Clement Hanami is a Japanese-American artist. He grew up in the predominantly Latino California suburb of

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles (), or East L.A., is an unincorporated community and census designated place (CDP) situated within Los Angeles County, California, United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, East Los Angeles is designated as ...

, just outside of downtown. His mother was a

hibakusha ' ( or ; or ; or ) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II. Definition The word is Japanese, originally written i ...

, or atomic bomb survivor. His father was a World War II incarceree. He received his M.F.A. from the

University of California Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the Cal ...

in Studio Art with a specialization in New Genres. At

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, his mentor was Paul McCarthy and he worked alongside artists like Jason Rhoades, Robert Billings, Steve Hurd, and Martin Kersels. His work has been exhibited in California and New York and has been seen at The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art,

Craft and Folk Art Museum Craft Contemporary, formerly the Craft and Folk Art Museum, is a non-profit, non-collecting arts museum dedicated to showcasing contemporary craft in Los Angeles, California. The museum is located on Los Angeles' Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard, ...

, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery,

Armory Center for the Arts The Armory Center for the Arts is a non-profit community arts organization that offers arts education programs and contemporary art exhibitions in Pasadena, California, United States. It originated as the education department of the Pasadena Art ...

John Anson Ford Amphitheatre The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, officially nicknamed The Ford, is a music venue in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California. The 1,200-seat outdoor amphitheatre is situated within the Cahuenga Pass within the Santa Monica Mountains, direct ...

California Museum of Photography The California Museum of Photography is an off-campus institution and department within the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, located in Riverside, California, United States. The collec ...

Long Beach Museum of Art The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California, United States. The museum's permanent collection includes over 4,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, works on paper, ...

, AFI National Video Festival,

Santa Monica Museum of Art The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA; formerly known as the Santa Monica Museum of Art) is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States. As an independent and non-collecting art museum (or kunsthalle), it e ...

, KCET Independent Eye, Westwind Magazine, and Show-Mag Gallery. Hanami is currently the Vice President of Exhibitions and Art Director at the

Japanese American National Museum The is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. Founded in 1992, it is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affi ...

and primarily responsible for the design, installation, fabrication and maintenance of the museum's major exhibits. He co-managed the collaborative Arts partnership project Finding Family Stories and co-designed the exhibit Common Ground: The Heart of Community with ADOBE LA. He also served as Program Director for the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. His most recent projects include curating the exhibitions "Instructions to All Persons: Reflections on

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a President of the United States, United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the fo ...

" and "Transpacific Borderlands: The Art of

Japanese Diaspora The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei (, ) or as Nikkeijin (, ), comprise the Japanese people, Japanese emigration, emigrants from Japan (and their Kinship, descendants) residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration ...

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

, Los Angeles,

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, and

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

". He taught New Genres at the

Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA, ) is a visual and performing arts high school located on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is a public school, ...

for 20 years. He was a Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of

Culver City Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights to the ea ...

from 2004 to 2010. He received a Getty Visual Arts Fellowship in 2000 and a COLA Artist Award in 2007 given by the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. In 2006 he participated in "Tigers and Jaguars: L.A.'s Asian-Latino Art Phenomenon" at the

, Los Angeles. In 2010 he completed "

Through the Looking Glass ''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'' is a novel published in December 1871 by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, University of Oxford. It was the sequel to h ...

" or "Traveling at the Speed of Light (Rail)" as part of the Metro Goldline's East Side Extension. This artwork is located at the

East LA Civic Center station East LA Civic Center station is an at-grade light rail station on the E Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located at the intersection of 3rd Street and Mednik Avenue in East Los Angeles, California, adjacent to the Los Angeles ...

in East Los Angeles. In 2013 he participated in a virtual exhibition entitled Art Intersections, a Smithsonian Asian-Latino pop-up museum by the

Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) is a migratory museum that shares Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture through innovative museum experiences online and throughout the U.S through the Smithsonian Institution T ...

. In 2015 he participated in an art project at the Museum of Man at Balboa Park in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

. Using an object from the museums vast collection, he created the large scale installation "The Allegory of

Moby Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...

" or "The Oceanic Feeling of Whiteness" that was displayed in the museum's main hall. On May 28 and 29 of 2016, his Rice Rocket was part of the ground breaking Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center exhibition "Crosslines: A Culture Lab on Intersectionality" at the

Arts and Industries Building The Arts and Industries Building is the second oldest (after The Castle) of the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Initially named the National Museum, it was built to provide the Smithsonian with its first proper faci ...

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

In 2017 he completed the artwork "Moving Day", a time-based art installation that projected digital versions of the WWII Exclusion Orders that authorized the incarceration of Japanese Americans onto JANM's Historic Building.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20040102032857/http://www.calfund.org/arts/hanami.php *http://jasonprojekt.com/resume/index.html *http://eva2015.tumblr.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanami, Clement American artists of Japanese descent American contemporary artists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)