Opening Saturday April 16, 6-9 CFGNY at Bel Ami Import Imprint Organized by Talia Heiman In their practice, CFGNY considers how material production and reproduction determines individual and collective acts of disidentification. Concept Foreign Garments New York, also known as Cute Fucking Gay New York, is comprised of members Daniel Chew, Ten Izu, Kristen Kilponen, and Tin Nguyen. They work through infrastructures of collective authorship to mine Asian diasporic identity and queerness. Bel Ami presents CFGNY’s first US solo show and West Coast premiere, featuring porcelain and architectural cardboard sculptures, clothing and stuffed animal toys. Import Imprint engages histories of American decorative arts and examines bootlegging as a diasporic mode of identity formation. CFGNY references the US and China trade in acts of reproduction that taps into what they call a “bootleg identity.” CFGNY positions the manufacture of knock-offs not as an attempt to copy an original source, but rather as a process that is always altering, a collective act of replication that adds new meaning with each shift. A bootleg identity is a mode of expansion and transition with endless potential. In the modern context of rapid global exchange, it functions flexibility, approaching race, culture, and language through it’s multiplicity. This reflection by the NYC-based artist collective into the past and present of the bootleg shows how quickly culture morphs and yet how long it’s imprint lingers in the imagination. @belami.la @t_____alia