Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

Victoria Lynn (Sess ion Commentator) We have heard various reasons given for exhi biti ng and collecting Asia-Pacific art in the papers presented this morning. Kwok Kian Chow showed us the 'Modernity and Beyond ' exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum . He drew our attention to architecture as frame. He discussed a new generation of art museums in South-East Asia and coined the term post-modern to describe them. Kian Chow cited three models of curatorsh ip: Natural H istory (no curator involved); Historicism; and Formal ist (the masterpiece exh ibitions) . He came down on the side of the Historicist model , a format that allows for theme exhi bitions. And he showed us one theme from the 'Modern ity and Beyond' exhibition , National ism, Revolution and the Idea of the Modern . Masahiro Ush iroshoj i from the Fukuoka Art Museum spoke about the history of the Asian Art Show. It began in 1 979 and at fi rst resembled an Olympic Games. The first shows were marked by a form of exoticisation of Asia. Now it has been narrowed down to forty-eight artists from eighteen countries and is structured around themes, and a un ified vision . I nterestingly, this show is put together by t en curators from t he Fukuoka Museum. Soyeon Ahn from South Korea gave us an insight into how Korean art has been perceived in the West and the contrad ictory attitudes that are in place. There is an expectation of cultu ral difference and hence Korean art is put on a different level. Soyeon Ahn argued for national identity to 'hide u nder the brilliant i ndividuality of each artist'. Emmanuel Kasarherou explained the new concepts and development of the forthcoming cultural centre in Noumea. It is to be managed by the Kanak people. He introduced us to the complex sociopolitical background in New Caledonia . The centre is fou nded on a proclamation of cultural identity and wi ll present the Kanak culture as living flesh and blood . He coined the phrase: 'our identity is ahead of us' . Oscar Ho H i ng Kay highlighted the conflicts between Hong Kong and China. He spoke of the need to target a sense of cultural identity which is necessari ly ambiguous. He went so far as to say that cultural identity was a dangerous concept. He raised ethical questions for cu rators working with political artists. Like Kwok Kian Chow, he suggested that history was a good starting point for exhibitions of Asia-Pacific art. What we are witnessing here is the process of museums questioning their role in the presentation and contextualisation of art. If as Caroline Turner has suggested , we are seeing a revol ution in art history , then the same might be true for the museum and exhi bition strategies. Mary Nooter Roberts has commented i n a catalogue produced by the Museum of African Art in New York, that 'museums today are turn ing inward to question their pasts, their purposes, and their identities'. 1 They have been transformed from the cabinets of curiosities. Their function has altered from an authoritative one (the 'zero degree' referred to by Kwok) to an interrogative one. The old style civilisation show, where 1 00 great objects are presented spot lit and without context, is being countered by innovative exhi bitions. These shows and collections exhi bit the problem, rather than the solution . 2 At their best, they interrogate the problems of representation . The kind of exhi bitions outl ined here wi ll help us move towards a new understanding of a set of modernisms rather than one global notion of modern ism, a modernism that for i nstance in I ndia is an i ntervention into trad ition rather than a break with it. I n Australia exhibitions of art from Asia and the Pacific have largely been developed to expose art of the region to audiences. Two models have predominated : 1 03