I look at them and wonder if

They are a part of me

I look in their eyes and wonder if

They share my dreams*

If you haven’t experienced the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery exhibition on 18 Wooster Street, this weekend is your last chance to marvel at  Wonder Women.

Curated by the Deitch Gallery’s Managing Director Kathy Huang, she presents thirty Asian American and diasporic women and non-binary artists' work representing their interpretation of wonder, self, and identity through figuration.

Huang’s curation and intentional themes are timely: “The increasing violence against Asian Americans, particularly against Asian women and the elderly, emphasizes the need to tell our own stories. Figuration allows the artists to present themselves, their communities, and their histories on their own terms.”

Wonder Women, inspired by Genny Lim’s similarly named poem Wonder Woman, observed the lives of Asian women across generations, countries, and socioeconomic backgrounds. These themes are evident throughout the exhibit, centering Asian/diasporic/nonbinary/women as its protagonists and contemplating how these pieces are similar yet distinctive.

Each work of art is unique, varying in texture, medium (whether oil, wool, silk, charcoal), size, shape, point of view, tension, and detail, with none like the other. They’re all vastly singular in intensity (whether powerful or introspective) yet similarly aligned. Like in the poem Wonder Woman, #gennylim recalls how someone’s socioeconomic status can affect their body.

While facets of life can separate even the most akin, we are all undeniably connected by one thing: the body. 

Hurry to experience this one-of-a-kind exhibition of extraordinary pieces, including; the nostalgic “Smells like Pre-teen Spirit” by Melissa Joseph, the fixed stare of Jiab Prachakul's self-portrait “Purpose”, the repossessive “Brown Jouissance on a Carpet from Sultanabad in the Yale Center for British Arts” by Bhasha Chakrabarti, the musical “Walking the Timeline” by Chitra Ganesh, the hypnotically saturated “Mamito’s Apparition” by Bambou Gili, and defiantly celebratory “Celestial Women Swim in Gold” by Chelsea Ryoko Wong.  

Other artists participating in Wonder Women are Joeun Kim Aatchim, Amanda Ba, Susan Chen, Milano Chow, Dominique Fung, Shyama Golden, Sasha Gordon, Sally J. Han, Jeanne Jalandoni, Tidawhitney Lek, Zoé Blue M., Tammy Nguyen, Catalina Ouyang, Maia Cruz Palileo, Anna Park, GaHee Park, Sahana Ramakrishnan, Anjuli Rathod, Hiba Schahbaz, Mai Ta, Nadia Waheed, Lily Wong, Zadie Xa & Livien Yin.

*excerpt from Genny Lim’s Wonder Woman, 1981, read the entire poem below.

Wonder Woman

by Genny Lim

Sometimes I see reflections on bits of glass on sidewalks

I catch the glimmer of empty bottles floating out to sea

Sometimes I stretch my arms way above my head and wonder if

There are women along the Mekong doing the same

Sometimes I stare longingly at women who I will never know

Generous, laughing women with wrinkled cheeks and white teeth

Dragging along chubby, rosy-cheeked babies on fat, wobbly legs

sometimes I stare at Chinese grandmothers

Getting on the 30 Stockton with shipping bags

Japanese women tourists in European hats

Middle-aged mothers with laundry carts

Young wives holding hands with their husbands

lesbian women holding hands in coffee-houses

Smiling debutantes with bouquets of yellow daffodils

Silver-haired matrons with silver rhinestoned poodles

Painted prostitutes posing along MacArthur boulevard

Giddy teenage girls snapping gum in fast cars

Widows clutching bibles, crucifixes

I look at them and wonder if

They are a part of me

I look in their eyes and wonder if

They share my dreams

I wonder if the woman in mink is content

If the stockbroker’s wife is afraid of growing old

If the professor’s wife is an alcoholic

If the woman in prison is me

There are copper-tanned women in Hyannis port playing tennis

Women who eat with finger bowls

There are women in factories punching time clocks

Women tired every waking hour of the day

I wonder why there are women born with silver-spoons in their mouths

women who have never known a day of hunger

Women who have never changed their own bed linens

And I wonder why there are women who must work

Women who must clean other women’s houses

Women who must shell shrimps for pennies a day

Women who must sew other women’s clothes

Who must cook

Who must die

In childbirth

In dreams

Why must women stand divided?

Building the walls that tear them down?

Jill-of-all-trades

Lover, mother, housewife, friend, breadwinner

Heart and spade

A woman is a ritual

A house that must accommodate

A house that must endure

Generation after generation

Of wind and torment, of fire and rain

A house with echoing rooms

Closets with hidden cries

Walls with stretchmarks

Windows with eyes

Short, tall, skinny, fat

Pregnant, married, white, yellow, black, brown, red

Professional, working-class, aristocrat

Women cooking over coals in sampans

Women shining tiffany spoons in glass houses

Women stretching their arms way above the clouds

In Samarkand, in San Francisco

Along the Mekong