“Asian American” became a category in the late 1960s, a grouping assembled by two Asian activist academics at UC Berkeley to foster political solidarity among members of a group that largely avoided such attempts at communal engagement. It was a tumultuous period characterized by clamorous demands for equal rights, widespread antiwar protests, and the ongoing struggles for independence by so-called Third World countries. The time seemed ripe to meld and mobilize a once largely quiescent demographic that was primarily from the Far East. Initially labeled “Oriental,” that descriptive was finally tossed into history’s trash bin (thanks to Edward Said’s fierce critique of the term in his extraordinarily influential 1978 book, Orientalism, although he was referring to the Middle East) and replaced with “Asian American.” 

The category of Asian American was meant to stamp people of Asian descent as a group with a shared identity. Yet it also qualified that identity. We never say European American, or White American; they are simply Americans. And there were other problems with the category, chief among them the lack of any great commonality or cohesiveness, as might be expected from artists from a region as vast as Asia, with its diverse populations and cultures. Rather than allies, many were historical enemies, and had been for centuries, even millennia. America, however, was meant to be a place of new beginnings, of reconciliations, new affiliations, and rewritten narratives. 

The participants in this exhibition, How Asian Is It, are all (East) Asian American abstract painters of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean descent. All born in the last century, they were shaped by experiences that differ greatly from those of today’s Asian American artists, who view such designations as “Asian American” to be part of community building, networking, even branding, as an ideological, political, and marketing identification. They understand that it is empowering to belong to a community, even an imagined one, with Asian American a larger grouping than Chinese American, Japanese American, or Korean American. Formerly, however, artists—and not just Asian American artists—were warier of categorization by race, ethnicity, gender, and other labels that might be perceived as pejorative or restrictive, fearing that it might further marginalize them. They would not willingly called themselves Asian Americans, although that has now changed. 

By the 1950s, Abstract Expressionism was dominant, and New York had become the global nexus of the art world. The work of Asian American abstract painters, however, was viewed as derivative and peripheral, or it was simply ignored. (Asian American figurative artists whose subjects were sociopolitical fared somewhat better.) By the 1960s, as minimalism and conceptual trends took hold, Asian Americans garnered some institutional attention but remained underrepresented in mainstream art-world discourse. By the 1970s, these artists were increasingly active in alternative spaces and artist-run initiatives as major New York art institutions continued to ignore their contributions. By the 1980s, when multiculturalism and identity politics dominated the discussion, not-for profit art spaces proliferated in New York, increasing the visibility of Asian American artists, including abstractionists, although this visibility was often based on ethnicity and extra-aesthetic criteria. The category Asian American was meant to stamp people of Asian descent as a group with a sense of shared identity. Yet at the same time, it qualified that identity. We never say European Americans, or White Americans; they are simply Americans. There were also other problems with the term, chief among them the lack of any great commonality or cohesiveness as might be expected across a land as vast as Asia with its diverse populations and cultures. Rather than allies, many were historical enemies, and had been for centuries, even millennia. America, however, was meant to be a place of new beginnings, of reconciliations, new affiliations, and rewritten narratives. 

Today, influenced by revisionist art history and the growing interest in diasporic artists and transnationalism, a new generation of critics and curators, including those who are themselves Asian American, have been instrumental in integrating these artists into the broader discourse of postwar and contemporary abstraction—as have the increasing numbers of Asian and Asian American collectors, gallerists, and benefactors and, significantly, the resurgence of abstract painting itself. 

As stated above, all of these artists are from different regions of the world, and their exposure to their Asian heritage varies from great doses to none. As their locations, their lives, and the discourse changed, as they converged on New York, so did their thinking about that legacy and the impact it had on their work. As America shifted from assimilation to the notion of an interlocking mosaic to today’s (siloed) enclaves and subcultures, separatism (and divisiveness) now defines us, countered by the connective forces of globalization and trans-nationalism. 

Artists are not predictable, nor is the art they make—which is as it should be. Artists should be free to make the work they choose to make, and not be compelled to pursue choices that have been determined for them; that is the hallmark of all democratic societies. So, how Asian is it? How American? 

The better question might be: How can these works of art contribute to a better understanding of the world? How civilizing are they? How humane? How truthful? Art that can do that is more desperately needed than ever.  

Lilly Wei, How Asian Is It? (Notes on Asian Americanness and Abstract Painting)
Excerpt from the exhibition catalogue essay. © 2026