Roger Shimomuras Artwork - Essay Example

Roger Shimomura’s Artwork Writing Assignment Introduction The Richmond center was the host of the “YELLOW TERROR” which features a collection of paintings that were made by Roger Shimomura. The “YELLOW TERROR” has a representation of the popular American culture in the paintings. The YELLOW TERROR represents the first time Roger Shimomura shows the kitsch collection for his paintings. To be more precise Roger Shimomura uses the YELLOW TERROR to communicate the underlying perceptions of people who have a different color than Americans, highlighting their fears and the biases that exist against these people. The purpose of this assignment is to investigate a contemporary artist’s – Roger Shimomura engagement with identity formation. The paper will aim at undertaking the analysis in order to understand how the artist’s strategies were used to represent racism and stereotypes that were directed towards Asians and how this racist and stereotypical representation still present up to now Roger Shimomura Engagement with Identity Formation In Roger Shimomura’s YELLOW TERROR, there are many themes that these works display and they can be understood by having a close look and interpretation of the collection. At the Wing Luke Asian Museum, the fact that the paintings are professional works of art says it all. One of the paintings known as THE DIFFERENT CITIZENS is made up such that on the right of the painting someone sees a modest gray self-portrait of Roger Shimomura. On the left side there is a ridiculous caricature of a Japanese military officer who is smiling and the officer is represented as a person with yellow skin, buck teeth, slanted eyes and oversized ears.1Through this work of art, Roger Shimomura is trying to present some aspects of racism that exist until today. The artwork can specifically be interpreted as the use of artwork by Roger Shimomura to show his audience the racist lens that filtered the perception of Japanese Americans. Another obvious piece of art that depicts racism by Roger Shimomura is the Roger and Janet art work in which Roger Shimomura is shown to be a big-mouthed individual, who has buck- tooth, the stereotypical big ears, and a screaming mouth next to the blue eyed wife as depicted in the art. Examining the largest painting in the exhibition YELLOW TERROR, it is evident that Roger Shimomura uses the caricatures of Japanese soldiers, which are represented as individuals or types who crash, tumble and collide. Roger Shimomura himself is at the center of this chaos which pushes his eyes into a slant as if creating the nightmare mental picture of the Japanese caricatures done by his sight getting altered. The use of the First World War postcards shows how Roger Shimomura has copied caricatures in a precise manner to show how the postcards ridicule the Japanese army’s enemy as a fox, a snake, a beetle, a pig and a monkey. However, it is evident from the caricatures that Roger Shimomura has only borrowed the human caricatures and they exactly indicate how Roger Shimomura’s art relates to the sources from which they were found. Roger Shimomura has created a composition with the cartoon sources as the satire of a grand manner of the 1950s American art at a time when he was coming of age2. However, it must be emphasized that the accumulation of the sources and the sources themselves in Roger Shimomura painting are representing more than a formal reference. The artwork also represents a social context. The YELLOW TERROR is a representation of how the society was racist against the Japanese and the Chinese to a point whereby they classified them into one class and making no good distinction between the Japanese and the Chinese but making the distinction only on racist’s grounds.3 The caricature of different images in the artwork is a depiction and transformation of the racist popular culture into paintings that are stunning. The exhibition can be interpreted as showing people and countries that racism is one of the things that has permeated people’s lives to an extent that people are not even aware that their action are racist. Roger Shimomura takes and uses the pop art model and presents it with a more political approach with an intense content. Roger Shimomura’s artwork in the YELLOW TERROR is sarcastic, deadpan, and funny all at once. The representation of the YELLOW TERROR is one of the ways through which a rare opportunity is presented to discern Roger Shimomura artistic work that manifests a presentation of racisms. Racism is juxtaposed in Roger Shimomura paintings in the YELLOW TERROR in a very convincing way. The racist stereotypes are used in a professional and artistic manner such that they can impress even the people who are not fond of art due to the brilliance with which they are presented4. The World War II Japanese are indicted as cramming against each other, flying in the air and having the center Roger Shimomura himself caricaturing himself in the middle of the mass caricatures. The way the sources of the caricatures are presented is humorous since they are placed next to the paintings in satirical way that can make someone laugh. He uses art to represent racial stereotypes in a very awful way. The paintings imply to us that the stereotypes that were manifest in the World War II are still with us in the present time. This can be explained by Roger Shimomura way of inclusion of salt and peppershakers collection to indicate racism with someone’s salt. The salt and peppershakers presented in the collection are a way of showing that they are a passive small stereotype “Orientals” that are in ethnic clothes which are waiting to get picked by larger powers5. Roger Shimomura’s facility of art with diverse vocabularies is further amazing as seen in other painting called the American portrait. It indicates how Roger Shimomura can play around with ancient Japanese images, marvel superhero comics, Walt Disney cartoons in a manner that they get arranged in compositions that are amazing in a way that is complex as compared to the appearance of the boxes. The way the composition has boxes within boxes is one way through which Roger Shimomura presents the idea of many stereotypes that are juxtaposed which makes it worth to be analyzed. The boxes present a group of confused people which was one stenotype propagated against Asians. The composition can be discerned as being made up of abstract modernism that has very high saturation of color.6 The compositions also have black outlines that are a conveyance of the intensity of Roger Shimomura experience with racism and the stereotypes that were associated with racism. In an absurd manner Roger Shimomura creates exaggerated stereotypes that make people laugh. Roger Shimomura uses bicultural images in the composition to represent the bicultural image in an American style. It should be noted that the YELLOW TERROR uses images that are inspired by historic conceptualization of the Japanese, Chinese, and other Asians as the yellow peril. The YELLOW TERROR specifically, uses history and historical associations to explain the way Asians were perceived as a menace and threats to the morals that were predominantly Christian. Roger Shimomura utilizes the method of painting the racist occurrences from a point of view that is inherently racist. When it shown how the yellow hands wrap around the ankle of a white person, it is a representation of how anyone looking at painting will see it from the eyes of the white person. The use of Asian males in the paintings is a representation of caricatures that are used for propaganda purposes7. He actually utilizes racist stereotypes to defuse the same racist stereotypes. This is shown by the appearance of Roger Shimomura at the center of mimicking Asian caricatures but at the same time seen as drowning in the crowd of the Asian caricatures. The caricatures rather poses a question to any observers like what do you see when you look at me. The theme of propaganda is also inherent in the art works. The propaganda is juxtaposed with the selection of some items from the collection of Asian stereotypes memorabilia taken from the World War II. The main signs that Roger Shimomura uses to represents stereotypes are slap Jap cards, Jap comics, Jap hunting licenses, dartboards, and racist masks8. It seems that the image of Asians in stereotypical way was integrated such that people could not even think they were looking at Asians in a stereotypical way. The YELLOW TERROR exhibition can be seen as artwork that aimed at bringing forward the stereotypes and racism issues that were being ignored. This created a platform for conversations about racist’s issues so that people can address these issues as a reality in society. Hence, viewers were being given the challenge of looking at the exhibition and speaking against racism as a challenge that needs to face9. . He extracts the racist’s stereotypes directly from a pop culture. YELLOW TERROR. One thing that comes from the collection is that as much as most of the material is derived from historical sources the information is not historical since the issues being addressed are not behind us10. It is clear that the use of humor, pain, and art is done in a manner that brings out the clear message being communicated. It should also be clear that Roger Shimomura warps the highlighted themes in the YELLOW TERROR through personal experiences as presented by the interracial dating that he experienced in the post-war America, which was inherently hostile to Asians. Shimomura uses appropriation as a strategy to satirically depict the American pop culture by using his paintings to criticize certain characteristics of their life styles. For example, Shimomura takes the some issues in the American society that already have definite meanings; he then totally transforms these by giving them different meanings through the use of humor. This offers the audience a different perspective of things that were hitherto seen in a different light. Shimomura’s approach is essentially a contemporary strategy owing to the fact that it borders on the unconventional. This strategy also embraces diversity and makes use of contradiction to critique and draw the audience’s attention to the double standards in the American culture. Roger Shimomura was trying to use his paintings and pictorial representations to masquerade the fact that he was a victim of racial profiling perpetrated to him by a section of Americans which was mainly evident by the classification of Asians as the yellow peril following Japans invasion of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent sinking of several American ships.11 Roger Shimomura recounts how people from his culture were racially abused during the periods leading to and after the Second World War. His use of a cold, plain style which incorporates a mixture of American Pop culture and Japanese Ukiyo-e concept also referred to as “floating world" graphics within the realms of performing and visual arts. This enables Shimomura to tackle a highly controversial and sensitive topic with a sophisticated touch. His paintings were obviously conspicuous at the Richman exhibition as they gave an impression of small windows offering a panoramic view of an irrational world. The artist has considerable experiences with cases of racial profiling through in all its facades which includes the subtle and outright direct expression of hate towards people of Asian descent. The artist points to insignia that subconsciously promotes this hatred including, slap-a-Jap cards, Jap hunting licenses. He also utterly condemns film posters featuring actors with a yellow face to mock the Japanese. Shimorura’s paintings are particularly authentic because they depict incidences that he went through. In conclusion, Roger Shimomura uses art to communicate the underlying problems that faces Japanese and other Asians after the World War II and goes ahead to postulate that these problems are still in the society currently. Roger Shimomura uses the YELLOW TERROR to communicate to the racist about how deeply this problem is entrenched in the society and hence the need to address the problem. Most importantly, the YELLOW TERROR uses stereotypes as the basis on which people develop a view of other people and construct racist perspectives of people and hence treating them differently based on their color. The YELLOW TERROR also brings back the memories of the yellow peril which made the Japanese despised by Americans and put in place laws that prevented the immigration of the Japanese to the United States during World War II 12. Bibliography Platt, Susan. The Roger Shimomura and other shows, Art and Politics now, 7 Nov. 2009. Web.21 Nov 2014 Graves, Jen. “War Breaks Out at the Wing Luke Asian Museum”, The stranger, 17 Sep. 2009. Web. 21 Nov 2014 Upchurch, Michael. “YELLOW TERROR art collection: Satire both bright and bitter”, The Seattle times, 11 Sep. 2009.Web. 21 November 2014 Matsumoto, Nancy. “Roger Shimomura”. Densho Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 21 November 2014 Seattlepi staff. Cultural collisions and pervasive prejudice: the art of roger shimomura. Seattlepi, 15 Feb. 2010. Web. 21 November 2014 Kobena Mercer, “Black Hair/Style Politics” n.d. Web. 21 November 2014 2014.http://culturalstudies2009.wikifoundry.com/page/Mercer+%22Black+Hair%2FStyle+Politics%22 Richard Dyer, “Colored White, Not Colored,” RD, 41-57. n.d 21 November 2014 Roger Shimomura, YELLOW TERROR , 2008 Read More