A recent art review (“Identity, environment and resourcefulness all served up at the excellent CMCA Biennial,” Feb. 12) was loaded with inaccuracies.
The author, Jorge Arango, identified me as a “first-generation Chinese artist.” I have never been in China nor am I the first artist in the family. This erases my Chinese American identity.
Arango writes that the wall holding my artwork (16.6 feet) was more “cramped” than the original wall (11 feet), and tells readers that the artwork contains “Cantonese characters.” (I’m not even sure what he means here; the text is in Chinese, period.) He also mistitled my artwork, possibly because including the first part of the title, “Context Is Everything,” would clue us that he has left out all context.
Arango used choice vocabulary to manipulate readers with ages-old misogyny, implying that I had operated on “raw emotions” (though this is rarely, if ever, held against male artists) and therefore I was incapable of making intellectual creative decisions in my design and craft.
What is truly cramped and a pity is the amount of space Arango left himself to review the other artists’ works. He wasted space deriding me/my work, and in doing so insults and disrespects other artists in the Biennial. Three percent of the work was me; 97% of the work was by the other artists.
Evelyn Wong
Portland
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