511 west 25th street, new york, ny 10001

www.cueartfoundation.org

2006–2007 h a r u ko ta n a k a

LEAD SPONSOR OF 2006-07 SEASON OF EXHIBITION CATALOGUES:

KYESUNG PAPER GROUP (SOUTH KOREA)

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

ELIZABETH FIRESTONE GRAHAM FOUNDATION

CUE Art Foundation

February 2 – March 10, 2007

CuratedbyCindyBernard

HARUkO TANAk A

We are honored and grateful to present this exhibition generously curated by Cindy Bernard. For

the CUE solo exhibition series, Ms. Bernard has chosen fellow artist, Haruko Tanaka, who lives and

works in Los Angeles. Ms. Bernard’s appreciation of Tanaka’s work, demonstrates how the Founda-

tion’s discretionary selection process allows for the unfettered expression of each curator’s views.

CUE is please to recognize that this is Ms. Tanaka’s first solo exhibition in New York. Ms. Bernard

and we, together, celebrate this effort and wish her a future of fulfillment and success.

In Conversation CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka

October2006,LosAngeles,CA

CindyBernard:I vaguely recall that when we met,

back in 1996 when you were a student at USC, you

were studying translation or languages?

HarukoTanaka:Well I went there as an International

Relations major when I was 18. Being from an inter-

national school in Japan, I figured that was the thing

to do. But during some introductory courses I

realized that International Relations just meant

American foreign policy, so I got really turned-off.

The most disturbing thing was that we’d be in class

and the teacher would ask, “Well what happened to

us,” or “What did we do,” — there were all these

‘we’s’ and ‘us’s’ that I couldn’t relate to.

CB: You mean ‘us’ as in the U.S.?

HT: He’d say, “Well what happened to us in 1941?”

CB: And as a Japanese student sitting there….

HT: I felt really uncomfortable. I just hadn’t grown up

with a “we-us-ours-them” vernacular or paradigm. So

then I went to the Communications Department and

then finally found Art in my third year there.

CB: So what was your idea of what International

Relations was supposed to be?

HT: As far as my previous education was concerned,

there was a strong emphasis on World History and

World Literature. So my sense was that I would get

to University of Southern California (USC) and study

the foreign policy of many different countries.

CB: Or foreign policy from many perspectives,

in any case.

HT: But it wasn’t, so ….

CB:So do you think that experience had an effect on

your work? Because pretty much from the beginning,

as I recall anyway, your work always dealt with issues

of identity—Japanese, Japanese-American, Asian,

Asian-American. Even from your first projects…

HT: Definitely. The question was always, ‘Who am I

and how do I fit in?’ But growing up in both England

and Japan, and being at USC and living in the U.S.

for the first time, I realized those things were really

complex. At the same time I was fitting in pretty

smoothly, people were missing whole parts of me.

I had an American accent so the assumption was

that I was Japanese-American. And since I seemed

to have a certain amount of scattered knowledge of

popular culture references I sort of slipped in. But

inside it was a tremendous shock and even more of

a shock to be confronted with wondering whether

my apprehension to voice my opinion out loud,

all the time, was because of my inner repressed

Japanese-ness. People wanted to know immediately

whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. People

wanted to know what I was thinking all the time.

So all of a sudden I was apparently a lot more

Japanese than I had ever been. And yet in Japan

I had always seen myself as somewhat of a foreigner

because I had grown up abroad and English was

my first language.

CB: Is CaliforniaTelephone (2003) the first work that

you’re not in?

HT: I’m in there for a split second at the very begin-

ning whispering the first phrase. The first work

though that I wasn’t in was By the WaterfallinEaton

Canyon — 7 times (2000) which was my second

video ever. It was a video of a group of 7 high school

students hiking having their group portrait snapshot

taken by a passing hiker, looped 7 times. But after

that there were several photo projects, TheFitIn

RoomSeries, Summer2000, AllInMe (2001) and

my first film ILoveYou (2002) which had my face all

over them. CaliforniaTelephone came right after

ILoveYou which was all about…

CB: All about you!

HT: Yep, it’s all about me and my big face being in

the 16mm frame and being projected onto a giant

screen. So I just wanted to go to the extreme oppo-

site which I felt meant literally turning the camera in

the other direction, while still committing to voicing

my issues with representation. So the logical answer

seemed to be a group portrait. The great thing with

the panning camera shot was that I was able to

capture a group portrait but also focus on the indi-

vidual at the same time.

CB: Well you went from representing yourself in a

way you hadn’t seen in American movies, or as I think

you once said ILoveYou was generated out of the

desire to see someone with a Japanese face have the

words “I love you” uttered on screen to them. Then,

in CaliforniaTelephone, you are replaced with a range

of Asian faces. So it becomes an encyclopedia of

what’s not represented.

HT: It’s connected to ILoveYou in that I was

thinking about taking matters into my own hands

and doing something about the very thing I was

always complaining about—the severe lack of Asian,

Asian-American, and chubby girl representation, in

the case of ILoveYou, in American visual culture. So

what could I do?—put as many Asian faces up there

as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

So you don’t have to talk about it all, or you do

have to talk about it. It can actually go either way.

And it’s not only Asian faces but it’s also different

accents—English as a first language, English as a

second language, English as a third language,

native English speaker with an accent, etc. The

nuances are endless.

CB: And that whole process of comprehension is

reiterated through the loss of the sentence as it

passes through one person to another. It’s literally

that difference between each person that causes that

degeneration of the phrases. The quotes in California

Telephone are from June Jordan – can you talk about

her influence on your work?

HT: June Jordan was a poet, essayist, novelist, activist

and pacifist. She was also a professor of African

American Studies at UC Berkeley where she founded

and directed Poetry for the People which was a

program aimed toward achieving political and artistic

empowerment for students. A friend of mine from

CalArts, Maryam kashani, had gone to UC Berkeley

in undergrad and knew June Jordan from then. Well

I was hanging out with Maryam one night and she

asked me if I knew about June Jordan’s writing and

more specifically if I had ever read her collection

of love poems, Haruko/LovePoems. I immediately

picked up a copy of the book and was just so jazzed

to see my name in print, not only on a bookcover, but

all over inside the book too. Who knew!! It was just

amazing to read titles like “For HARUkO,” “Poem for

HARUkO,” “Update for HARUkO,” “Messages from

HARUkO,” “Postcript with HARUkO”….

CB: Because in English you wouldn’t have seen

it so often.

HT: Yes! When you go to any gift stores for tourists

where they have the little California license plates

with the names on them— “HARUkO” is never going

to be there you know…and that always got me down

because I’d always look in the H’s anyway.

CB: Right, they’re probably not going to sell like

“JANE” or “CINDY” in the United States.

HT: Exactly. And once I read the poetry I was

completely blown away. She was devastatingly

emotional and yet also political. Love and politics

went hand in hand. So the lines from California

Telephone are excerpted from IMustBecomea

MenacetomyEnemies-DedicatedtothePoet

AgostinhoNeto,PresidentofThePeople’sRepublic

ofAngola:1976.

Fit In Room Series, Summer 2000, #6 2000 C-print 11" x 11"

CB: So the first evening that you organized was

TAKEBACKTHELOVE:AJuneJordanCelebration

in 2003?

HT: Yes. An evening of films, poetry readings, visual

art, graffiti, emcee, dj, and improvised live music, all in

celebration of June Jordan. A couple of friends and

I got together. We had all happened to make works

of art about or around June Jordan at that time so

we thought it would be completely timely to have

a celebration, and it was also the anniversary of her

passing and so we did a one night event at this alter-

native space called Six Months on Crenshaw run by

Eungie Joo. It was the best thing because it incorpo-

rated our passion and love of politics, spirituality, art

making and bootie shaking! It was a wonderful expe-

rience because it proved to us that we could express

ourselves in all the different, real and joyous ways

that we were, just the way we were. I had a blast.

Then that same summer, it was the night of

Barry White’s death, I’ll never forget, July 5th, 2003,

my friend and also June Jordan event collaborator

Seema kapur and I did Howtobeanartistand

activistatthesametime. As part of this larger show

called DownToIt at Crazyspace, we had a sign-in

desk/booth where people could pick up their very

own activist/artist doggie bags. It seemed like the

question was on a lot of people’s minds. At discus-

sions and critiques at Six Months, artists were

struggling with the issue of how can I be an artist

and activist at the same time? And our sentiment

was, well how can you not be? I think our defini-

tion of “activism” was different. What Seema and I

concluded was that what we do is inevitably rooted

both in art and activism (just to name a few).

CB: Arundahti Roy talks about this. She hates the

term writer-activist, for her it’s like saying sofa-bed.

She claims it suggests that writers, and by extension

artists, are “too effete” for the clarity and the passion

necessary to publicly take a stand and that activists

lack intellectual complexity in their position taking.

That in limiting the activities or actions that either

term can encompass, it diminishes both.

HT: It seemed like when these questions were being

asked peoples’ art and activism were suffering

respectively because the question had a paralyzing

effect where artists would torture themselves

because their work wasn’t politically effective or

motivated enough. But I think by virtue of who we

are—women of color in the U.S., multi-lingual, multi-

cultural, just to name a few—then what we express is

art, it is political, it is activist.

So we had a Barry White altar playing Barry

White music—just to keep things grounded.

CB: Just so we wouldn’t forget what was important.

HT: Exactly. And then we had this table where people

could sign-in and take their own Artist/Activist

doggie bag home with them. There was a CD inside

with a reading of June Jordan’s WhyIbecamea

pacifistandthenHowIbecameawarrioragain: from

the June Jordan celebration, we also had a US Postal

service sticker, inspired by taggers, on which we had

printed a picture of a woman revolutionary on it saying

“I RESIST ________ ” and we encouraged people to fill

in the blank, post it up somewhere in public and then

email us a photo of it. Only a couple of people ended

up getting back to us, but that’s okay.

I think what we wanted to say was—Don’t

worry about it. Just keep making the work as close as

to who you are as possible.

CB: When you do these events, what makes them

successful for you?

HT: I think what makes them successful is the

process. I have collaborated with various people so

far—and by collaborating I mean co-authoring. I think

the great thing about collaboration is the compro-

mise and the unsuspecting results. You have to make

compromises with the people that you’re working

with. Sometimes a collaborator might insist on some-

thing that seems so outlandish, but then you see just

how obsessed or dedicated they are about it that

you just trust that it’s going to work. And everybody

has a little bit of that blinded insistence that they

contribute, so the end result is something that you

could have never expected to have done by yourself.

Each time we’ve given 120% as far as what we want

to do and how we want to do it; but as far as who

gets there and whether or not there will be any press

coverage, which there has not been at all, we don’t

sweat that part. Our attitude has been maximum

expectation of ourselves, but no expectations on the

people that come. But we’re grateful because people

have given us their time and shown up.

CB: Activism is a big part of your work. How do

you decide which activities are incorporated into

artworks? I’m thinking of your whole involvement

with the battle to save the South Central Farm here in

Los Angeles.1 Sometimes there is a direct correlation

as with the M-Y-MANIFESTOWORKSHOP at South

Central Farm, but in other works the politic is less

overt even if an activist position still informs the work.

HT: Well leading up to that point I had started going

to anti-war protest rallies and the thing that I found

out was that even though I was chanting in front of

the Fed Building or down Hollywood Boulevard for

things I believed in, I actually didn’t resonate with

that sort of energy. I felt like I was being shouted at

or scolded.

CB: Can you talk about that. What do you mean?

HT: I realized that in going to all these rallies around

town (and I think a lot of people felt the same way)

was that it was really anticlimactic. I think that I had

this romanticism about being a part of mass protests

and rallies. Being in the marches though somehow

didn’t feel like the way the photographs looked from

the 60’s. I’d look at the photos from Life magazine

from that time and I’d get chills and a little teary-

eyed. But obviously I didn’t really know what was

going on, what the timing was…so I’d go to these

rallies thinking that there would be some kind of

overwhelming feeling or understanding. And I real-

ized that that wasn’t going to happen and that it was

just like anything else—I would have to practice at it.

It’s like a muscle that has to be trained. I think a lot of

people were expecting to get there and be hit by this

bolt of lightning of activism and revolution. I know

I did. I just wanted it to click. But I didn’t feel it, as far

as that sort of immediacy, until “La Gran Marcha” and

the “Day without an Immigrant March” earlier this year.

CB: Those marches were considerably larger than any

of the other marches that had been happening…

HT: Oh it was huge. Millions of people. It was so

packed.

CB: For you, is the power of the march related to

the diversity of representation within the voice that’s

being shouted?

HT: For sure. In that march, it really felt like peoples’

lives were at stake. People that didn’t usually

consider themselves to have a so-called ‘political’

bone in their body were on the streets demanding

for a better life.

Also several months earlier I had started

going to anti-death penalty vigils. It was right around

the time that California had lined up three executions

in a row—Stanley “Tookie” Williams, Clarence Ray

Allen, and Michael Morales. The outcry for Stanley

Tookie Williams was huge and I ended up going to

this candlelight vigil in Westwood and it was a silent

march to a neighborhood church following a protest

at the Fed Building. It was really spiritual and there-

fore comfortable for me. I resonated with the silent

procession. It dawned upon me that political activism

was something that I would have to put in the time

to search out and connect with and in that search I

could custom make what activism consisted of for

me. Needless to say the Tookie vigil was amazing.

The church was packed and there was a tangible

air of community, righteous rage, and the desire for

change. And then the next month, one night I just

sort of remembered, “Oh it’s the other guy. Oh I

guess I’d better go.”

CB: The other less famous guy.

HT: Yeah, and I went straight to the church and

was shocked to see only 10 people there. It was

the core group of ten people who have met every

month, regardless of media coverage and celebrity

highlighting. I realized then that political activism is

In Conversation:

CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka

1 At 14 acres, South Central

Farm was the largest urban

garden in the United States.

Feeding over 300 families for

over a decade, the farmers

were evicted after the land was

sold to a private developer.

The farmers are disputing the

validity of the sale and continue

to have vigils in protest.

One of the 350 plots at South

Central Farm, the largest urban

garden in the U.S. December

2005

Manifesto workshop participants

at South Central Farm, April 2006

“Un día sin immigrante/Day without

an immigrant” March, Downtown,

Los Angeles, May 1, 2006

CaliforniaTelephone 2003, 16mm, b&w, sync sound 3 minutes

unglamorous, un-climactic and painfully slow. Things

take a really long time and it takes a lot of tedious

work. Whatever the movement or cause, it doesn’t

happen over night and for the most part, it certainly

does not happen in front of a television news or

documentary film camera.

Speaking of documentary films, I think that

this genre of filmmaking has been indispensable

in fostering a more informed American public. Not

everyone is going to pick up the book AnInconve-

nientTruth but they are much more likely to go see

the movie and get educated, informed and even

entertained in two hours. I think though that our

fluency and comfort in becoming politically informed

through documentary films has also given us a false

sense of time and an unrealistic, hyper-intellectual-

ized perception of how political movements run.

Take for example the South Central farmers and their

movement to save the farm. Along with tremen-

dous global and local support, there was also a lot

of criticism around how the South Central farmers

should have acted at certain stages of the move-

ment—which by the way, still continues with vigils

every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday night next to the

farm. But to those that quickly attributed the loss of

the farm to poor strategy, not enough diplomacy or

savvy public relations tactics that should have taken

advantage of the seemingly endless pool of Holly-

wood celebrity and money, I would ask—What does

the ideal movement look like? What is the perfect

political movement? There’s no such thing. Everyone

is learning along the way. Especially when it is a

grass roots effort. But, I think, when there is a lack of

understanding of just how much nitty gritty trench

work that goes into a movement, all the work and

hours that don’t make it into the neatly packaged

documentary, then there is a disconnect; compas-

sion and empathy take a back seat, and everyone

becomes a critic.

CB: Let’s digress slightly and talk about the

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE photographs that

you’re working on for the CUE show...

HT: What I wanted to highlight in the (SOMEOF)

MYINHERITANCE photographs was how we all

inherit culture and we give culture to other people

on an every day, everyday people way. I think that

sometimes we are a lot more diverse within than we

realize. So the photographs came from the ques-

tion—what have I inherited from the people around

me and what do I now make my own? And how

wonderful is it that I can learn a seamstress fold from

an African American woman from Oakland, and now

it becomes a part of me and I get to pass that on.

CB: And the form of the photographs, they are taken

from Japanese cookbooks? Can you talk about

the relationship between the Japanese cookbook

diagrams and the folding pieces.

HT: I was also interested in representation of culture

and how things are read. In this case the instruc-

tions read from right to left, top to bottom, as they

would in a Japanese cookbook. The form is also

inspired by Japanese origami diagrams. What has

always amazed me about Japanese cookbooks was

the generosity of the layouts—everything is always

in color and there are tons of photographs showing

what to do each step of the way. My experience

of British or American cookbooks has been a little

different—mostly text and very few pictures.

CB: Yes I sense a cookbook review coming!

HT: I know! Those cookbooks work fine, but Japa-

nese cookbooks always have color photographs with

each step in it which I thought was so user friendly.

But at the same time there are also these origami

instructions that were amazingly hard to follow, but

they assumed that you could. I always thought that

whoever was putting together these instructions

believed in the best wihtin us. They had a certain

respect for the audience and believed that people

were smart and patient enough to get this. They trust

that we’ll figure it out.

CB: That you’ll figure out how the swan got from step

a to step b to step c even though there’s no hand in

there actually showing you the fold.

In Conversation:

CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka

Research material: page from

Japanese cookbook

INTERVIEWCONTINuESONPAgE17

Film and video stills from left to right

ILoveYou2002, 16mm, color, sync sound2 minutes

UewomuiteArukou/SóDançoSamba 2002, A collaboration with Bia Gayotto DV, color, sound, 4 minutes

AROUNDSpecialRegistration 2003 DV, color, sound, 18 minutes

FromAhmehtoZushiStation 2004 DV, color, sound, 5 minutes

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Mum’strianglefoldforgrocerybags 2007Digital C-Print22 1/2" x 36 1/4"

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Favela’sfoldforfittedsheets(Detail)2007, Digital C-Print, 22 1/2" x 36 1/4"

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Noni’sseamstressfold2007, Digital C-Print, 22 1/2" x 36 1/4"

TAKEBACKTHELOVE:AJuneJordanCelebration6/13/03, Six Months

Howtobeanartist&activistatthesametime7/5/03, Crazyspace

amixin’&matchin’happenin’8/6/04, Pussyfoot Beauty Lounge

LE’RATIONALE:WorkshopinEmpathy4/16/05, Crazyspace

NARUHODO!ZaWahrudo/OHISEE!TheWorld2/4/05, Crazyspace

M-Y-MANIFESTOWORKSHOP:FundraiserfortheSouthCentralFarmers4/2/06, South Central Farm

EVERYTHINGWRONG:TheKnightsofShockingDifference9/1-9/2, 2006, Highways Performance and Gallery Space

NARUHODO!ZaWahrudo/OHISEE!TheWorld2/3/07, CUE Art Foundation

Based on Japanese “Senbazuru” / Thousand cranes

HT: I love that part of it! These people who came up

with the instructions, I’m sure at one point, had to let

go and say, okay, we can’t spoonfeed everybody, we

need to edit. I think that’s what I was attracted to.

CB: There are always these abstractions of what the

real experience of making it is.

HT: Yeah, because at one point you are faced with

the task of letting go—where, when and what do you

let go? Of course you want to hold peoples’ hands

but obviously you have to have faith and respect in

your audience.

CB: And the event that you’re doing for CUE is a

variation on a Japanese quiz show?

HT: Yes! It’s called NARuHODO!ZAWAHRuDO in

Japanese. “Naruhodo” means, “hmm yes, I see, I get

it,” and “Za wahrudo” means “the world.” It was this

travel quiz show in the 80’s which I think they have

recently brought back, where they had the funniest

television announcers sent all over the globe, to all

kinds of different cultures, to report back with ques-

tions about the local culture that Japanese celebrities

back in the studio would then have to answer. The

performance is a 40 minute program of 10 different

quiz questions from 10 different places in the world

that I have edited together. The footage however

is not subtitled so there will be 3 real time transla-

tors on hand to translate. It’s so much fun because

you get to go visit all these different places in 40

minutes, Japanese 80’s style.

CB: What can you tell me about your new video?

HT: Well the new video, which is totally in the works

right now, is inspired by a trip that I made to the

Natural History Museum right by USC. It was right

around December of last year where I discovered

they had this event called ‘First Fridays.’ What

happens is you go there and they open up the

museum…have you been?

CB: I’ve gone a couple of times. One evening was

called “Opening Night/Sonic Scenery” and featured

“silent sets” by Tom Recchion, Matmos and Lanquis

among others. Matmos was performing in the North

American room in front of the bison diorama. I think

the second time I went, it was actually called “Silent

Sets” and Mike Watt playing solo bass. Although the

musicians were playing live in the exhibit halls, you

had to plug in with headphones to hear them. Or

you could download a prerecorded soundtrack for

the exhibits and walk around listening to that. It was

great to see such a diverse crowd but odd to see

everyone with headphones on….quiet but interesting.

HT: The night I went it was a “First Friday” called

“Reflecting Spirit” and it was in conjunction with

the exhibit Collapse which was based on the book

by Jared Diamond which talks about why civiliza-

tions collapse. So for $15 it was an evening packed

full of different programs. The evening began

with a screening of Edgy Lee’s film TheHawaiians

–ReflectingSpirit in their auditorium and then we

walked into the main building and up into one of

the Mammals Halls which is filled with dioramas of

animals. The setting was just unreal to me! They

had five speakers that night—Neil and kalikolihau

Hannahs, father and daughter from the kamehameha

School in Hawaii; Senator Alan Lowenthal from

Long Beach; Raymond Sauvajot, a scientist with the

Santa Monica Mountains National Parks, and global

ecologist Michael Tobias. Everyone came from such

varied backgrounds, but what everyone seemed

to agree on, and reflect in their own practices, was

that in order for civilizations to continue, in order

for the environment to heal and flourish, it would

take a healthy and very real combination of history,

technology, science, spirituality and creativity. And

that was also reflected in the structure of the entire

evening which didn’t end with the discussion. It

continued on downstairs with an evening of music,

dance, dj’s and vj’s. I was so blown away by the entire

experience because it encompassed everything

that is so interesting in my life—spirituality, politics,

ancestry, environment, artistry, music…It was reaf-

firming to see an institution reflect that back. From

that evening I realized that was exactly the structure

that I wanted for my next film. So I have this struc-

ture and I will fill it in as I go along.

In Conversation:

CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka

Planfor1000trianglesforsomepeace 2007 1,000 grocery bag trianglesbamboo, yarn

Haruko Tanaka was born in Queens, New York in 1974. She was raised in England and Japan until her move to

Los Angeles in 1992 to attend the University of Southern California. In 1997 she received her BA in Fine Arts

and in 2003 completed her graduate studies with an MFA from The California Institute of the Arts. Her work

ranges from photography and film/video to collaborative performance, events and workshops. Her short films

have been screened at the Asian American International Film Festival at the Asia Society in New York City, The

Rotterdam International Film Festival, The New York Underground Film Festival, The Chicago Underground

Film Festival, The Women of Color Film Festival, and The Museum of Modern Art. Her recent collaborations

include a M-Y-MANIFESTOWORKSHOP at the South Central Farms in South Central, Los Angeles and a night

of EVERYTHINgWRONg:THEKnightsofShockingDifference at Highways Performance Space and Gallery in

Santa Monica, CA. In 2005 Tanaka received an Emerging Artist Visual Arts Grant from the California Community

Foundation. This exhibition at CUE will be her first New York City solo exhibition in New York. Haruko Tanaka

lives, works and surfs in Los Angeles, in English, Japanese and some Spanish.

CindyBernard

Cindy Bernard is known for photographs and projections that explore the relationship between cinema, memory,

and landscape including the widely exhibited series AsktheDust. She has received numerous grants including

Anonymous was A Woman (1998), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1998) and a Los Angeles COLA Individual Artists

Fellowship (2004). Since 1986, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in the perma-

nent collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Museum

of Art (LACMA) as well as international collections.

In addition to her visual practice, Bernard is creator of the experimental music series “sound.” as well as

the founder of The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS). Taking an active

interest in instigating social exchange, Bernard founded SASSAS out of the need for a small sustainable organi-

zation dedicated to experimental music in Los Angeles. As Director of SASSAS, Bernard has produced concerts

and sound events at the historic Schindler House in West Hollywood as well as at REDCAT and the Ford Amphi-

theatre working with artists such as Glenn Branca, Harold Budd, Nels Cline, Petra Haden, Joseph Jarman, Pauline

Oliveros, Tom Recchion, Wadada Leo Smith, James Tenney and Roscoe Mitchell.

Her interest in music and the public commons has spurred two projects: a series of photographs of

municipal band shells which Bernard sees as an architecture of public exchange, most recently exhibited at

Tracy Williams LTD in New York; and TheInquisitiveMusician a collaboration with artist and translator David

Hatcher based on a 17th century German satire, MusicusCuriosus,orBattalus,theInquisitiveMusician;the

StruggleforPrecedencebetweentheKunstPfeiferandtheCommonPlayers. She is currently completing Year

LongLoop, a year long documentation of the view and sounds outside her Los Angeles home. 24 hours in

length, she describes it as a cross between John’s Cage’s 4’33” and Andy Warhol’s Empire.

Biographies HarukoTanakaCB: This idea of combining different aspects of your

life—your spirituality, your politics—has come up a

few times. Do you see that as happening within

your own work?

HT: If I look at my whole life as my practice, as my

work, then I would say that these elements are defi-

nitely all there, as it is I’m sure for many people. But

If I just look at the artwork, I’d say I’m just starting to

do that. I’ve been able to do that in the events earlier

on, and I think that this film/video is aiming to do

that. I’m just starting.

CaliforniaTelephone2003

The text is excerpted from the book of poetry Haruko/

Love Poems by the late June Jordan (1936-2002)- poet,

essayist, novelist, and political activist.

Participants: Savitri Young, Mari Okada, Terry Chatkupt,

Tuan Nguyen, Melanie Nakaue, kelvin Park, Mirabelle Ang

Crew: Aigars Cepletis, Natalie Turner, Art Helterbraun Jr.,

Jeremy Edney, Roshni Sharma

ILoveYou2002

Participants:Bia Gayotto, Felicia Dickerson, Phil Mason,

kevin McCarty, Heather James, kristin Ruger

Cinematography:Adrià Julià

UeWoMuiteArukou/SóDançoSamba2003

Made in collaboration with Bia Gayotto

Participants: Bia Gayotto, Naoko Sugibayashi, Maryam

kashani, Abdulla Al Muntheri, Becky Allen, Haruko Tanaka,

Charles karubian, Mauro Wernick Monteiro, Leticia Meza

Crew: David P. Moore, Cameron Smith, Ian Smith, Ricardo

Sebastian

AROUNDSpecialRegistration 2003

Participant: Abdulla Al Mundari

Crew: Haruko Tanaka, Matt Dunnerstick, Abdulla Al

Mundari

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Mum’strianglefoldfor

grocerybags 2007

Participant: Felicia Dickerson

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Favela’sfoldforfitted

sheets2007

Participants: Melvin Cortez, Ricardo Sebastian

(SOMEOF)MYINHERITANCE:Noni’sseamstressfold

2007

Participant: Joni Gordon

Event/Performance/Workshop collaborators:

EVERYTHINGWRONG:TheKnightsofShockingDiffer-

ence - Seema D’poy kapur, Loren Larry knight Hartman

M-Y-MANIFESTOWorkshop Matt Dunnerstick

Le’Rationale:WorkshopinEmpathy - Wanda Smans

amixin’&matchin’happenin’- Seema kapur

Howtobeanartist&activistatthesametime -

Seema kapur

TAKEBACKTHELOVE-AJuneJordanCelebration

- Seema kapur, Maryam kashani, Noña Meko

Documentation photograph on event flyers pages by

Barbara May

Conversation text edited by Cindy Bernard and Haruko

Tanaka with additional help from Annetta kapon

Cindy Bernard: www.sound2cb.com, www.sassas.org

Haruko Tanaka: www.kissoftheworld.net

Credits and

acknowledgements

In Conversation:

CindyBernard&HarukoTanaka

Mission Statement CUEArtFoundation

CUE Art Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization,

is dedicated to providing a comprehensive creative forum for

contemporary art by supporting under-recognized artists via a

multi-faceted mission spanning the realms of gallery exhibitions,

public programming, professional development programs and

arts-in-education. The Foundation was established in June of 2002

with the aim of providing educational programs for young artists

and aspiring art professionals in New York and from around the

country. These programs draw on the unique community of artists,

critics, and educators brought together by the Foundation’s season

of exhibitions, public lectures, workshops, and its studio residency

program: all are designed to be of lasting practical benefit to

aspiring and under-recognized artists. The entire CUE identity is

characterized by artistic quality, independent judgment and the

discovery of genuine talent, and provides long-term benefits both

for creative individuals associated with CUE and the larger art

marketplace. Located in New York’s Chelsea gallery district, CUE’s

4,500 square feet of gallery, studio and office space serves as the

nexus for educational programs and exhibitions conducted by CUE.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9791843-0-7

ISBN-10: 0-9791843-0-4

All artwork © Haruko Tanaka

Catalog designed by Elizabeth Ellis

Printed on TriPine paper of kyeSung Paper Group (South korea)

Cover: TriPine Art Nouveau 209gsm (78lb), Text: TriPine Silk 157gsm (106lb)

Printer: Yon Art Printing (South korea)

BOARDOFDIRECTORS

Gregory Amenoff

Theodore S. Berger

Patricia Caesar

Thomas G. Devine

Thomas k. Y. Hsu

Brian D. Starer

ADVISORYCOUNCIL

Gregory Amenoff

William Corbett

Vernon Fisher

Malik Gaines

Deborah kass

kris kuramitsu

Jonathan Lethem

Irving Sandler

ExECUTIVEDIRECTOR

Jeremy Adams

DIRECTOROF

DEVELOPMENT

Elaine Bowen

PROGRAMS

COORDINATOR

Beatrice Wolert-Weese

PROGRAMSASSISTANT

kara Smith