The legacy of Ishirō Honda’s 1954 cinematic triumph, “Godzilla,” extends far beyond the big screen. Unfolding against the backdrop of post-war Japan, devastated by atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a dormant leviathan, mutated by nuclear testing, emerges from the Pacific Ocean and wages war against humanity. For a group of Asian American artists reckoning with the exclusionary policies and lack of representation in the art world in 1990, Godzilla became a fitting moniker. The metaphorical resonance of the anarchist lizard’s emergence, reflecting the consequences of nuclear testing and the struggle for recognition, mirrored the artists’ own challenges and their determination to reform the tide of hegemonic American consciousness.
