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GIANT_ROBOT
July 26, 2014
The "Super Awesome" exhibit at the
Oakland Museum of California, has just http://www.museumca.org/exhibit/superawesome-art-and-giant-robot
closed this weekend.
This focused on works featured in "Giant Robot"
magazine, a very impressive, very creative
magazine that ran from mid-90s to 2011.
I don't believe we ever subscribed to it, but
we bought nearly every issue off of the stands-- Somewhat embarassingly,
and to San Francisco's credit, that was always I didn't notice when
really easy for us to do. it ceased publication--
but then, I'm afraid
"Giant Robot", was a magazine dedicated it started seeming
to Asian pop culture, as it's brilliant a bit dull to me near
name implied to anyone with even a the end of it's run.
little knowledge of the Mecha of
Japanese anime... it captured a young
Asian-American slant on art and culture
that was unique, and yet immediately ("a young Asian-American slant--"
recognizeable. that's a pun too horrible even
for me to intend, honest).
I've never really taken the trouble to
to try to define that angle: once
you see it, you know it, and I never
felt much need to analyze it.
Giant Robot kids knew their way around hip-hop
and punk, Hong Kong action flicks and Japanese Dangerbaby liked to bring
anime; they were comfortable in skate parks or copies of "Giant Robot"
art galleries; they collected action figures with her on trips to
and hello kitty paraphenalia, and tended to Bali, where the artsy
create some very warped variations of both-- Indonesian kids would
devour it, remarking
A good issue of "Giant Robot" could produce "*We* should have a
a sense of revelations, not to mention a magazine like this!"
half-dozen reminders about interesting
things you'd forgoten, and a far longer list In contrast, the
of things you should check out some day older, established
soon. Balinese artist Wayan
Sika complained about
Looking back on "Giant Robot", having how it seemed "so
spent several years recently obsessing *commercial*".
about otaku-yaki... what *was* it about
those guys? (He preferred
the esthetic
of "Juxtapos".)
(June 27, 2014)
The Giant Robot esthetic...
It's attitude toward the popular:
accepting, but not uncritical.
Assimilation collapses as an issue--
They are what they are,
they don't concede it's *less*
than the "mainstream", Conscious of being target of
or the "traditional"... emulation, at least by some?
The Giant Robot attitude
Probably being rooted in LA was key-- toward ethnicity...
a major metropolitan area, with some
serious cultural resources, despite "Giant Robot" was in a
having been long since written off by peculiar position-- their
the New Urban/anti-Hollywood snobs focus was defined by a
from New York and San Francisco (such certain ethnic identity,
as myself). but they didn't
want to be limited by it.
Certainly being Pacific Rim was key--
California looks to both Asia and New A white dude I knew on
York (whereas New York has tended to alt.gothic complained
look to Europe and-- sometimes-- that GR felt racially
California). exclusionary to him...
he didn't read it because
he felt he didn't belong.
That always seemed peculiar
At the Oakland Museum, on to me-- the GR editors
display for all to read was certainly knew that half of
issue number two of Giant their readers were white.
Robot, from 1995-- this was
back in the days when it was But then, I had an idea for
a half-sheet sized a Giant Robot article once--
photocopied zine-- and I was a write-up of a large
a little surprised to see Vietnamese music festival in
that Asian ethnicity was a San Jose-- but I wouldn't
more explicitly addressed consider pitching it to them
topic in those days. because I wasn't sure they'd
care about a white person's
I gather that they take.
quickly felt like they'd
said what they had to
say, and then it receeded
into the background, or ETHNICALLY_AUTHENTIC
close to it.
PROTO_GIANT
From an artist's statement at
the "Super Awesome" exhibit,
by Shizu Saldamando:
"I think everyone goes through that.
Am I authentic? Am I a poseur?
There is no authentic self. AUTHENTICITY
We're all mixed up and we're
all part of a world that's
constantly changing and morphing."
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