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Pirated: a post asian perspectiveArtists: In July 2004, a news story broke: the U.S. government was purchasing knock-off Kalashnikov rifles to equip U.S. allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting Russia, the patent holder, to accuse the U.S. of violating intellectual property rights.* This account of a lethal weapon pirated for war, and the ensuing international debate, triggered intriguing questions about piracy. In this particular context, whose rights were being violated? The rights of the original designer or the Russian government, or of the rip-off's eventual human target? And who was profiting? The imitation AK-47 manufacturers or the U.S. government, or the soldier who wouldn't be left weaponless? Broader questions emerged: Can piracy be justified in certain contexts? How is it used to seize and amass wealth and power, and how can it be used in resistance? Pirated: a post asian perspective is an investigation of piracy's relationship to power. Artists were invited to explore the concept of piracy in any context, format or method they saw appropriate. The work presented here unearths alternative definitions, while also questioning the rights of property and ownership of both the material and abstract. Collectively, their work is a revealing critique on global and cultural piracy, often reclaiming power through their own surprising forms of appropriation. In Derek Chung's Battle of Seattle photographs of the WTO protests, he identifies pirates-in-hiding, casting the World Trade Organization and World Bank as instruments of 21st century piracy, used by the global elites to seize and control the resources of poorer countries. Indigo Som's Chinese Restaurants series captures a multilayer perpective, documenting and commenting upon the stereotypical "Oriental" aesthetic utilized in the construction of Chinese restaurants in repurposed spaces in the rural American South. Other artists employ piracy by appropriating materials, media and ideas as a vehicle of expression. In Stephanie Syjuco's mixed media sculptures La Maison Tunisie and Untitled (After Perriand), Syjuco almost comically replicates the look of mid-19th century French designer Jean Prouvé, a design aesthetic originally inspired by art from colonized territory, then sold back to the colonial world. Donna Keiko Ozawa reconfigures scavenged materials– stryofoam from take-out restaurants and packing material– to become robot-like contraptions that delight us into understanding the social responsibilities that we all share. The power to develop or maintain identity is a theme that surfaces throughout. Kathy Aoki's new installation, Untitled Sea Battle, presents a deceptively "cute" scene of plunder, featuring anime girls and teddy bears on the high seas, to provide an engaging portrayal of how a young girl's sense of self is regularly pirated by the media. Employing a very different approach, Curtis Choy's film "Making Up" (1974) offers a humorous critique of how Asian American women's standard of physical beauty can be pirated and determined by western sensibilities. We call this show Pirated: a post asian perspective, grounding it firmly in an Asian American landscape, while also establishing its relevance beyond the narrow territory in which APA artists are often marginalized. Each of these artists participates in a distinctly political and powerful act, expanding upon the very definition of piracy and, more significantly, identifying, exposing and resisting acts of piracy. *C.J. Chivers, "Who's a Pirate? Russia Points Back at U.S." New York Times, 26 July 2004
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