ARTIST

With acrylic paint on canvas, Ben Sakoguchi reassembles imagery from film posters, newspapers, comics, and internet searches to reveal subtexts of local discrimination, mass media exploitation, and state-sanctioned violence. A Japanese American who spent years of his childhood living in an incarceration camp during World War II, Sakoguchi comments on a century and a half of prejudice against diasporic Asians. Contending with overlapping histories that contribute to ideas of Asian American identity, Sakoguchi creates an ironic primer on capitalism’s treachery with an audacity that challenges and uplifts

Sometimes a cigar…, 2012, is part of a series inspired by Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos (1799). According to Goya, the series of 80 etchings illustrate “the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have made usual.” Sakoguchi’s Caprices (2003-2012) combine imagery from news and pop culture with captions modeled on Goya’s inscriptions. Tackling subjects ranging from drug use, to financial and religious excesses and abuses, to baseball-field etiquette, Sakoguchi reveals how the most minute aspects of our culture are imbricated in legacies of settler colonialism and systemic racism. Sakoguchi’s irrepressible humor draws us in and sets the record straight.

Born in 1938 in San Bernardino, CA; lives and works in Pasadena, CA

CHARITY

The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is the US’s guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in the US by its Constitution and laws.

Generally, the ACLU of Southern California works on behalf of people in the Southern California region, namely in Los Angeles, Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.