Artwork / Archives / Apple Pie / Nixon Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk (Taiwanese-American, Roger)
Nixon Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk (Taiwanese-American, Roger)
2008
acrylic on canvas scroll
42 x 42 inches
I asked each of the participants in Apple Pie to write something about what it means to be an American. This is Roger’s response.
American is an unique identity. Being Asian is to be a condition of history, while being an American is to be an experience of inconsistent ideologies. The conditions of history have molded our identity so there is less discrepancy between what we believe and what we experience (but also the shallow comfort of an afterlife) but being an American is to live a life that has a huge gap when what we believe and what we experience. The joy and challenge of being an American is to find true experience among inauthentic landscape. While there may not be comfort, there is always novelty.
Many of the subjects from Apple Pie had no strong feelings about which American icon they’d like to embody for the series, but Roger did. He chose to have his likeness combined with Nixon, because he credited the former President for easing tensions with China.
