (London: Marion Boyars, 1977).
19. Ibid., 83.
20. Edwards, Precarious Links, 27.
21. Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China, 39.
22. Kristeva, About Chinese Women, 82.
23. Liu, quoted in Li, "Painting the Pain," 11.
24. Liu, SECA Award.
25. Ellen Johnston Laing, "Notes on Ladies Wearing Flowers in
their

Hair," Orientations (February 1990), 37.
26. Interview with Hung Liu, September 1993.
27. Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Femininity,
Feminism and
the Histories of Art (London: Routledge, 1988), 15.
28. Ibid., 33-34.
29. See Margo Machida's summary of the event in "(re)
Orienting," 42.
30. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House,
1979),
1-5.
31. Ibid., 3-5.
32. Linda Nochlin, "The Imaginary Orient," in The Politics of
Vision
(New York: Icon, 1989), 51.
33. Machida, "(re) Orienting," 37.
34. Lucy Lippard, Mixed Blessing: New Art in a Multicultural
America
(New York: Pantheon, 1990), 137.
35. Interview with Hung Liu, September 1993.
36. Hung Liu, Artist's Statement, Capp Street Project, San
Francisco,
1988.
Allison Arieff, a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies
Program at
New York University, teaches at the New School for Social
Research
and at Pratt Institute.
...... EROTIC

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JOANNA FRUEH
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SEXUAL .
POLIIiCS :i

Judy Chicago's
Dinner Party in
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Edited by
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For years The
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http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspArticle
Contentsp. 35p. 36p. 37p. 38p. 39p. 40[unnumbered]Issue Table
of ContentsWoman's Art Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring -
Summer, 1996), pp. 1-60Front Matter [pp. 1-1]One Point
Perspective [p. 2]Issues and InsightsThe Cult of Saint Agatha
[pp. 3-9]Trajectories of Blood: Artemisia Gentileschi and
Galileo's Parabolic Path [pp. 10-13]Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera,
and Tlazolteotl [pp. 14-21]Images of Women in Traditional
Chinese Painting [pp. 22-27]PortraitsTōfukumon'in: Empress,
Patron, and Artist [pp. 28-34]Cultural Collisions: Identity and
History in the Work of Hung Liu [pp. 35-40]ReviewsReview:
untitled [pp. 41-43]Review: untitled [pp. 43-45]Review:
untitled [pp. 45-47]Review: untitled [pp. 47-48]Review:
untitled [pp. 49-53]Review: untitled [pp. 53-55]Short
TakesReview: untitled [p. 56]Review: untitled [pp. 57-
58]Review: untitled [pp. 58-59]Review: untitled [p. 59]Shorter
TakesReview: untitled [p. 60]Review: untitled [p. 60]Review:
untitled [p. 60]Back Matter

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