Godzilla: Asian American Art Network 1990-2001

Howie Chen

Godzilla: Asian American Art Network 1990-2001

Brooklyn, USA: Primary Information, 2021

552 pp., 9 x 12", softcover

Edition of 2500

Despite being active for a decade, little information was previously available on the collective known as Godzilla: Asian American Art Network. This hefty volume by curator Howie Chen and publisher Primary Information serves as a corrective to that dearth. The book is a comprehensive anthology of writings, art projects, publications, correspondence, and other archival ephemera.

Founded in 1990 by artists Ken Chu, Bing Lee, Margo Machida, and others, the group grew to eventually form a national network of over 2000 members. Their aim was to promote cross-generational and cross-disciplinal dialogue in Asian American visual art, through exhibitions, lectures, symposia, newsletters, and community collaborations. 

Godzilla: Asian American Art Network 1990-2001 includes reproductions of meeting agendas, posters, press releases, flyers, articles, reviews, and exhibition invitations. 

It also includes two now-legendary letters sent to David Ross, who was the director of the Whitney at the time. The first welcomes him to New York and draws his attention to the "conspicuous absence of Asian American visual artists in the Current Biennial". The letter is signed by twenty-two members of the network, and a few dozen readings were enclosed. 

The follow-up letter, four months later, thanks Ross for meeting with their representatives (Machida, Paul Pfeiffer and Eugenie Tsai), but continues “As discussed, the regrettable absence of Asian American visual artists in the last Whitney Biennial remains symptomatic of a larger issue.” 

The next entry in the book - which is arranged chronologically - is a an article about the collective published in Art In America titled "Guerrilla Girls Move Over?". In 1994, Tsai was appointed as a curator at the Whitney. 

The group's ephemera is reproduced facsimile, and while the graphic design hasn't aged so well, the concerns of the group remain disturbingly topical. It's easy to imagine the outrage Godzilla would feel towards the media's initial unwillingness to characterize last year's Atlanta spa killings as hate crimes, or Trump referring to COVID19 as the "Kung Flu". But also to the art world's performative approach to diversity, and perhaps the reduction of Asians to the POC of BIPOC and IBPOC. 

Tomorrow, Tuesday April 5th, at 2pm EDT, NYU Special Collections and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute present an online panel discussion to celebrate the publication of Godzilla: Asian American Art Network 1990-2001. Speakers include two of the founding members of the group: Ken Chu, who left the arts in 2006 after twenty years working as an artist and arts administrator; and Margo Machida, Professor Emerita of Art History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut. They are joined by the book's author and publisher, Howie Chen and James Hoff, as well as Nicholas Martin, the Curator for the Arts & Humanities at NYU Special Collections. 

The conversation will touch on "Godzilla's forebears and origins, and the role of collaborative archival initiatives in preserving the legacies of arts collectives."

Click here to register. 

Purchase the title for only $25.00 US from the publisher, here.