page_title: Nina Kuo
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Nina Kuo / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: p. 140 Mixed Blessing
context_page_description: Nina Kuo is a Chinese American visual artist and activist who lives and works in New York City. Her work examines the role of women, feminism and identity in Asian-American art. Kuo has worked in partnership with the artist Lorin Roser.
  Kuo grew up in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of abstract painter James K.Y. Kuo. She received a bachelor of science degree from SUNY Buffalo where she attended workshops by Judy Chicago and showed work with Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman.
  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 building registries through interviews and curation. Kuo was part of the Godzilla Asian American Arts Network. 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 in the Bad Girls at The New Museum in 1994.
context_section_description: In 2002 Lehman College Art Gallery presented If the Shoe Fits.... Holland Cotter 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, 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.
  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. Over the years her work was selected by curators: Kellie Jones, Thelma Golden, Fred Wilson, Maddy Rosenberg, Lucy Lippard, Howardena Pindell. Kuo has exhibited with Ai Wei Wei, Martin Wong, Zhang Hongtu, Tehching Hsieh, Shirin Neshat, and Dawoud Bey. She has lectured at the New School, Newark Museum, Beijing University, Central Academy of Art, Beijing. 
  In 2020, she created a series of sculptures in relation to the coronavirus, 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."
caption: Politeness and Poverty' public mural, image from book by Lucy Lippard, Mixed Blessings New Art in a Multicultural America
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