Linda Nishio(born 1952) is aJapanese-Americanartist whoseconceptual piecesfocus onself-imageand issues of representation, using photographs, text,performance,and film.[1][2][3]She taught at theOtis College of Art and Designin Los Angeles.[4]
Early life
editRaised in Los Angeles, Nishio is a third-generation Japanese-American (sansei)[5]whose parents were two of the 120,000forcibly relocated Japanese AmericansduringWorld War II.She studied art at theUniversity of Kansasand received herMaster's of Fine ArtsfromRutgers University,where she studied withGeoffrey Hendricks.[6]While still a graduate student, she started making visits to theWoman's Buildingin Los Angeles, and in 1979 or 1980 moved back to that city. Nishio was hired by the Women's Graphic Center of the Women's Building. Among other work, she created logo forNew World Picturesfor film directorRoger Corman.[7]Her firststudiowas also at the Women's Building.[1]
Career
editHer first publicperformance,Cheap Talk (Great Wall Series),took place at theFranklin Furnacein New York in 1979. The work combined written and spoken text, slides and film images.[6]She performedGhost in the Machinetwo years later at the same space, which was reviewed byLucy Lippardfor theVillage Voice,[8]and included in her 1984 book,Get the Message: A Decade of Art for Social Change.[9]Another nonprofit space that showed Nishio's work early in her career (Cheap Talk,in 1980[10]) wasLACEin Los Angeles.[11]Her work is in the Artwords and Bookworks collections at theUniversity of Iowa.[12]
In describing her work of this period, Nishio has said,
""The artwork was all about... the personal is the political. How I saw the world was the material for the artwork, so instead of maybe painting self-portraits, I was making performance: The performance was the self-portrait. "[1]
She made aninstallationfor theSanta Monica Museum of Artin 1993 entitledProtekshun (and the Desire to Surrender)[13]and participated in the 2011 exhibition at theJapanese American National Museum,"Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Post-War Los Angeles," part the citywide exhibition,Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980.[14]
Selected works
editReferences
edit- ^abc"Drawing the line: Linda Nishio",Japanese American National Museum,YouTube,c. 00:16 mins.
- ^"Linda Nishio",Drawing the Line, Japanese American National Museum, accessed June 7, 2015.
- ^Mizota, Sharon (November 10, 2011)."All the Arts, All the Time".L.A. Times.
- ^"Linda Nishio",Japanese American National Museum, accessed June 7, 2015.
- ^Lois Fichner-Rathus,Foundations of Art and Design,Cengage Learning, 2011, p. 176.
- ^abcJacki Apple,"A Different World: A Personal History of Franklin Furnace",49(1), Spring 2005 (pp. 36–54), pp. 52–53.
- ^"Women's Building History: Linda Nishio".Otis College via YouTube.2010.
- ^Village Voice,vol. 26, no.13, March 18–24, 1981.
- ^Lippard, Lucy,Get the Message: A Decade of Art for Social Change(New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984)
- ^"Views from Two Coasts".
- ^"History".welcometolace.org.
- ^"Artwords and Bookworks - the University of Iowa Libraries".
- ^"Linda Nishio: Protekshun (and the Desire to Surrender) Artist Project Series MAIN GALLERY APR 16–MAY 23, 1993".smmoa.org.Archived fromthe originalon July 15, 2015.RetrievedJuly 14,2015.
- ^Guzmán, Richard (November 18, 2011)."JANM Exhibit Looks at the Contributions of Post-War Japanese American Artists".L.A. Downtown News.
- ^Lucy Lippard,Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America,Pantheon, 1990, p. 10
- ^"Kikoemasu ka? (Can you hear me?) Linda Nishio (United States, active California, Los Angeles, born 1952)".lacma.org.
- ^"Linda Nishio: Protekshun (and the Desire to Surrender) Artist Project Series MAIN GALLERY APR 16–MAY 23, 1993".smmoa.org.Archived fromthe originalon July 15, 2015.RetrievedJuly 14,2015.
Further reading
edit- "Linda Nishio",Otis Collections Online.