Balancing Perspectives: East Influences in Contemporary Art explores the artwork of contemporary artists from diverse ethnic, social and geographical background who have, through their artwork, embraced key philosophical influences and expressive styles traditionally associated with the art of East Asia (China, Japan and Korea). In some cases the links are clear - an artist working in visual styles that are directly related to East Asian traditions as well as expressive of European and American experiences, materials and critical assumptions.

The exhibition offers a counter-point to recent exhibitions of ethnically Asian artists who are working in decidedly European genres and who have rejected traditional East Asian philosophical structure in favor of those more in favor among contemporary critics and collectors ? both Asian and Non-Asian.

This is not an exhibition of traditional paintings using the classical techniques of ink, bamboo brush and rice paper. Instead it is intended to be a survey of multi-ethnic and stylistically diverse art, which is interested in expanding the acknowledgement accorded Asian artists working in a contemporary art world still dominated by Europe and America.

Mike Grady
Exhibition Co-Curator
Chair, JFK University Arts & Consciousness Department

Greetings,

As de Young's College Night Project Coordinator/Curator, I am proud of our first off-site collaborative College Outreach exhibition with JFK University's Arts & Consciousness Department titled Balancing Perspectives: East Asian Influences in Contemporary Art.

Balancing Perspectives is a special exhibition that complements and pays tribute to de Young Museum's up and coming exhibition, Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents 1900 to 1970 scheduled to open October 25, 2008. Asian/American/Modern Art is one of the first major Asian American exhibitions that present a comprehensive survey of work produced by artists of Asian descent in America during the first seven decades of the twentieth century.

Balancing Perspectives complements Asian/American/Modern Art by investigating the philosophical and artistic foundations, which make the cultural traditions of China, Korea and Japan relevant to the contemporary global dialectic on culture, meaning and identity.

Robert C. Melton

Balancing Perspectives Artwork (Check back for picture album of key show entrants.)