Review: Stephanie H. Shih's "Open Sundays"

At the opening for multidisciplinary ceramic artist Stephanie H. Shih’s latest solo show, on view at Harkawik Gallery in Manhattan through Aug. 6, the focus is on culinary collaboration. When gallery owner and director Peter Harkawik approached Shih about doing the show, she didn’t have a ready-made concept; instead, she sought inspiration from the gallery’s location in Chinatown.

Focused on Jewish and Chinese immigrants, once the two largest non-Christian minorities in New York, Shih’s work here explores the bicultural history of the neighborhood. “The show looks at what happens when immigrant populations grow up next to each other,” Shih explains. Her work lives at the nexus between this kind of cultural exchange, “moments of fusion and collision”—and the food that represents it.

Shih’s art, which has long been centered on Asian American diaspora culture (especially as expressed through food), expanded for “Open Sundays” to include quintessentially Jewish foods and the culinary crossovers that have occurred between the two groups on the Lower East Side over the last 100 years.

On first glance, a viewer might think any of her created food sculptures are the real deal (she mentions that people have reminded her to pick up her food, mistaking her works in progress for her groceries). But Shih’s 30 ceramic works for “Open Sundays” intentionally show the hand of the artist, via fingerprints and imperfect typeface. “I like the way it messes with your mind a little bit, not so unlike our memories,” she says.

The exhibit explores hyper-local food culture in a city whose immigrant groups have often been too close together in proximity and interests to avoid significant interchange. The Chinese and Jewish communities on the Lower East Side became a prime example of the positive cultural exchange America’s melting pot model has always touted, but which is harder to see in this era of division and emergency. “Open Sundays” is a welcome reminder of the best New York City has to offer: not only great food, but also a diverse, curious, and hungry community eager to eat it.

Full article available here.