SF/Arts Curator Insight

ICA San Jose joins the Montalvo Arts Center to present the work of current and former Lucas artists-in-residence. In a fitting rebuke to the racist politics of the California senator whose former home is now the art center, this exhibition features a "Murderer's Row" of APIDA artists (including Ranu Mukherjee, Mail Order Brides, Related Tactics, Stephanie Syjuco, Valerie Soe, and Christine Wong Yap, among others) who push boundaries across media to interrogate the complexities of Asian identity in the U.S. The sprawling show is divided into three parts: the toll of immigration and the melding of cultural influences; racial discrimination and othering; and, finally, what it means to belong. Most of the featured artists generate large-scale, rigorously researched, and intellectually complex installations designed to provoke deep critical thinking about how unexamined histories influence current social, cultural, and political practices.

Stephanie Syjuco is also the subject of a 20-year survey exhibition, "Dodge + Burn," which brings works commissioned by other institutions to the West Coast for the first time. (Catharine Clark Gallery, March 9 - May 4, 2024)