Publisher Description

In Surface Relations Vivian L. Huang traces how Asian and Asian American artists have strategically reworked the pernicious stereotype of inscrutability as a dynamic antiracist, feminist, and queer form of resistance. Following inscrutability in literature, visual culture, and performance art since 1965, Huang articulates how Asian American artists take up the aesthetics of Asian inscrutability-such as invisibility, silence, unreliability, flatness, and withholding-to express Asian American life. Through analyses of diverse works by performance artists (Tehching Hsieh, Baseera Khan, Emma Sulkowicz, Tseng Kwong Chi), writers (Kim Fu, Kai Cheng Thom, Monique Truong), and video, multimedia, and conceptual artists (Laurel Nakadate, Yoko Ono, Mika Tajima), Huang challenges neoliberal narratives of assimilation that erase Asianness. By using sound, touch, and affect, these artists and writers create new frameworks for affirming Asianness as a source of political and social critique and innovative forms of life and creativity.

Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient

Author Biography

Vivian L. Huang is Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at San Francisco State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction: Inscrutable Surfacing  1
1. Invisibility and the Vanishing Point of Asian/American Visuality  25
2. Silence and Parasitic Hospitality in the Works of Yoko Ono, Laurel Nakadate, and Emma Sulkowicz  47
3. Im/penetrability, Trans Figuration, and Unreliable Surfacing  73
4. Flatness, Industriousness, and Laborious Flexibility  105
5. Distance, Negativity, and Slutty Sociality in Tseng Kwong Chi's Performance Photographs  135
Conclusion: Something Is Missing  165
Notes  187
Bibliography  207
Index  221

Review

"This book provides an overflowing fountain of information on Asian American inscrutability. The artworks that are analyzed are provocative and eye-opening, and the depth of understanding that Huang has for the subject matter is unsurpassable. Overall, Surface Relations is the ideal text for anybody who wants to further their specific research on queer and feminist Asian American artistic expression." -- Shandy Frey * ARLIS/NA Reviews *

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