TT Takemoto: Remembering in the Absence of Memory

Takemoto’s video Looking for Jiro, a mashup of drag king performance, US war propaganda footage and body building footage, and the associated Gentleman’s Gaman series are a tribute to Jiro Onuma, a gay Japanese American man incarcerated during WWII who worked in the mess hall and had a penchant for muscle men. On the Line, a meditation on Japanese American female cannery workers in prewar San Diego, is inspired by Isa Shimoda, whose restaurant is imagined by the artist as a space for same-sex intimacy among the women workers while the fishermen were out to sea. A sculptural installation of glass and polished earth figures iterates on the form of Japanese kokeshi dolls that appear in the video and serves as a metaphor for the lives haunted by the trauma of incarceration. The moving themes and material experimentation of Takemoto’s work highlight the tactile and sensory dimensions of queer Asian American histories and their ancestral legacies—real and imagined.

TT Takemoto (American), On the Line, 2018. Excerpt from video. Single-channel digital video with sound: hand-processed 8mm/16mm film, paint, found footage, digital video; 6:43 min. © TT Takemoto. Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

TT Takemoto (American), Looking for Jiro, 2011. Excerpt from video. Single-channel digital video with sound: performance, found footage; 5:45 min. © TT Takemoto. Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

We gratefully acknowledge support from The Robert Mondavi Family Fund at the Cantor Arts Center.