Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is building a premier collection of works by Asian American and Asian diasporic artists.  

It’s the result of efforts by curator Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander and art historian Marci Kwon, co-directors of the Asian American Art Initiative, which since 2021 has promoted acquiring and conserving Asian artworks with historic and contemporary relevance.  

AAAI exhibitions on view include “Spirit House,” showcasing 33 contemporary artists of Asian descent (through Jan. 26); “Livien Yin: Thirsty” (through Feb. 23); “TT Takemoto: Remembering in the Absence of Memory” (through April 6); and, ongoing, “The Faces of Ruth Asawa.”  

Alexander, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, co-founded AAAI with Kwon, assistant professor of art history at Stanford, upon learning that only about 40 works by Asian Americans were among the center’s roughly 40,000 items when she started in her position in 2018. She resolved to recalibrate the imbalance, seeking historic and contemporary material. 

“In 2022, I did a sweep of shows grounded in the historical. This year, I wanted to think about living artists connected to their pasts and what it means for their lived experiences. As a historian at a university art museum, (the aim was) to show viewers and students how artists can engage with memory and history and bring up topics relevant to us today,” Alexander says. 

Artists represented in “Spirit House” demonstrate a wide range of Asian American themes and styles. Alexandar says, “What unites all of them, broadly speaking, is the transformational power of art. They’re thinking through source material—oral histories from their families or researching archives. They’re showing us what you can do in thinking of the past but looking towards the future. It’s grounded in knowing your place in the world, but also thinking about what you’re doing and what we should be thinking about in the future.” 

The exhibition has life and death themes: ghosts, haunted spaces, dreams, nightmares, memory, reincarnation, and spiritual and spectral realms.  

Alexander, a native of Thailand who grew up with spirit houses as an ever present and intriguing force, says, “They’re commonplace in Thailand, you can’t miss them. They’re a place where spirits live, you can talk to the dead, give offerings to your ancestors. Through adulthood, they’ve stayed with me. If I see an altar or shrine in someone’s home, it signals a shared diasporic experience.” 

Alexander says both Kelly Akashi’s “Inheritance” and Greg Ito’s The Weight of Your Shadow” connect to Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Akashi’s lead crystal sculpture made from a cast of her own hand bears her grandmother’s bracelet and ring. It is placed atop a stone. 

“Kelly’s family didn’t talk about being incarcerated. What happens if your family is reticent to share? She turned to Poston (camp); to the site. What if rocks, trees, and the landscape hold memories?” The heirloom jewelry adds an additional personal, powerful psychological element, Alexander suggests. 

Ito’s work recalls barracks where Japanese Americans were incarcerated. The structure stands amid scattered family heirlooms—stones, a bronze turtle. Under the building’s cerulean exterior paint, the wood appears charred. Even so, the installation expresses hope. Alexander says, “Inside, you see this beautiful plant life growing. It signals the younger generation’s capacity to, if not heal, at least think through the trauma of their ancestors. To showcase hopefulness was important to me.” 

“Thirsty” is the first solo museum show for Yin, a New York-based Chinese American who earned a Master of Fine Arts from Stanford in 2019. In “All You Can Ache,” a textured oil painting of a young woman, healing patches on the figure’s bare back suggest the importance of self-care, says Alexander: “Capturing this tender moment, I thought, was so touching. It’s personal. …. It’s about friends and people they know.” 

The Takemoto exhibit features two videos, handmade objects and works on paper. Highlighting queer Asian American histories, the San Francisco artist’s voice spans from humorous to meditative. For example, tiny Japanese Kokeshi dolls are made of transparent glass (not traditional wood or ceramic) suggestive of fragility, but deceptively strong. As Takemoto plays with the tension between quiet and bold expression, Alexander says, “I’m drawn to thinking through what the archive can capture. Queer people were incarcerated during World War II, but we don’t have the archival evidence. How do we flesh out their lives?” 

Alexander calls “The Faces of Ruth Asawa” a “living archive” that exemplifies the trust that people put into the iconic Bay Area sculptor who died in 2013. “She cared about individuals and this work captures that. People trusted her to go through having their faces cast. … She kept it on the side of her house for 30 years.”  

Asian American Art Initiative exhibitions continue through 2025 at Cantor Arts Center, 328 Lomita Drive, Stanford University. Admission is free. Visit museum.stanford.edu.