Press Releases

JANM in the News

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To access other external articles related to the Museum, please visit our general “JANM in the News” page at www.janm.org/press/in-the-news.

Gidra vs. the American War Machine
Imprint, February 17, 2012

By Michael Dooley

Remember those radical underground rags of the late 1960s? The East Village Other. The Berkeley Barb. The L.A. Free Press. Gidra. Wait… Gidra? Wasn't that a monster in those dumb Godzilla movies? Yes, but just because he tried to lay waste to Japan and the rest of civilization, Gidra wasn't all bad. Which is how [...]

JANM Exhibit Looks at the Contributions of Post-War Japanese American Artists
Downtown News, November 18, 2011

By Richard Guzman

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - A pristine 1963 Chevy Stingray Corvette sits on the first floor of the Japanese American National Museum. With its silver body and red interior, it acts like a magnet for museum visitors such as 28-year-old Joshua Holloway, who on a recent weekday afternoon stared into the window at the classic American sports car.

"It’s beautiful. It’s definitely a work of art," said the South Gate resident.

While its function is as a machine, Holloway is not the only one who thinks of the vehicle in artistic terms. That comes into play in the recently opened JANM exhibit Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Post-War Los Angeles.

The Corvette is one of hundreds of items on display at the museum through Feb. 19. The exhibit looks at the influence that Japanese American artists, whose sense of culture and identity was influenced by the post-World War II period from 1945 to 1980, have had on the Los Angeles art scene.

PST, A to Z: 'Drawing the Line' at JANM
Los Angeles Times Culture Monster, November 10, 2011

By Sharon Mizota

The wall text at the beginning of "Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Post-War Los Angeles" at the Japanese American National Museum describes how California’s reputation as the land of endless possibility and optimism was experienced a bit differently by Japanese Americans returning from World War II internment camps. Most of the works by the show’s 10 featured artists, designers, and performers reflect a certain dissatisfaction with mainstream modes of representation and attempt to counter them with images of their own, both so-called “positive” ones and others that are more ambivalent and questioning.

For a show with only 10 artists, "Drawing the Line" covers a lot of ground, from Matsumi Kanemitsu’s blend of Japanese brush painting techniques, Abstract Expressionist flourishes and Pop art content, to Qris Yamashita’s whimsical repurposing of Japanese woodblock print motifs in posters and T-shirts for community events, to artifacts from the career of dancer turned activist and folksinger Nobuko Miyamoto.