Synopsis

Throughout the summer of 2004, San Francisco's visual landscape was blanketed with advertisements for the Asian Art Museum's “Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile” exhibit, images which annoyed me to no end. So I pirated their poster image, turning it into my own in response. On the closing weekend of the “Geisha” show, my friend S. and I plastered Japantown with dozens of posters, and then proceeded to plant five dozen flyers in the information booth inside the Asian Art Museum itself. Various sources noted the wide-ranging impact of the small, simple action: in Japantown, the museum, academic discourse, and on public consciousness through the media. The San Francisco Chronicle devoted nearly a full page, giving last word to a U.C. art history professor: "To the extent that museums assert authority to speak for culture, they open themselves up for critique, and they should engage that critique."

Scott Tsuchitani, May 2005