South SFV Today

The Cantor Arts Center presents "Spirit House," a major group exhibition highlighting how contemporary artists of the Asian diaspora challenge the boundary between life and death through art. On view from September 4, 2024, to January 26, 2025, the exhibition comprises nearly 50 works by 33 artists, including large-scale paintings, digital media, ceramic sculpture, photography, and significant new acquisitions within the museum’s permanent collection.

“This exhibition comes from an observation gleaned over the last few years: that many contemporary artists are intentionally addressing some of our most challenging existential questions through their artistic practices,” said Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) co-director and the Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “These artists deftly interweave family narratives within larger global contexts to show that the stakes of our diasporic lives are cosmic. Motivated by their vulnerability and my own diasporic experience, I framed the project through Thai spirit houses, an omnipresent force during my childhood in Bangkok.”

"Spirit House" explores themes such as communicating with ghosts, inhabiting haunted spaces, reincarnation, and entering different dimensions using spirit houses as its interpretive framework. These small devotional structures found throughout Thailand provide shelter for the supernatural. Like the art represented in this show, they collapse the distance between past and present as well as this world and the next. Alexander noted that she aims “to capture and say something about art in our present moment and how we might think about art and death to lead a more meaningful life.”

The exhibition is divided into five thematic sections – “Spirit Houses,” “Ghosts,” “Hauntings,” “Shrines,” and “Dimensions” – which survey how featured artists explore modes of making that exceed rational understanding. The works demonstrate how artists can act like spirit mediums, materializing prayers and invocations while surpassing linear time through creative processes. These artists bring together family narratives severed by war, migration, and generational trauma to create new realms and realities.

Livien Yin: Thirsty is a solo exhibition showcasing new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Livien Yin in the Ruth Levison Halperin Gallery. Yin's work often casts friends as models to create new connections between contemporary subjects and historical Asian Americans across generations. This exhibition runs through February 2, 2025.

TT Takemoto: Remembering in the Absence of Memory features two video works alongside handmade objects by San Francisco Bay Area-based artist TT Takemoto in the Madeleine H. Russell Gallery. Takemoto’s videos uniquely center queer experiences of intimacy in prewar and WWII contexts. The Gentleman’s Gaman series (2009-23) offers expanded engagement with overlooked narratives in Asian American history.

“We are thrilled to share that works by 12 of the 33 artists featured in this exhibition – including Kelly Akashi, Binh Danh, Dominique Fung, Hesoo Kwon, Timothy Lai, Jarod Lew, An-My Lê, Kang Seung Lee, Reagan Louie," said Veronica Roberts,"the John and Jill Freidenrich Director at Cantor."This exhibition is a culmination of years of research."

"Spirit House" is part of three major exhibitions in 2024 organized by AAAI dedicated to acquiring art related to Asian American artists.

The Cantor Arts Center has extended its hours to Wednesday-Friday from 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m., Saturday-Sunday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.