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Photo: Aaron Stark, Jenna Garrett
XianRui 2022: Interior Garden by Cathy Lu
January 20 - December 17, 2022
The Chinese Culture Center (CCC) proudly presents Interior Garden, a solo exhibition of new, large-scale ceramic installation works by Bay Area artist Cathy Lu.
From the hands of creation myth goddess Nüwa to the teary eyes of Ruth Asawa, Lu transforms CCC’s galleries into a contemplative space for reconciliation between the promise of the American dream and the dystopian experiences of so many immigrants and people of color in the U.S. For Asian Americans, deemed as perpetual foreigners, model minorities, and scapegoats, feelings of invisibility and hypervisibility are equally potent and disorienting. Referencing two garden creation myths, Immortal Peach Garden and Garden of Eden, the exhibition transforms CCC’s gallery space into an indoor sculpture garden through a series of newly commissioned large-scale ceramic installations.
“Interior Garden” is the seventh iteration of CCC’s decade-long XianRui (Fresh & Sharp) series featuring works by pioneering yet under-recognized artists of Chinese descent.
從創世女神女媧之手，到淺澤愛子的婆娑淚眼，《烏托花園》為探索移民在美國尋夢與存在於反烏托邦狀態間的掙扎，創造了一個和解的空間。被視為永久的外人，模範少數族裔、替罪羊、超可見的同時又及其透明，令人迷惑。 此展覽借鑒兩大造園神話（仙桃園和伊甸園），通過一系列全新的大型陶瓷裝置，將CCC畫廊空間轉變為室內雕塑花園。
《烏托花園》是 CCC 長達十年之久的鮮銳系列的第七迭代，發掘和扶持先鋒但未收到廣泛關註的華裔離散藝術家。
ABOUT CATHY LU
Cathy Lu (b. Miami, FL) is a ceramics-based artist who manipulates traditional Chinese art imagery and presentation as a way to deconstruct the assumptions we have about Chinese American identity and cultural authenticity. She received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her BA & BFA from Tufts University. She has participated in artist in residence programs at Root Division SF, Recology SF, and The Archie Bray, MT. Her work has been exhibited at Aggregate Space, Berkeley Art Center, and / Slash Art, SF. She was a 2019 Asian Cultural Council/ Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation Fellow. She currently teaches at California College of the Arts and Mills College and lives in Richmond, CA.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Deemed as perpetual foreigners, model minorities, scapegoats, novelties… feelings of invisibility and hypervisibility in Asian American communities can be equally potent and disorienting. Cathy Lu’s “Interior Garden” surfaces the dream and the dystopian existence for immigrants and people of color in the U.S. As a sculptural takeover of the Chinese Culture Center, Lu’s large-scale ceramic installations transform the gallery’s four distinct but interrelated bays into a garden for contemplation and reconciliation, adopting traditional Chinese garden tropes of rocks, waterfall, pond, and borrowed scenery.
1. Rocks & Rupture// A pile of discarded bricks mixed with ceramic fruits. A set of porcelain traffic cones construct a boundary. During the 1906 Earthquake, San Francisco’s Chinatown was burned to the ground and those who sojourned here would find their transient homes in rubble. Racist politicians — emboldened by the opportunities of natural disasters — were eager to push Chinese immigrants from the city. Chinatown quickly rebuilt using whatever remained, including ‘clinker bricks’— burnt bricks that are warped, glossy, and undesirable for construction. Today, the community remains standing, however, the barriers and borders also remain.
2. Waterfall… Tearfall// The artist’s eyes, Nai Nai’s eyes, Ruth Asawa’s eyes, the Yellow Power Ranger’s eyes… their yellow tears flow perpetually into what would eventually become white noise. Their demands burst through the seams and into the makeshift containers. Their collective catharsis cradles our existence. “Peripheral Vision” is an unsettling meditation on what it means to be an East Asian Woman in America — an experience that is often marginalized, but always peripheral.
3. Pond, Pond, Ponder// In “Drains,” water flows in and wells up from the ornate porcelain drains. The work explores the mysterious and everyday forces that operate in our blindspots. What a power and a vulnerability.
4. Borrowed?// The hands of Mother Goddess Nüwa. To borrow scenery - 借景 - is to incorporate background landscape into the composition of the garden; “Interior Garden” embodies so much physicality that is resistant to belong. With her hands, Nüwa made human beings from yellow clay, supposedly taking over 70 attempts. For immigrant communities, our experiences in American society are oftentimes contingent on what we make and how our work is valued. Lu believes that Nüwa is a maker, a producer, a ceramicist; Nüwa reclaims our creative power and agency.
Where do we go from here? // Finally, we reach the “American Dream Pillows.” The piece is inspired by Song and Tang dynasty ceramic pillows that were thought to influence our dreams and change our realities. Lu asks us to lay on the pillows and navigate our own dreams.
“Interior Garden” has been a two-year process, coexisting with two poignant years for Asian Americans and other communities of color since the global pandemic and subsequent global awakening. While every work extracts from an underlying lived experience, the exhibition provides multiple entries to how we reconcile together. In this yearlong exhibition and programming series, we invite you to sit with your interior garden, tend to its growth, and witness it transform and become its own.
Hoi Leung
Curator
San Francisco, 2022
