Nina Kuo () is an Asian American painter, photographer, sculptor, author, video artist and activist who lives and works in New York City. Her work examines the role of women,

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and identity in Asian-American art. Kuo has worked in partnership with the artist Lorin Roser. Kuo has been described as being a pioneer of Chinese American art. Kuo grew up in Buffalo,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, the daughter of abstract painter

James K.Y. Kuo James K.Y. Kuo () (December 25, 1920 – January 20, 1995) was a Chinese-born painter who came to the United States in 1947. Kuo was known as a "lyrical abstract painter...who exhibited his work at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery," the China Instit ...

. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from

SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

. After moving to New York City, Kuo became part of the CETA-funded Cultural Council Foundation Artists Project. She worked in activist art communities such as Basement Workshop and as the first resident artist at the

Asian American Arts Centre The Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC) is a non-profit organization located in Chinatown, Manhattan, Chinatown in New York City. Founded in 1974, it is one of the earliest Asian-American, Asian American community organizations in the United States. ...

building registries through interviews and curation. Kuo was part of the

Godzilla Asian American Arts Network Godzilla: Asian American Arts Network was a New York-based Asian American arts collective and support network established in 1990. Founding members Ken Chu, Bing Lee, Margo Machida, and others established Godzilla in order to facilitate inter-gener ...

. She went to China and met her grandmother who she photographed and referenced in later works. She exhibited at the Clocktower MOMA PS1 in a show against racial prejudice, and her mural ''Politeness in Poverty of 1988'' was installed in the Broadway Lafayette subway station in New York City. She was included by

Marcia Tucker Marcia Tucker (born Marcia Silverman; April 11, 1940 – October 17, 2006)Smith, Roberta ''The New York Times'' (October 19, 2006), Retrieved 23 November 2014. was an American art historian, art critic and curator. In 1977 she founded the New M ...

in the Bad Girls (art exhibition) at

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

in 1994''.'' Her photo work was included by Lucy Lippard in ''The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society following a residency at Museum of Chinese in America''. In 1999 Kuo exhibited her ''Chi Pao (Chinese Banner Dresses)'' at the

Center for Photography at Woodstock The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is a not-for-profit artist-centered organization to develop and promote contemporary photography, located in Woodstock, New York. It began operations in 1977 under the name ''Catskill Center for Photogr ...

addressed gender stereotypes prevalent in

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

Work

In 2002 Lehman College Art Gallery presented ''If the Shoe Fits....''

Holland Cotter Holland Cotter is an art critic with ''The New York Times''. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Life and work Cotter was born in Connecticut and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. from Harvard College in 1970, wh ...

noted that when the artist first met her grandmother in 1980 she proudly displayed the three-inch-long shoes she wore on her bound feet. In 2009, Kuo created a series of video, animation and installation art works called ''Mythical Montage,'' which examined "illusion, feminine irony and transformations of Asian influences" and her ''Tang Ladies'' were described as "statuesque, delicate and quiet on the canvas as they investigate anachronistic details" referencing the Chinese woman's desire to fit in, as well as the often negative connotation given to them by society, specifically in New York City. In 2013, Kuo commemorated

Danny Chen Danny Chen (; May 26, 1992 – October 3, 2011) was an American United States Army, U.S. Army soldier who served during the War in Afghanistan (2001–present), War in Afghanistan. His suicide resulted in a military investigation and charges aga ...

, who committed suicide after harassment and hazing for being Asian-American. In 2014 she was featured in a solo show at Andre Zarre. Cultural influences from her travels in China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong were documented in 2016 on WNYU radio. That same year, she submitted her ''Face Montage'' to the What is Feminist Art? collection at the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery, it consisted of various images of Chinatown bands and a portrait of Danny Chen. She has described her ''Art Deviation'' exhibition in 2020 as “work that has more surprise and mystery, that is more thought provoking, pleasing and enticing so that it's not just technique... You are trying to draw them into a conversation, to bring in something unusual, to make the viewer sense there is a tantalizing experience.” In 2022–2023, her hand printed photo works ''Contrapted Series Chinatown'' and ''Contrapted Series Quilt, Brooklyn'' (both 1983), which overlay photographs of New York neighbourhoods with colourful fragments, demonstrating how cultural memory is made from scattered debris, were shown at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

's Just Above Midtown (JAM) Gallery. Politeness

Kuo received scholarships and studied at International Center of Photography in New York City. Her work is in the collections of Brooklyn Museum of Art and New Museum in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. She has lectured at

the New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

, Beijing University, Central Academy of Art, Beijing. In 2020, she created a series of sculptures in relation to the

coronavirus Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the com ...

, honoring the lives of those lost with her "Tomb Clay Figures," which she said: "This global pandemic pinpoints how death is mentally difficult. My goal is to create art that can reinvent these emotions, while honoring people we have all admired." In 2020, she had her work exhibited in The Smithsonian's exhibition, "What Is Feminist Art? Revisted. ''

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...

'' 4 November 2022 writes, "Nina Kuo’s Contrapted Series Chinatown and Contrapted Series Quilt, Brooklyn (both 1983), overlay photographs of the titular New York neighbourhoods with colourful fragments, demonstrating how cultural memory is made from scattered debris."

Exhibitions

Solo

*2007: "Chanel Chinoiserie," Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, New York, NY *2009: "Mythical Museum," with Lorin Roser, Gallery 456, New York, NY *2014: "New Works: Artquakes," Andre Zarre Gallery, New York, NY *2020: "Art Deviation," Flushing Town Hall, Queens, New York

Group

* 1978: Group show, Just Above Midtown Gallery, New York, NY * 1984: "ID: An Exhibition of Third World Woman Photographers," MoMA PS1, New York, NY * 1988: "TransAtlantic Traditions: Women Photographers from the USA and Puerto Rico,” Camerawork Gallery, London, curated by

Kellie Jones Kellie Jones (born 1959) is an American art historian and curator. She is a Professor in Art History and Archaeology in African American Studies at Columbia University. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. Biography Jones is the daughter of ...

* 1990: "Communycations: Public Mirror: Artists Against Racial Prejudice," MoMA PS1 (New York, NY) * 1991: "Visual Narratives," Wunsch Arts Center, Glen Cove, NY, curated by

Thelma Golden Thelma Golden (born 1965 in St. Albans, Queens) is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, United States. Golden joined the Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs in 2000 before succeeding ...

* 1994: "Bad Girls (Part II)," New Museum of Contemporary Art New York (New York, NY) * 2002: "Constellation – Celebrating 25 Years," Center for Photography at Woodstock: CPW (Woodstock, NY) * 2003: "It's A Small World," China 2000 Fine Art (New York, NY) * 2005: "New York Eviction Blues,"

, New York, NY * 2014: "Occupied Canvas," Andre Zarre Gallery * 2019: "What is Feminist Art?,"

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, Washington, D.C. * 2022: " Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces,"

, New York, NY

Collections

Kuo's work is in the collections of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, Biblioteque Nationale, and New Museum.

Grants and residencies

* 1982:

– Artist residency * 1986: Artmatters – Grant * 1990: Museum of Chinese in America – Artist residency * 1993: Arts International – Travel grant to China1999: Light Work (Syracuse, NY) – Artist residency * 1999: Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW), now known as Catskill Center for Photography – Artist residency * 2001, 2002: New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) – Artist grant * 2002: Travel Grant to Japan to study Zen Painting

Publications

* * Catalog of an exhibition held at the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery, Syracuse, NY * Jonathan Goodman. Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
. May 2007. * Anisa Tavangar. "The Big Review: Just Above Midtown at the Museum of Modern Art" The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
4 November 2022. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/11/04/the-big-review-just-above-midtown * Marisa Crawford. "Revisiting the Question “What Is Feminist Art?” Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking ...
. October 15, 2020.