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

Does g lobalism really mean Western cu ltural val ues? For many it currently clearly does. The West, it is argued , is searching for something in its new interest in the peripheries. Is it a new exoticism? The debates over exhibitions such as MOMA's 'Primitivism' or the Pompidou's 'Magiciens de la Terre' show misreadi ngs through decontextualisation are possible. The difficulty of finding a new vocabulary and new discourse from which to approach new definitions of identity and art is an issue confronted by all of us, and was confronted at the last Conference . We have now begun t o understand that t he theories we thought represented international (read Western) art and believed were universal ideas are very narrowly constructed . We have learned also that the contemporary art of this region is complex. It cannot be seen only as a component of i nternational art, either international art from the old centre - peri phery model, or a 'new internationalism', or a 'new globalism'. Globalism is sometimes a return to hegemony. We have learned that there is no immutable sameness about Asia-Pacific art. We have learned that definitions of traditional and contemporary art need review. We have learned that the distinction between fi ne art and craft or 'tribal' art may fail to take i nto account the full picture of revitalised traditional art and contemporary art practice , particularly in I nd igenous art and the art of the Pacific. It became clear during the course of the last Triennial exhibition and Conference that what we are really talking about is nothing less than a revolution in art h istory. The narrow concl usions of Western art historians are shattered by the refraction of a mirror whi ch is i ncreasingly seen to reflect not an image of the West but entirely different features. At the last Triennial Conference speakers stressed the need to canvass ideas which cross national boundaries, but also tal ked of the necessity, nonetheless, of context. Marian Pastor Races outlined her unease at the possibility of forcing another 'mega-narrative'. David Elliott made a plea for complexity. Apinan Poshyananda pointed out the significance of cultural syncretism. What Poshyananda said about Thailand holds true for the region as a whole: Cultural syncretism has been fundamental and has taken place th rough the centu ries, and contemporary art cannot be fully understood by looking through the 'wi ndows' of the 'Euro-American paradigm'. Nor can it be understood , we must add , by any attempt to force a new paradigm and impose a new theoretical framework. Centuries of cultural engagement, overlapping territories, displacements, the need to expose marginality and tensions rather than to impose sameness: the Triennial , it was agreed , must accept difference and should not be seen as 'decontextualised exotica' from the margins. Speakers at the last Conference addressed the necessity of coming to terms with what Edward Said , in Culture and Imperialism, called the need for 'a new critical consciousness' combi ned with the u nderstanding that identities, peoples and cultures 'have always overlapped one another, through unhierarch ical influence, crossing, incorporation , recollection , deliberate forgetfulness, and, of course, confl ict'. I n the context of the Triennial we can see that both non-hierarchical and h ierarchical assertions of imperialism and colonialism fuse image and identity in the postcolonial era. Yet what Said calls 'the authority of the compelling image of empire overtaki ng so many procedures of intellectual mastery' has been left behind in the new societies of the Asia­ Pacific. The idea of a dominant centre has gone the way of the image of empire and 21