Two Simultaneous Street Fair Poster Exhibits

This has been a weird year....artwise.  First I get that artist-in-residence at Chinese Historical Society of America.  Then I have my first ever solo exhibit of all my Nihonmachi Street Fair posters at National Japanese Historical Society (NJAHS) in Japantown. 

From the Mist; 30 years of Nihonmachi Street Fair Posters by Leland Wong

Then University of California Santa Barbara library has my posters from their collection on exhibit.   Spirit of Unity, Leland Wong and the Nihonmachi Street Fair.

Nothing much on the monetary side though....and when I mention that my posters are going for $225 each, no response.  Oh well...so much for art.  Now you know why I don't encourage any of my kids to get into art.**** Here's my exhibit at NJAHS:

I came up with the name.

Kind of an awkward exhibit set up.  NJAHS gallery space is limited and the thirty posters can only be stacked three high.  Making viewing of the top row posters difficult.

Photo courtesy of Ed Jay.

Thanks to Rich Tokeshi, Leon Sun, Pete Yamamoto, Sharon Senzaki, Rachel Inouye and Ros Tonai for putting together this exhibition.  I didn't do anything for this exhibit but show up on the reception day.

Photo courtesy of Ed Jay.

I can't say much people showed up.  I would say a total of twenty five people attended the opening reception.  But because of the street fair going on during the reception and the I-Hotel commemoration happening that evening, people did not stay long. 

There was a rare appearance of my baby daughter though.  Which is unusual because no one in my family ever gives a sh*t about my art nor do they ever attend any of my art receptions.  This even goes back to when my parents used to be around.

Here's the exhibit at the UC Santa Barbara Library where the Leland Wong archives are at:

Spirit of Unity: Leland Wong and the Nihonmachi Street Fair

Thanks Sal Guerena for putting this exhibit together.  It's not the complete collection because they do not own a complete collection.  I have run out of several copies of the posters by the time they got to me.

There was no formal reception, so I didn't have to be down there.  Though they're waiting for me to write some kind of narrative for the posters.

Wonder what the sign says about me.

Leland Wong is a San Francisco-based graphic artist and photographer best known for his screen-print posters announcing the San Francisco Nihonmachi Street Fair.  2013 is the 40 th anniversary of the street fair, which takes place in Japantown each summer. The spirit of unity is an enduring value that brings the Bay Area’s diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander communities together in a celebration of  culture and community service. Leland Wong's artwork has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.  His artistic affinities and iconography are rooted in San Francisco's Chinatown where he was born and raised.  His posters, designed for community events such as the Nihonmachi, draw on both Japanese and Chinese traditions and are noted for their stylistic symmetry of pan-Asian aesthetics.The posters on exhibit in the Library are only a selection from the Library's extensive collection of Wong's Nihonmachi posters now housed in the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) in the Library’s Department of Special Collections.Exhibition on view in the Library's Third Floor Gallery through October 10, 2013.(photos courtesy of Sal Guerena)