Heartmind: Heart/Mind

From right to left:

Toshio Kuga, "'Golden Flower' - dedicated to Tibet," 1996, unfolding performance sculpture

Sung Ho Choi, "Mind," 2006, collage

Anna Kuo, "Deva Invocation I," 1989, painting 

The works here are some of the closest to Bob Lee’s heart — which is fitting, as two of the works depict hearts. This section is anchored in the center by Sung Ho Choi’s "Mind," which depicts the Chinese character “心” (which means both “heart” and “mind”) in lottery tickets, alluding to the place of faith and luck within the daily toil of Asian immigrants within the U.S.

Both Anna Kuo and Toshio Kuga invoke a psycho-spiritual conception of art. The personal inextricably intersects the political in the doubled heartbreak of Kuo’s painting, created around the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Kuga’s box — which he also considers a metaphor for a mind — is painted black when closed but opens to unfurl a gold-painted hand and blood-red tassels, an offering to the people of Tibet suffering under Chinese conquest.