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Basement Workshop was an Asian-American political and arts organization in New York City active from 1970-1986.[1]It was created during the Asian American Movement and acted as an umbrella organization to writers, visual artists, dancers and choreographers, and activists. Basement Workshop ran a creative arts program, a youth employment program, an after school program for children, and a resource center for community documentation. In addition, the organization published Bridge Magazine, offered language and citizenship classes, and sponsored exhibitions. Artists such as Tomie Arai, Fay Chiang, Larry Hama, Jessica Hagedorn, Jason Kao Hwang, Nina Kuo,[2]and Chris Iijima were involved. Basement Workshop spawned numerous other organizations, including the Asian American Dance Theater, Asian American Arts Centre, Godzilla Asian American Arts Network, and Museum of Chinese in America[3][4].

History

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Basement Workshop evolved during the Asian American Art movement, inspired by the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Co-founded by Danny Yung, Eleanor Yung, Peter Pan, Frank Ching, and Rocky Chin, the initial group of artist, writers, performers, and social activists initially met in a leaky Chinatown basement at 54 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY, circa 1969. The group's activities grew from the urban planning project "Chinatown Report of 1969," overseen by Danny Yung and funded by the Ford Foundation[5][6][7]. After being officially incorporated as a nonprofit in 1971, Basement Workshop served as an umbrella organization overarching four programs: publication, research, arts, and community service[8]. The small cultural organization soon gained a national reputation and started to receive grants and other funds to promote Asian American art. In 1974, artist and writer, Fay Chiang, took over as the Executive Director of the Basement Workshop after serving as the collective's Assistant Director. She took over during a time of intense political factions in Chinatown, but continued as the Executive Director, expanding the group's membership and overseeing the Catherine Gallery exhibitions, until the the organization dissolved in 1986[5]. The Basement Workshop had been shaken internally by the accusations and criticisms of members of the Communist Workers' Party, but it closed on the grounds that the staff members, who were mostly artist, had to move on with their personal careers[4][8].

Services and Projects

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Basement Workshop curated a multitude of activities including the Bridge Magazine (1971–8), Amerasia Creative Arts, the Asian American Dance Workshop (which would be renamed the Asian American Arts Centre in 1976), Community Planning Workshop (which became Asian Americans For Equality), Asian American Resource Center (which would eventually become the Museum of Chinese in Americas), and the Catherine Gallery[5].

The magazine, Bridge, was a bimonthly magazine covering Asian cultural and political issues in the United States and abroad that was published by the BW from 1971 to 1979. However, it was taken over by the Asian Cinevision organization due to BW’s managerial difficulty in sustaining the publication program[8][9]

The Amerasia Creative Arts Program introduced community members to creative writing through literature workshops, music, dance, choreography and visual arts including photography, film workshops and silk screening. Basement Workshop also supported the "Clean Chinatown Project" which aimed to improve the standards of living in Chinatown through cleaning up the streets and then painted street murals, or other graphics, on the walls of the city. [9][10]

Also under the Amerasia Creative Arts Program, in the fall of 1971, Basement artists and writers undertook a project to illustrate and publish the music of Chris Iijima, Nobuko Miyamoto, and Charlie Chin. Titled Yellow Pearl, after one of their songs, it grew into a larger compilation of writing, art, and music. The final work was a square format portfolio of 57 prints on heavy yellow paper of artwork, music, and writings inspired by the folksingers and their album Grain of Sand. The works of many artists who were involved, in some way or another, with the Basement Workshop were included in the Yellow Pearl collection, which was distributed in 1972. Like much of the collective’s activities, the Yellow Pearl boxed set was intended to try to unify the Asian American society during difficult times of factional unrest.[4][5][11]

The Community Planning Workshop's aim was to help in immigrants with the means of English Language Classes, a new immigrant service program, a citizen registration program. Another service offered was a youth after school program, where kids could do arts and crafts, which, in turn, kept supervised and safe.[8]

Under the Asian American Resource Center, a branch from the original 1969 Chinatown Report, Basement Workshop worked to gather resources on Asian American history, which at the time was very limited. Their collection included academic research studies and publications, books, pamphlets, journals, and audio all relating to the Asian American studies.[10][8]

Basement Workshop also networked with, argued with, and was inspired by other organizations such as Amerasia Creative Arts, Yellow Brotherhood, Gidra Newspaper, Visual Communications in L.A. and Kearny Street Workshop, the International Hotel Support Committee, Asian American Theater Workshop and Japanese American Media Workshop in San Francisco.[6]

Locations

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Initial meetings were hosted in a leaky Chinatown basement around 1969 at 54 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY.

The Basement Workshop then moved successively to 22 Catherine Street, then to 199 Lafayette Street, and then expanded to include spaces at 7 Eldridge Street and 32 East Broadway.

It finally returned to 22 Catherine Street during the collective’s existence from 1971 to 1986.[5]

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Artists who showed at the Catherine Gallery include John Allen, Tomie Arai, Arlan Huang (b 1948), Keiko Bonk (b 1954), Eric Chan (b 1975), Amy Cheng (b 1956), Jean Chiang, Janice Chiang (b 1955), Alex Chin, Lei-Sanne Doo, Ming Fay (b 1943), Sheila Hamanaka, Colin Lee, Corky Lee (b 1947), Lanie Lee, David de Silva, William Jung, Nina Kuo, Margo Machida, Kenji Nakahashi (b 1947), Mine Okube (b 1913), Cissy Pao (b1950), Richard Whitten, John Woo, and Charles Yuen.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Chang, Alexandra (2009). Envisioning Diaspora. Timezone 8. pp. 24–29. ISBN 978-9881752239.
  2. ^ hyun Offline (2006-07-06). "Caught Between Worlds: Artist Nina Kuo". Asiance Magazine. Retrieved 2017-01-17.
  3. ^ "A Brief History of the Art Collectives of NYC's Chinatown". Hyperallergic. 2017-02-07. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  4. ^ a b c "A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America | Smithsonian Folkways Magazine". Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Marter, Joan, ed. (2011). The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 215–216. ISBN 978-0-19-533579-8.
  6. ^ a b "Yung, Danny - Selected Document - artasiamerica - A Digital Archive for Asian / Asian American Contemporary Art History". artasiamerica.org. Retrieved 2015-09-02.
  7. ^ Chinatown Study Group (1970). Chinatown Report 1969.
  8. ^ a b c d e Shim, Bo-Seon. "Race and Culture in Nonprofits: The Transformation of New York Asian American Arts Organizations, 1971–2004." Order No. 3213590, Columbia University, 2006. https://search.proquest.com/docview/305360869?accountid=10267.
  9. ^ a b Maeda, Daryl. (2016, June 09). The Asian American Movement. Oxford Encyclopedia of American History. Retrieved 16 Oct. 2018,http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-21.
  10. ^ a b "A Brief History of the Art Collectives of NYC's Chinatown". Hyperallergic. 2017-02-07. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  11. ^ Chang, Alexandra (2009). Envisioning Diaspora. Timezone 8. p. 25. ISBN 978-9881752239.
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Museum of Chinese In America http://www.mocanyc.org

Article on Fay Chiang's passing http://apa.nyu.edu/fay-chiang/

Tomie Arai Papers http://apa.nyu.edu/tomie-arai-papers/

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