Sallyport - The Magazine of Rice University - Spring 2002

Delicate Networks - Arts
Spring 2002
VOL.58, NO.3
Delicate Networks
Artist Liga Pang tapped her well-worn American cowboy boots and pointed
to the beautiful tunic she was wearing, which she had fashioned from the
fabric of antique Japanese kimonos.
...........................................................................
With cowboy boots, it s me, she said. I am a mixture of these. The
installations at Rice Gallery this winter, by Pang and Lee Mingwei,
showcased the work of two Asian American artists who interlace disparate
cultural influences in their work as well as in their identities.
On view from November 9 to December 9, 2001, Pang s installation, Ikasu,
infused the gallery with the tranquility of the natural world. Ikasu is a
Japanese word that means to give life to, and Pang s room-sized sculptural
form did just that.
Ikasu
by Liga Pang
The Tourist Project
by Lee Mingwei
Composed of a delicate mesh of dead, brittle bamboo twigs, the exquisitely
contoured structure was flexible but strong, fragile but sturdy. Pang and
four assistants worked full time for an entire month to painstakingly weave
the delicate curtain of bamboo.
Currently residing in Japan, Pang teaches master classes at the prestigious
Sogetsu School of ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. Though
her work departs radically from the formal rules of this ancient art, it retains
ikebana s spare elegance and acute sensitivity to the natural world. Pang
stresses a method of respecting and listening to natural materials that she
calls collaboration with nature. She says she takes great energy from just
walking, just observing nature in the woods and hills and on the beach near
her home in Hayamacho, Japan. I wanted to do something, some work that
gives the same kind of feeling to viewers of Ikasu, she says. I felt I wanted
to move people, to provide something nourishing to the soul.
Photos: by Liga Pang
Pang s work is informed by her intimate experience of several cultures. She
was born in 1939 in Japan to Chinese parents and, as a headstrong teenager,
moved to California by herself without even a working knowledge of
English. Pang remained in the United States and pursued a successful
career in painting until moving back to Japan in the late 1980s. Her
consummate ease in moving between cultures is marked as much by her
fluency in English, Chinese, and Japanese as it is by her eclectic personal
style.
A beautiful web also figured centrally in Lee Mingwei s installation, The
Tourist Project, on view January 17 to February 24, 2002. In Lee s case,
however, the web was an intangible network of personal connections and
interactions. The Tourist Project reached far beyond the confines of the
gallery space as Lee discovered the city of Houston through its residents
eyes. Twenty participants volunteering as tour guides introduced Lee to
locations in the city that were personally meaningful to them. In this fun,
poignant process of sharing stories and memories, the city came to be
defined by the personal histories that have unfolded within it.
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