Synopsis
Throughout the summer of 2004, San Francisco's visual landscape was blanketed with advertisements for the Asian Art Museum's “Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile” exhibit, images which annoyed me to no end. So I pirated their poster image, turning it into my own in response. On the closing weekend of the “Geisha” show, my friend S. and I plastered Japantown with dozens of posters, and then proceeded to plant five dozen flyers in the information booth inside the Asian Art Museum itself. Various sources noted the wide-ranging impact of the small, simple action:
in Japantown, the museum, academic discourse, and on public consciousness through the media. The San Francisco Chronicle devoted nearly a full page, giving last word to a U.C. art history professor: "To the extent that museums assert authority to speak for culture, they open themselves up for critique, and they should engage that critique."Scott Tsuchitani, May 2005
posted by Sansei Geisha at 11:24 PM
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