haruko tanaka
DESCRIPTION
Haruko Tanaka exhibition catalogueTRANSCRIPT
511 west 25th street, new york, ny 10001
www.cueartfoundation.org
2006–2007 h a r u ko ta n a k a
LEAD SPONSOR OF 2006-07 SEASON OF EXHIBITION CATALOGUES:
KYESUNG PAPER GROUP (SOUTH KOREA)
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
ELIZABETH FIRESTONE GRAHAM FOUNDATION
CUE Art Foundation
February 2 – March 10, 2007
CuratedbyCindyBernard
HARUkO TANAk A
We are honored and grateful to present this exhibition generously curated by Cindy Bernard. For
the CUE solo exhibition series, Ms. Bernard has chosen fellow artist, Haruko Tanaka, who lives and
works in Los Angeles. Ms. Bernard’s appreciation of Tanaka’s work, demonstrates how the Founda-
tion’s discretionary selection process allows for the unfettered expression of each curator’s views.
CUE is please to recognize that this is Ms. Tanaka’s first solo exhibition in New York. Ms. Bernard
and we, together, celebrate this effort and wish her a future of fulfillment and success.
In Conversation CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka
October2006,LosAngeles,CA
CindyBernard:I vaguely recall that when we met,
back in 1996 when you were a student at USC, you
were studying translation or languages?
HarukoTanaka:Well I went there as an International
Relations major when I was 18. Being from an inter-
national school in Japan, I figured that was the thing
to do. But during some introductory courses I
realized that International Relations just meant
American foreign policy, so I got really turned-off.
The most disturbing thing was that we’d be in class
and the teacher would ask, “Well what happened to
us,” or “What did we do,” — there were all these
‘we’s’ and ‘us’s’ that I couldn’t relate to.
CB: You mean ‘us’ as in the U.S.?
HT: He’d say, “Well what happened to us in 1941?”
CB: And as a Japanese student sitting there….
HT: I felt really uncomfortable. I just hadn’t grown up
with a “we-us-ours-them” vernacular or paradigm. So
then I went to the Communications Department and
then finally found Art in my third year there.
CB: So what was your idea of what International
Relations was supposed to be?
HT: As far as my previous education was concerned,
there was a strong emphasis on World History and
World Literature. So my sense was that I would get
to University of Southern California (USC) and study
the foreign policy of many different countries.
CB: Or foreign policy from many perspectives,
in any case.
HT: But it wasn’t, so ….
CB:So do you think that experience had an effect on
your work? Because pretty much from the beginning,
as I recall anyway, your work always dealt with issues
of identity—Japanese, Japanese-American, Asian,
Asian-American. Even from your first projects…
HT: Definitely. The question was always, ‘Who am I
and how do I fit in?’ But growing up in both England
and Japan, and being at USC and living in the U.S.
for the first time, I realized those things were really
complex. At the same time I was fitting in pretty
smoothly, people were missing whole parts of me.
I had an American accent so the assumption was
that I was Japanese-American. And since I seemed
to have a certain amount of scattered knowledge of
popular culture references I sort of slipped in. But
inside it was a tremendous shock and even more of
a shock to be confronted with wondering whether
my apprehension to voice my opinion out loud,
all the time, was because of my inner repressed
Japanese-ness. People wanted to know immediately
whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. People
wanted to know what I was thinking all the time.
So all of a sudden I was apparently a lot more
Japanese than I had ever been. And yet in Japan
I had always seen myself as somewhat of a foreigner
because I had grown up abroad and English was
my first language.
CB: Is CaliforniaTelephone (2003) the first work that
you’re not in?
HT: I’m in there for a split second at the very begin-
ning whispering the first phrase. The first work
though that I wasn’t in was By the WaterfallinEaton
Canyon — 7 times (2000) which was my second
video ever. It was a video of a group of 7 high school
students hiking having their group portrait snapshot
taken by a passing hiker, looped 7 times. But after
that there were several photo projects, TheFitIn
RoomSeries, Summer2000, AllInMe (2001) and
my first film ILoveYou (2002) which had my face all
over them. CaliforniaTelephone came right after
ILoveYou which was all about…
CB: All about you!
HT: Yep, it’s all about me and my big face being in
the 16mm frame and being projected onto a giant
screen. So I just wanted to go to the extreme oppo-
site which I felt meant literally turning the camera in
the other direction, while still committing to voicing
my issues with representation. So the logical answer
seemed to be a group portrait. The great thing with
the panning camera shot was that I was able to
capture a group portrait but also focus on the indi-
vidual at the same time.
CB: Well you went from representing yourself in a
way you hadn’t seen in American movies, or as I think
you once said ILoveYou was generated out of the
desire to see someone with a Japanese face have the
words “I love you” uttered on screen to them. Then,
in CaliforniaTelephone, you are replaced with a range
of Asian faces. So it becomes an encyclopedia of
what’s not represented.
HT: It’s connected to ILoveYou in that I was
thinking about taking matters into my own hands
and doing something about the very thing I was
always complaining about—the severe lack of Asian,
Asian-American, and chubby girl representation, in
the case of ILoveYou, in American visual culture. So
what could I do?—put as many Asian faces up there
as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
So you don’t have to talk about it all, or you do
have to talk about it. It can actually go either way.
And it’s not only Asian faces but it’s also different
accents—English as a first language, English as a
second language, English as a third language,
native English speaker with an accent, etc. The
nuances are endless.
CB: And that whole process of comprehension is
reiterated through the loss of the sentence as it
passes through one person to another. It’s literally
that difference between each person that causes that
degeneration of the phrases. The quotes in California
Telephone are from June Jordan – can you talk about
her influence on your work?
HT: June Jordan was a poet, essayist, novelist, activist
and pacifist. She was also a professor of African
American Studies at UC Berkeley where she founded
and directed Poetry for the People which was a
program aimed toward achieving political and artistic
empowerment for students. A friend of mine from
CalArts, Maryam kashani, had gone to UC Berkeley
in undergrad and knew June Jordan from then. Well
I was hanging out with Maryam one night and she
asked me if I knew about June Jordan’s writing and
more specifically if I had ever read her collection
of love poems, Haruko/LovePoems. I immediately
picked up a copy of the book and was just so jazzed
to see my name in print, not only on a bookcover, but
all over inside the book too. Who knew!! It was just
amazing to read titles like “For HARUkO,” “Poem for
HARUkO,” “Update for HARUkO,” “Messages from
HARUkO,” “Postcript with HARUkO”….
CB: Because in English you wouldn’t have seen
it so often.
HT: Yes! When you go to any gift stores for tourists
where they have the little California license plates
with the names on them— “HARUkO” is never going
to be there you know…and that always got me down
because I’d always look in the H’s anyway.
CB: Right, they’re probably not going to sell like
“JANE” or “CINDY” in the United States.
HT: Exactly. And once I read the poetry I was
completely blown away. She was devastatingly
emotional and yet also political. Love and politics
went hand in hand. So the lines from California
Telephone are excerpted from IMustBecomea
MenacetomyEnemies-DedicatedtothePoet
AgostinhoNeto,PresidentofThePeople’sRepublic
ofAngola:1976.
Fit In Room Series, Summer 2000, #6 2000 C-print 11" x 11"
CB: So the first evening that you organized was
TAKEBACKTHELOVE:AJuneJordanCelebration
in 2003?
HT: Yes. An evening of films, poetry readings, visual
art, graffiti, emcee, dj, and improvised live music, all in
celebration of June Jordan. A couple of friends and
I got together. We had all happened to make works
of art about or around June Jordan at that time so
we thought it would be completely timely to have
a celebration, and it was also the anniversary of her
passing and so we did a one night event at this alter-
native space called Six Months on Crenshaw run by
Eungie Joo. It was the best thing because it incorpo-
rated our passion and love of politics, spirituality, art
making and bootie shaking! It was a wonderful expe-
rience because it proved to us that we could express
ourselves in all the different, real and joyous ways
that we were, just the way we were. I had a blast.
Then that same summer, it was the night of
Barry White’s death, I’ll never forget, July 5th, 2003,
my friend and also June Jordan event collaborator
Seema kapur and I did Howtobeanartistand
activistatthesametime. As part of this larger show
called DownToIt at Crazyspace, we had a sign-in
desk/booth where people could pick up their very
own activist/artist doggie bags. It seemed like the
question was on a lot of people’s minds. At discus-
sions and critiques at Six Months, artists were
struggling with the issue of how can I be an artist
and activist at the same time? And our sentiment
was, well how can you not be? I think our defini-
tion of “activism” was different. What Seema and I
concluded was that what we do is inevitably rooted
both in art and activism (just to name a few).
CB: Arundahti Roy talks about this. She hates the
term writer-activist, for her it’s like saying sofa-bed.
She claims it suggests that writers, and by extension
artists, are “too effete” for the clarity and the passion
necessary to publicly take a stand and that activists
lack intellectual complexity in their position taking.
That in limiting the activities or actions that either
term can encompass, it diminishes both.
HT: It seemed like when these questions were being
asked peoples’ art and activism were suffering
respectively because the question had a paralyzing
effect where artists would torture themselves
because their work wasn’t politically effective or
motivated enough. But I think by virtue of who we
are—women of color in the U.S., multi-lingual, multi-
cultural, just to name a few—then what we express is
art, it is political, it is activist.
So we had a Barry White altar playing Barry
White music—just to keep things grounded.
CB: Just so we wouldn’t forget what was important.
HT: Exactly. And then we had this table where people
could sign-in and take their own Artist/Activist
doggie bag home with them. There was a CD inside
with a reading of June Jordan’s WhyIbecamea
pacifistandthenHowIbecameawarrioragain: from
the June Jordan celebration, we also had a US Postal
service sticker, inspired by taggers, on which we had
printed a picture of a woman revolutionary on it saying
“I RESIST ________ ” and we encouraged people to fill
in the blank, post it up somewhere in public and then
email us a photo of it. Only a couple of people ended
up getting back to us, but that’s okay.
I think what we wanted to say was—Don’t
worry about it. Just keep making the work as close as
to who you are as possible.
CB: When you do these events, what makes them
successful for you?
HT: I think what makes them successful is the
process. I have collaborated with various people so
far—and by collaborating I mean co-authoring. I think
the great thing about collaboration is the compro-
mise and the unsuspecting results. You have to make
compromises with the people that you’re working
with. Sometimes a collaborator might insist on some-
thing that seems so outlandish, but then you see just
how obsessed or dedicated they are about it that
you just trust that it’s going to work. And everybody
has a little bit of that blinded insistence that they
contribute, so the end result is something that you
could have never expected to have done by yourself.
Each time we’ve given 120% as far as what we want
to do and how we want to do it; but as far as who
gets there and whether or not there will be any press
coverage, which there has not been at all, we don’t
sweat that part. Our attitude has been maximum
expectation of ourselves, but no expectations on the
people that come. But we’re grateful because people
have given us their time and shown up.
CB: Activism is a big part of your work. How do
you decide which activities are incorporated into
artworks? I’m thinking of your whole involvement
with the battle to save the South Central Farm here in
Los Angeles.1 Sometimes there is a direct correlation
as with the M-Y-MANIFESTOWORKSHOP at South
Central Farm, but in other works the politic is less
overt even if an activist position still informs the work.
HT: Well leading up to that point I had started going
to anti-war protest rallies and the thing that I found
out was that even though I was chanting in front of
the Fed Building or down Hollywood Boulevard for
things I believed in, I actually didn’t resonate with
that sort of energy. I felt like I was being shouted at
or scolded.
CB: Can you talk about that. What do you mean?
HT: I realized that in going to all these rallies around
town (and I think a lot of people felt the same way)
was that it was really anticlimactic. I think that I had
this romanticism about being a part of mass protests
and rallies. Being in the marches though somehow
didn’t feel like the way the photographs looked from
the 60’s. I’d look at the photos from Life magazine
from that time and I’d get chills and a little teary-
eyed. But obviously I didn’t really know what was
going on, what the timing was…so I’d go to these
rallies thinking that there would be some kind of
overwhelming feeling or understanding. And I real-
ized that that wasn’t going to happen and that it was
just like anything else—I would have to practice at it.
It’s like a muscle that has to be trained. I think a lot of
people were expecting to get there and be hit by this
bolt of lightning of activism and revolution. I know
I did. I just wanted it to click. But I didn’t feel it, as far
as that sort of immediacy, until “La Gran Marcha” and
the “Day without an Immigrant March” earlier this year.
CB: Those marches were considerably larger than any
of the other marches that had been happening…
HT: Oh it was huge. Millions of people. It was so
packed.
CB: For you, is the power of the march related to
the diversity of representation within the voice that’s
being shouted?
HT: For sure. In that march, it really felt like peoples’
lives were at stake. People that didn’t usually
consider themselves to have a so-called ‘political’
bone in their body were on the streets demanding
for a better life.
Also several months earlier I had started
going to anti-death penalty vigils. It was right around
the time that California had lined up three executions
in a row—Stanley “Tookie” Williams, Clarence Ray
Allen, and Michael Morales. The outcry for Stanley
Tookie Williams was huge and I ended up going to
this candlelight vigil in Westwood and it was a silent
march to a neighborhood church following a protest
at the Fed Building. It was really spiritual and there-
fore comfortable for me. I resonated with the silent
procession. It dawned upon me that political activism
was something that I would have to put in the time
to search out and connect with and in that search I
could custom make what activism consisted of for
me. Needless to say the Tookie vigil was amazing.
The church was packed and there was a tangible
air of community, righteous rage, and the desire for
change. And then the next month, one night I just
sort of remembered, “Oh it’s the other guy. Oh I
guess I’d better go.”
CB: The other less famous guy.
HT: Yeah, and I went straight to the church and
was shocked to see only 10 people there. It was
the core group of ten people who have met every
month, regardless of media coverage and celebrity
highlighting. I realized then that political activism is
In Conversation:
CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka
1 At 14 acres, South Central
Farm was the largest urban
garden in the United States.
Feeding over 300 families for
over a decade, the farmers
were evicted after the land was
sold to a private developer.
The farmers are disputing the
validity of the sale and continue
to have vigils in protest.
One of the 350 plots at South
Central Farm, the largest urban
garden in the U.S. December
2005
Manifesto workshop participants
at South Central Farm, April 2006
“Un día sin immigrante/Day without
an immigrant” March, Downtown,
Los Angeles, May 1, 2006
CaliforniaTelephone 2003, 16mm, b&w, sync sound 3 minutes
unglamorous, un-climactic and painfully slow. Things
take a really long time and it takes a lot of tedious
work. Whatever the movement or cause, it doesn’t
happen over night and for the most part, it certainly
does not happen in front of a television news or
documentary film camera.
Speaking of documentary films, I think that
this genre of filmmaking has been indispensable
in fostering a more informed American public. Not
everyone is going to pick up the book AnInconve-
nientTruth but they are much more likely to go see
the movie and get educated, informed and even
entertained in two hours. I think though that our
fluency and comfort in becoming politically informed
through documentary films has also given us a false
sense of time and an unrealistic, hyper-intellectual-
ized perception of how political movements run.
Take for example the South Central farmers and their
movement to save the farm. Along with tremen-
dous global and local support, there was also a lot
of criticism around how the South Central farmers
should have acted at certain stages of the move-
ment—which by the way, still continues with vigils
every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday night next to the
farm. But to those that quickly attributed the loss of
the farm to poor strategy, not enough diplomacy or
savvy public relations tactics that should have taken
advantage of the seemingly endless pool of Holly-
wood celebrity and money, I would ask—What does
the ideal movement look like? What is the perfect
political movement? There’s no such thing. Everyone
is learning along the way. Especially when it is a
grass roots effort. But, I think, when there is a lack of
understanding of just how much nitty gritty trench
work that goes into a movement, all the work and
hours that don’t make it into the neatly packaged
documentary, then there is a disconnect; compas-
sion and empathy take a back seat, and everyone
becomes a critic.
CB: Let’s digress slightly and talk about the
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE photographs that
you’re working on for the CUE show...
HT: What I wanted to highlight in the (SOMEOF)
MYINHERITANCE photographs was how we all
inherit culture and we give culture to other people
on an every day, everyday people way. I think that
sometimes we are a lot more diverse within than we
realize. So the photographs came from the ques-
tion—what have I inherited from the people around
me and what do I now make my own? And how
wonderful is it that I can learn a seamstress fold from
an African American woman from Oakland, and now
it becomes a part of me and I get to pass that on.
CB: And the form of the photographs, they are taken
from Japanese cookbooks? Can you talk about
the relationship between the Japanese cookbook
diagrams and the folding pieces.
HT: I was also interested in representation of culture
and how things are read. In this case the instruc-
tions read from right to left, top to bottom, as they
would in a Japanese cookbook. The form is also
inspired by Japanese origami diagrams. What has
always amazed me about Japanese cookbooks was
the generosity of the layouts—everything is always
in color and there are tons of photographs showing
what to do each step of the way. My experience
of British or American cookbooks has been a little
different—mostly text and very few pictures.
CB: Yes I sense a cookbook review coming!
HT: I know! Those cookbooks work fine, but Japa-
nese cookbooks always have color photographs with
each step in it which I thought was so user friendly.
But at the same time there are also these origami
instructions that were amazingly hard to follow, but
they assumed that you could. I always thought that
whoever was putting together these instructions
believed in the best wihtin us. They had a certain
respect for the audience and believed that people
were smart and patient enough to get this. They trust
that we’ll figure it out.
CB: That you’ll figure out how the swan got from step
a to step b to step c even though there’s no hand in
there actually showing you the fold.
In Conversation:
CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka
Research material: page from
Japanese cookbook
INTERVIEWCONTINuESONPAgE17
Film and video stills from left to right
ILoveYou2002, 16mm, color, sync sound2 minutes
UewomuiteArukou/SóDançoSamba 2002, A collaboration with Bia Gayotto DV, color, sound, 4 minutes
AROUNDSpecialRegistration 2003 DV, color, sound, 18 minutes
FromAhmehtoZushiStation 2004 DV, color, sound, 5 minutes
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Mum’strianglefoldforgrocerybags 2007Digital C-Print22 1/2" x 36 1/4"
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Favela’sfoldforfittedsheets(Detail)2007, Digital C-Print, 22 1/2" x 36 1/4"
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Noni’sseamstressfold2007, Digital C-Print, 22 1/2" x 36 1/4"
TAKEBACKTHELOVE:AJuneJordanCelebration6/13/03, Six Months
Howtobeanartist&activistatthesametime7/5/03, Crazyspace
amixin’&matchin’happenin’8/6/04, Pussyfoot Beauty Lounge
LE’RATIONALE:WorkshopinEmpathy4/16/05, Crazyspace
NARUHODO!ZaWahrudo/OHISEE!TheWorld2/4/05, Crazyspace
M-Y-MANIFESTOWORKSHOP:FundraiserfortheSouthCentralFarmers4/2/06, South Central Farm
EVERYTHINGWRONG:TheKnightsofShockingDifference9/1-9/2, 2006, Highways Performance and Gallery Space
NARUHODO!ZaWahrudo/OHISEE!TheWorld2/3/07, CUE Art Foundation
Based on Japanese “Senbazuru” / Thousand cranes
HT: I love that part of it! These people who came up
with the instructions, I’m sure at one point, had to let
go and say, okay, we can’t spoonfeed everybody, we
need to edit. I think that’s what I was attracted to.
CB: There are always these abstractions of what the
real experience of making it is.
HT: Yeah, because at one point you are faced with
the task of letting go—where, when and what do you
let go? Of course you want to hold peoples’ hands
but obviously you have to have faith and respect in
your audience.
CB: And the event that you’re doing for CUE is a
variation on a Japanese quiz show?
HT: Yes! It’s called NARuHODO!ZAWAHRuDO in
Japanese. “Naruhodo” means, “hmm yes, I see, I get
it,” and “Za wahrudo” means “the world.” It was this
travel quiz show in the 80’s which I think they have
recently brought back, where they had the funniest
television announcers sent all over the globe, to all
kinds of different cultures, to report back with ques-
tions about the local culture that Japanese celebrities
back in the studio would then have to answer. The
performance is a 40 minute program of 10 different
quiz questions from 10 different places in the world
that I have edited together. The footage however
is not subtitled so there will be 3 real time transla-
tors on hand to translate. It’s so much fun because
you get to go visit all these different places in 40
minutes, Japanese 80’s style.
CB: What can you tell me about your new video?
HT: Well the new video, which is totally in the works
right now, is inspired by a trip that I made to the
Natural History Museum right by USC. It was right
around December of last year where I discovered
they had this event called ‘First Fridays.’ What
happens is you go there and they open up the
museum…have you been?
CB: I’ve gone a couple of times. One evening was
called “Opening Night/Sonic Scenery” and featured
“silent sets” by Tom Recchion, Matmos and Lanquis
among others. Matmos was performing in the North
American room in front of the bison diorama. I think
the second time I went, it was actually called “Silent
Sets” and Mike Watt playing solo bass. Although the
musicians were playing live in the exhibit halls, you
had to plug in with headphones to hear them. Or
you could download a prerecorded soundtrack for
the exhibits and walk around listening to that. It was
great to see such a diverse crowd but odd to see
everyone with headphones on….quiet but interesting.
HT: The night I went it was a “First Friday” called
“Reflecting Spirit” and it was in conjunction with
the exhibit Collapse which was based on the book
by Jared Diamond which talks about why civiliza-
tions collapse. So for $15 it was an evening packed
full of different programs. The evening began
with a screening of Edgy Lee’s film TheHawaiians
–ReflectingSpirit in their auditorium and then we
walked into the main building and up into one of
the Mammals Halls which is filled with dioramas of
animals. The setting was just unreal to me! They
had five speakers that night—Neil and kalikolihau
Hannahs, father and daughter from the kamehameha
School in Hawaii; Senator Alan Lowenthal from
Long Beach; Raymond Sauvajot, a scientist with the
Santa Monica Mountains National Parks, and global
ecologist Michael Tobias. Everyone came from such
varied backgrounds, but what everyone seemed
to agree on, and reflect in their own practices, was
that in order for civilizations to continue, in order
for the environment to heal and flourish, it would
take a healthy and very real combination of history,
technology, science, spirituality and creativity. And
that was also reflected in the structure of the entire
evening which didn’t end with the discussion. It
continued on downstairs with an evening of music,
dance, dj’s and vj’s. I was so blown away by the entire
experience because it encompassed everything
that is so interesting in my life—spirituality, politics,
ancestry, environment, artistry, music…It was reaf-
firming to see an institution reflect that back. From
that evening I realized that was exactly the structure
that I wanted for my next film. So I have this struc-
ture and I will fill it in as I go along.
In Conversation:
CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka
Planfor1000trianglesforsomepeace 2007 1,000 grocery bag trianglesbamboo, yarn
Haruko Tanaka was born in Queens, New York in 1974. She was raised in England and Japan until her move to
Los Angeles in 1992 to attend the University of Southern California. In 1997 she received her BA in Fine Arts
and in 2003 completed her graduate studies with an MFA from The California Institute of the Arts. Her work
ranges from photography and film/video to collaborative performance, events and workshops. Her short films
have been screened at the Asian American International Film Festival at the Asia Society in New York City, The
Rotterdam International Film Festival, The New York Underground Film Festival, The Chicago Underground
Film Festival, The Women of Color Film Festival, and The Museum of Modern Art. Her recent collaborations
include a M-Y-MANIFESTOWORKSHOP at the South Central Farms in South Central, Los Angeles and a night
of EVERYTHINgWRONg:THEKnightsofShockingDifference at Highways Performance Space and Gallery in
Santa Monica, CA. In 2005 Tanaka received an Emerging Artist Visual Arts Grant from the California Community
Foundation. This exhibition at CUE will be her first New York City solo exhibition in New York. Haruko Tanaka
lives, works and surfs in Los Angeles, in English, Japanese and some Spanish.
CindyBernard
Cindy Bernard is known for photographs and projections that explore the relationship between cinema, memory,
and landscape including the widely exhibited series AsktheDust. She has received numerous grants including
Anonymous was A Woman (1998), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1998) and a Los Angeles COLA Individual Artists
Fellowship (2004). Since 1986, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in the perma-
nent collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art (LACMA) as well as international collections.
In addition to her visual practice, Bernard is creator of the experimental music series “sound.” as well as
the founder of The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS). Taking an active
interest in instigating social exchange, Bernard founded SASSAS out of the need for a small sustainable organi-
zation dedicated to experimental music in Los Angeles. As Director of SASSAS, Bernard has produced concerts
and sound events at the historic Schindler House in West Hollywood as well as at REDCAT and the Ford Amphi-
theatre working with artists such as Glenn Branca, Harold Budd, Nels Cline, Petra Haden, Joseph Jarman, Pauline
Oliveros, Tom Recchion, Wadada Leo Smith, James Tenney and Roscoe Mitchell.
Her interest in music and the public commons has spurred two projects: a series of photographs of
municipal band shells which Bernard sees as an architecture of public exchange, most recently exhibited at
Tracy Williams LTD in New York; and TheInquisitiveMusician a collaboration with artist and translator David
Hatcher based on a 17th century German satire, MusicusCuriosus,orBattalus,theInquisitiveMusician;the
StruggleforPrecedencebetweentheKunstPfeiferandtheCommonPlayers. She is currently completing Year
LongLoop, a year long documentation of the view and sounds outside her Los Angeles home. 24 hours in
length, she describes it as a cross between John’s Cage’s 4’33” and Andy Warhol’s Empire.
Biographies HarukoTanakaCB: This idea of combining different aspects of your
life—your spirituality, your politics—has come up a
few times. Do you see that as happening within
your own work?
HT: If I look at my whole life as my practice, as my
work, then I would say that these elements are defi-
nitely all there, as it is I’m sure for many people. But
If I just look at the artwork, I’d say I’m just starting to
do that. I’ve been able to do that in the events earlier
on, and I think that this film/video is aiming to do
that. I’m just starting.
CaliforniaTelephone2003
The text is excerpted from the book of poetry Haruko/
Love Poems by the late June Jordan (1936-2002)- poet,
essayist, novelist, and political activist.
Participants: Savitri Young, Mari Okada, Terry Chatkupt,
Tuan Nguyen, Melanie Nakaue, kelvin Park, Mirabelle Ang
Crew: Aigars Cepletis, Natalie Turner, Art Helterbraun Jr.,
Jeremy Edney, Roshni Sharma
ILoveYou2002
Participants:Bia Gayotto, Felicia Dickerson, Phil Mason,
kevin McCarty, Heather James, kristin Ruger
Cinematography:Adrià Julià
UeWoMuiteArukou/SóDançoSamba2003
Made in collaboration with Bia Gayotto
Participants: Bia Gayotto, Naoko Sugibayashi, Maryam
kashani, Abdulla Al Muntheri, Becky Allen, Haruko Tanaka,
Charles karubian, Mauro Wernick Monteiro, Leticia Meza
Crew: David P. Moore, Cameron Smith, Ian Smith, Ricardo
Sebastian
AROUNDSpecialRegistration 2003
Participant: Abdulla Al Mundari
Crew: Haruko Tanaka, Matt Dunnerstick, Abdulla Al
Mundari
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Mum’strianglefoldfor
grocerybags 2007
Participant: Felicia Dickerson
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Favela’sfoldforfitted
sheets2007
Participants: Melvin Cortez, Ricardo Sebastian
(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Noni’sseamstressfold
2007
Participant: Joni Gordon
Event/Performance/Workshop collaborators:
EVERYTHINGWRONG:TheKnightsofShockingDiffer-
ence - Seema D’poy kapur, Loren Larry knight Hartman
M-Y-MANIFESTOWorkshop Matt Dunnerstick
Le’Rationale:WorkshopinEmpathy - Wanda Smans
amixin’&matchin’happenin’- Seema kapur
Howtobeanartist&activistatthesametime -
Seema kapur
TAKEBACKTHELOVE-AJuneJordanCelebration
- Seema kapur, Maryam kashani, Noña Meko
Documentation photograph on event flyers pages by
Barbara May
Conversation text edited by Cindy Bernard and Haruko
Tanaka with additional help from Annetta kapon
Cindy Bernard: www.sound2cb.com, www.sassas.org
Haruko Tanaka: www.kissoftheworld.net
Credits and
acknowledgements
In Conversation:
CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka
Mission Statement CUEArtFoundation
CUE Art Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization,
is dedicated to providing a comprehensive creative forum for
contemporary art by supporting under-recognized artists via a
multi-faceted mission spanning the realms of gallery exhibitions,
public programming, professional development programs and
arts-in-education. The Foundation was established in June of 2002
with the aim of providing educational programs for young artists
and aspiring art professionals in New York and from around the
country. These programs draw on the unique community of artists,
critics, and educators brought together by the Foundation’s season
of exhibitions, public lectures, workshops, and its studio residency
program: all are designed to be of lasting practical benefit to
aspiring and under-recognized artists. The entire CUE identity is
characterized by artistic quality, independent judgment and the
discovery of genuine talent, and provides long-term benefits both
for creative individuals associated with CUE and the larger art
marketplace. Located in New York’s Chelsea gallery district, CUE’s
4,500 square feet of gallery, studio and office space serves as the
nexus for educational programs and exhibitions conducted by CUE.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9791843-0-7
ISBN-10: 0-9791843-0-4
All artwork © Haruko Tanaka
Catalog designed by Elizabeth Ellis
Printed on TriPine paper of kyeSung Paper Group (South korea)
Cover: TriPine Art Nouveau 209gsm (78lb), Text: TriPine Silk 157gsm (106lb)
Printer: Yon Art Printing (South korea)
BOARDOFDIRECTORS
Gregory Amenoff
Theodore S. Berger
Patricia Caesar
Thomas G. Devine
Thomas k. Y. Hsu
Brian D. Starer
ADVISORYCOUNCIL
Gregory Amenoff
William Corbett
Vernon Fisher
Malik Gaines
Deborah kass
kris kuramitsu
Jonathan Lethem
Irving Sandler
ExECUTIVEDIRECTOR
Jeremy Adams
DIRECTOROF
DEVELOPMENT
Elaine Bowen
PROGRAMS
COORDINATOR
Beatrice Wolert-Weese
PROGRAMSASSISTANT
kara Smith