TRIBUTE

In 1998, eighteen-year-old Jonathan See Lim, known as “TIE” or “Tie One,” was shot and killed in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. A prolific graffiti artist, Lim was painting on a building when he pleaded for his life with his killer, a resident who claimed self-defense. Though no hate crime charges were filed, many in the Asian American and art communities understood the killing through the lens of race. After his death, fellow graffiti writers painted massive “Tie Tributes” across the Bay Area, insisting on his continued presence. In graffiti culture, a tribute keeps an artist’s name in circulation, declaring that they still matter.

“TRIBUTE” borrows this framework to spotlight Asian American artists who helped build American DIY, punk, and counterculture—figures largely absent from these movements’ histories. When we think of punk, zines, riot grrrl, or graffiti, Asian Americans rarely appear in the narrative, yet they were there from the start, helping lay the foundations of these countercultures. This exhibition addresses that erasure.

Amy Yao and Maggie Lee came of age in these scenes—Yao in the teenage punk band Emily’s Sassy Lime, Lee in Bay Area graffiti—and their contemporary practices carry those roots forward. Alongside their work, archival material keeps this history in circulation: a throw-up honoring TIE, footage of Emily’s Sassy Lime, and zines like Slant and Bamboo Girl, which made space for Asian American voices within punk and riot grrrl.