Cross-Cultural Visual Representations of the “Chinese Restaurant” Motif in Artworks of the Ashcan School and Others
Abstract
Abstract By exploring the history of Chinese restaurants in North America, on the one hand, this article contextualizes the history, motivations, logics, and dynamics of the production of artworks representing Chinese restaurants, a motif that has long been ignored by art historians and critics. On the other hand, this article also addresses three basic modes of cross-cultural encounters carried in these visual presentations, namely, the representation of exoticism, surface contact, and intimacy-based sharing (or partial sharing), in order to understand the structure of intercultural communication.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Asian American and Pacific Histories
Cultural Studies and Colonialism
Cultural History and Identity Formation
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Journal of American Folklore
- Volume
- 139
- Issue
- 551
- Pages
- 5–31
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Language
- EN