Japanese Internment Camp Art of Gaman at the Renwick in Washington DC

Japanese internment camp art is on exhibit at the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC. The beautiful objects in The Art of Gaman testify to a very ugly time in our history. You can visit them in DC or online.

Japanese Internment Camp Art: Background on the Art of Gaman

Soon after Pearl Harbor, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up and confined in 10 evacuation camps between 1942 and 1946. Gaman is the Japanese word for "enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity" according to the opening text at the Renwick exhibit. Herded into barracks with nothing but cots, the internees created art that furnished their quarters and sustained their minds throughout this ordeal. At first, no cameras were allowed and even when the rules were relaxed, people who weren't allowed to earn more than $19 a month could hardly afford them. This art provides a rare glimpse into the lives of the internees. The internees themselves are rarely represented. As one 15 year old artist describes, some places are unfit for humans.

Japanese Internment Camp Art: Highlights from the Art of Gaman in Washington DC

The artists here run the gamut from displaced farmers experimenting on their own to artists with professional training who took on hundreds of students eager to immerse themselves in something meaningful. The only artist most people will recognize is Isamu Noguchi. As a second generation Nisei, the government allowed him to voluntarily enter the Poston camp in Arizona where he wanted to help out, but then reneged on its promise to let him leave. His formalized pink marble bust of Ginger Rogers done at Poston looks as alien as an Egyptian goddess among the squalor. While I rarely read guest books at exhibits, this one is special with messages from former internees and people adding the names of camps not included in this exhibit.

Japanese Internment Camp Art: More Resources on the Art of Gaman

If you can't get to Washington DC before the show closes January 30, the Renwick has posted extensive materials online. The book that inspired the exhibit, The Art of Gaman by Delphine Hirasuna, costs $23.10 at Amazon. You can also watch the award winning movie The Cats of Mirikitani about this 80 year-old former internee who was living on the streets of New York when 9/11 put his life in danger again. The website lists screening dates nationwide, and it's also available at Netflix.

Visiting the Art of Gaman at the Renwick in Washington DC is a moving experience. Viewing art from the Japanese internment camps makes the suffering painfully vivid and may help prevent future horrors.