Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University, New York Skylight Gallery and Zodiac Gallery • 15 March–15 June 2018
Installation Views
On loan from Koryo Tours and Think Potato Institute, Permanent Collection.
Think Potato Institute, Permanent Collection.
Think Potato Institute, Permanent Collection.
Think Potato Institute, Permanent Collection.
Mixed media installation (Ceramic potatoes), dim. var.
Acrylic on umbrella ,24 x 28 inches each
Think Potato Institute, Permanent Collection.
18 x 24 inches each . Spray paint on a wood panel.
POTASIA: Potatoism in the East was a major exhibition exploring the potato as a cultural, artistic, political, and symbolic subject across Asia and beyond. Co-curated by Jeffrey Allen Price and Jinyoung Jin, Director of Cultural Programs at the Charles B. Wang Center, the exhibition brought together 19 artists from 10 countries: China, India, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Lebanon, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States.
The exhibition featured installations, sculpture, drawings, paintings, photography, video, books, toys, snacks, popular media, and socialist propaganda posters. Together, these works demonstrated the potato’s remarkable ability to move across fine art, everyday culture, political imagery, humor, media, and historical memory.
Within the history of the Think Potato Institute, POTASIA represents an important expansion of POTATOISM into a broader global and cross-cultural context. The exhibition helped establish the potato not only as a subject of Western art history or agricultural history, but as a multilingual, multidisciplinary, and culturally elastic symbol present across Asian visual culture and popular imagination.
Exhibition Statement
POTASIA: Potatoism in the East featured an insightful and entertaining survey of artworks with the potato as their central subject matter. The pieces showcased a wide spectrum of potatoes, in all manner of genres and situations—from the fantastical to the realistic, and from the comedic to the serious.
A diverse body of artworks examined the social, cultural, and political attitudes and ideals attached to the potato. With a focus on contemporary Asian art, the exhibition highlighted curious and fascinating examples of the ubiquitous potato as represented in fine art, books, videos, cartoons, movies, songs, toys, snacks, and popular culture.
By drawing on a long artistic and historical lineage, as well as by making contrasts and comparisons across diverse mediums, the exhibition illustrated the manifold creativity of the contemporary art world.
Participating Artists and Collections
Seongmin Ahn
Manhee Bak
Ginou Choueiri
In-Je Hwang
Meisheng Jin
Yunjung Kang
Susan Kelly
Seung Lee
Puneeta Mittal
Anh Nguyen
M. Mitryashkin
Chan-Gil Moon
Rika Ohara
Noriko Okada
Ketsarin Oukosavanna
Anna Prikazchikova
Frank Yu
Charles Yuen
P. Zubchenkov
Koryo Tours
Think Potato Institute
Related Programs
Guided Exhibition Tour by Jeffrey Allen Price
March 21, 2018 · Skylight Gallery
The Motif of Potatoes in Korean Media (Old and New)
March 22, 2018 · Lecture Hall I
Potatoism: A Global History of Potato Art
March 27, 2018 · Lecture Hall I
Potato Prints Workshop
April 6, 2018 · Chapel
Small Potatoes: Creating Crochet Amigurumi
April 20, 2018 · Chapel
North Korea: Addressing Human Needs in a Challenging Environment
April 27, 2018 · Lecture Hall I
Exhibition Coverage
2019 — PBS Lucky Chow — POTASIA: Potatoism in the East
2018 — Here’s an art exhibition entirely dedicated to the humble potato— SBS Food
2018 — The Art Show That’s All Potatoes— Atlas Obscura
2018 — All eyes are on potatoes in the ‘Potasia’ exhibit at Stony Brook — Newsday
2018 — POTASIA: Potatoism in the East — Newsday (archived PDF)
2018 — PBS’s “Lucky Chow” to Feature Wang Center Potato Exhibit— The Statesman
2018 —Special Collections in New Wang Center Exhibition “Potasia”— Stony Brook University Libraries
Exhibition Materials
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