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Title
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Kim Anno
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Description
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Kim Anno was born in Los Angeles, California in 1958. Raised by Japanese-Polish and Native American-Irish parents who had assimilated, Anno was in search of a connection to her roots and had a curiosity to uncover more knowledge about the experiences of her family (“FORM” 2020). Growing up, witnessing the social unrest and activism that her parents took part in greatly influenced her and her work. Her father’s family was affected by Executive Order 9066 and had to evacuate to the camps created in the U.S. during World War II. Anno and her family were civil rights activists, as Anno recounts going to see Martin Luther King (Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe 2017). Her works of painting, photography, and film all reflect her experiences as an Asian American and queer activist.
Anno first studied art at the Feminist Studio Workshop in LA. She went on to study at the San Francisco Institute of Art. Alongside creating art, she is a professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts (“Biography - KIM ANNO” 2011). At the beginning of her career, Anno created mostly abstract art. Over time she focused more on photography and creating short films that brought awareness to topics like the climate crisis (“FORM” 2020). To address how we interact with the world around us, Anno produced a collection of works named “The Grand Tour” in 2014.
“The Grand Tour” includes photographs of Western landscapes and cities. The photographs use postmodern aesthetics as Anno disrupts the black and white photographs with layers of paint. These distorted images are meant to be representative of society's need to domesticate nature before we appreciate it. Landscapes like Niagara Falls are commercialized and nature is negatively affected through this process. But the land is kept looking pristine as we do not wish to appreciate non-curated landscapes (Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe 2017).
The artwork shown above is part of “The Grand Tour” and is named “Niagara.” Made from oil on metal, Anno describes the layering of materials as a sort of colonization. In this collection of works, the photographs of Western landscapes are disrupted by the addition of her paint. She describes this as symbolic of taking something Western, and using it for her own purposes as an Asian American. Anno, like tourists and travelers to the West, also has a desire to interact with these landscapes and does so through her artwork. In this way, Anno’s collection of works reflect the multiple experiences of her life and her multifaceted identity (Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe 2017).
Bibliography:
“FORM.” 2020. FORM. May 28, 2020. https://www.dukeform.co/all-content/apahm-asian-american-artists?rq=kim%20anno.
“Biography - KIM ANNO.” 2011. KIM ANNO -. January 6, 2011. https://www.kimanno.com/biography/.
Kina, Laura, and Jan Christian Bernabe. 2017. Queering Contemporary Asian American Art. Seattle: University Of Washington Press.
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Alternative Title
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Niagara
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Source
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Artist Image:
“Kim Anno | Places Journal.” 2019. Places Journal. 2019. https://placesjournal.org/author/kim-anno/?cn-reloaded=1.
Artwork Image:
“Paintings - KIM ANNO.” 2011. KIM ANNO -. January 6, 2011. https://www.kimanno.com/painting/.
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Name
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Zainab Ropri
