Pacific Asia Museum

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Sandra Chen Weinstein, Veiled, Indian, 2010; Digital print, Courtesy of the artist

Facets of Asia: Photographs by Sandra Chen Weinstein

March 17 - May 1, 2011
In the Contemporary Gallery

Sandra Chen Weinstein documents daily lives and religious practices in India and China. With images that evoke tourist postcards, Weinstein questions the viewer's perception of Asia. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Weinstein attended Kyushu College of Design in Japan and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She has received several national and international awards.

Related Events:

March 19, 2011, 2:00-4:00pm
Meet the Artist in the Contemporary Gallery

Curator's Introdcution

Through images of religious moments of everyday life, the photographer Sandra Chen Weinstein documents the places she has visited and the people she has met. Spirituality is poignantly captured in her images of India whereas modernity as experienced in daily life is instrumental in documenting the streets of China.

At first glance Weinstein's images with their 'exotic' appeal evoke picture postcards that western travelers in Asia would have taken at the turn of the twentieth century. However, presented in vivid colors with clarity and crispness, facilitated by digital technology, they challenge the viewer's conception of Asia with two contrasting versions - a timeless tradition or an accelerated urbanization.

The photographs in Facets of Asia - filled with vibrancy and saturated color - suggest hyper-reality and a constructed visual fiction, whether it is idealized urban Asia or unchanging version of spiritual Asia. Questioning hackneyed perspective on Asia, the works in this exhibition complicate easy assumptions about their subjects, sometimes with a sense of humor and wit, other times with a sense of longing and fantasy.