Eating Bitterness
October 14 - October 27, 2017

THINK!Chinatown Gallery
384 Broadway
New York, NY 10013

Chinese parents often remind their children how important it is to chi ku (eat bitterness), a phrase that means to persevere through hardship without complaint. This show is a meditation on the role of enduring adversity in the psyche of immigrant families, comprising nine artists working across sculpture, photography, painting, and performance. Just as each contributor's personal relationship to the chi ku mentality varies, each piece approaches the concept from a different perspective: as a virtue or a burden; with familiarity or estrangement; as part of an inheritance or against the backdrop of orientalism. Narratives of loss, alienation, and disorientation are woven throughout the work. The exhibition, located on the border of a gentrifying Chinatown, aims to be a space to constellate these ideas and for visitors to consider their own relationship to eating bitterness.


Press Release
Exhibition Checklist