Thursday, April 20, 2023, 6:30pm to 7:30pm
Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum
Celebrated Asian American poets and an innovative chamber music group join forces for one night to celebrate the legacy of Bernice Bing. The Last Hoisan Poets — Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong, and Nellie Wong — and Del Sol Quartet will present a live poetry and music performance in conjunction with the exhibition, Into View: Bernice Bing.
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, April 20, 2023
Program welcome by Indra Mungal, Senior Educator for Public Programs, Asian Art Museum
Pictured, clockwise from top left: poet Genny Lim; Charlton Lee on viola, poet Flo Oy Wong,
Kathryn Bates on cello, poet Nellie Wong. Photos by Ginger Chih.
A Dust in Time. Benjamin Kreith, violin. Photo by Lenore Chinn.
Lenore Chinn (left) and Flo Oy Wong with members of Bernice Bing’s family.
The Last Hoisan Poets. Photo by Pat Nishimoto.
THE LAST HOISAN POETS
Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong, Nellie Wong
DEL SOL QUARTET
Benjamin Kreith, violin
Charlton Lee, viola
Kathryn Bates, cello
Featuring musical compositions by Kui Dong, Takuma Itoh, Charlton Lee, Huang Ruo, Bright Sheng and Jungyoon Wie.
The Last Hoisan Poets would like to thank Lenore Chinn, Kim Anno, Abby Chen, and others for steadfastly working to bring visibility to the art of the resilient abstract expressionist artist, Bernice Bing, a foremother for those of us who are contemporary creatives. Moira Roth, Trefethen Professor of Art History at Mills College, introduced Bernice to Flo Oy Wong, co-founder of the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) in 1989. When Bernice joined and embraced AAWAA, she discovered her path to wholeness. We are bonded to Bernice as sisters in our hearts.
Into View: Bernice Bing celebrates the Asian Art Museum’s recent acquisition of 24 works that shine a light on an important local Chinese American artist whose vibrant abstract paintings have gained recognition in recent years for their palpable energy and deeply original vision. The exhibition, on view September 30, 2022 — May 1, 2023, invites audiences to discover Bernice “Bingo” Bing’s distinctive achievements during the second half of the 20th century, and admire her perseverance as an outsider—as a woman, an Asian American, and a lesbian—in an art world that offered her little support or lasting respect during her lifetime (1936-1998).
Into View surveys the evolution of Bing’s remarkable practice, from paintings of the 1950s and 1960s that straddle Abstract Expressionism and figuration to work from the 1980s and 1990s that explore a synthesis of Zen calligraphy and Western modernism. With these 24 artworks, the Asian Art Museum is now the largest repository of Bing’s art and will be the exclusive presenter of this exhibition.