Asian Pacific American culture contains great diversity. Tomomi points out that an APA aesthetic can draw not only on its Asian heritage, but also on the rich eclecticism of American traditions. Jennifer believes that such a divergence cannot be contained in an aesthetic - artists are borrowers and creators by nature, which makes such a definition near useless. In the following sections, each will expand on her viewpoint.
TOMOMI'S VIEWS
I strongly agree with Paul Pfeiffer in the point that the Asian American aesthetics derives from the rich background of the APA artists. He mentions that Euro-American aesthetics comes from a diversity of cultural influences, which are from Asia and other parts of the world. In the same way, Asian American aesthetics is based on the diverse background of APA artists since lots of APA artists are American-born and they are influenced by American culture, which is a complex mixture of all the cultures in the world. The race is not the only way to define the aesthetics. His statement that Asian American aesthetics is ‘describing the complex reality of American culture’ in the eyes of APA artists stresses the definition of the Asian American.
I pick Matthew Grasso as an artist who describes Pfeiffer’s idea of
aesthetics in his art. He takes in instruments, scale, and beats from the
cultures all over the world and represents them in American way.
A kotar (guitar and Japanese koto) is the main instrument on his piece
with 10beats, which comes from Native American music. As mentioned earlier,
the American culture today is based on the combination of various cultures.
Therefore, American-born APA artists can not be influenced by Asian culture
and express it on their works. Their cultural background contains anything
that exists in the US, which eventually originates from all over the world.
Pfeiffer says ‘we cannot define Asian American as completely distinct from
the rest of American culture.’ Asian American aesthetics shows up in expressing
the complexity of the mixed cultures by which the artists are influenced.
JENNIFER'S VIEWS
Margo Machida's treatment of the concept of
an Asian American aesthetic is striking. She points out that any
type of defining aesthetic is "limiting and prescriptive." She cites
the diversity of Asian American art as proof of the absurdity of an aesthetic
that could define all Asian American art. One of the problems with
such an aesthetic, she mentions, is that it could tend to delegitimize
those authors whose works stray from the definition.
The Asian American Women Artists slideshow
tacitly supports this idea, by displaying a wide divergence of styles,
inspirations, and themes. The styles of the artists range from art
naif (Lenore Chinn) to realism (Wendy Yoshimura) and installation (Rene
Yung). The works contain echoes of artists such as Van Gogh (Yoju
Kondo) and Georgia O'Keefe (Hiromi Kodama). Some of the themes are
political, such as Jacqueline Ford's Tea Service. Others are highly
personal, such as Bernice Bing's Epilogue, which explores the artist's
personal relationship with nature. Still others are apparently purely
abstract, devoid of theme - Wynne Hayakawa's The Sum of Parts, for example.
It is nearly impossible for me to imagine a meaningful aesthetic that would
encompass all of these works. An Asian American artist is truly,
like all Americans, a borrower from every culture, a person expressing
what is important to him or her. How could any definition encompass
that?
CONCLUSION
Although we each responded to different critics and artistic stimuli, and ultimately came to different conclusions about the existence of the Asian American aesthetics, we agreed on the high degree of diversity present in APA art. Ultimately, our differences were not concerning APA art, but our perceptions of what an aesthetic is. Tomomi felt that an aesthetic could encompass a broad variety of style while Jennifer preferred a narrower definition.