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

events and tendencies in society' and 'cultural as a whole'. Within th is tendency, artistic aspects were overlooked . It is only through its artistic aspects that contemporary art of the Th i rd World, like Hanru had said, can be properly understood . An u nderstand ing of contemporary art cannot avoid its contrad ictory connection with Modernist development - at least up until now. In contemporary art based on 'mai nstream' development, this contrad iction is clear; while in the Th ird World , the connection between modern art and contemporary art is obscure because the development of modern art - particularly its relationship with Modernism - is itself uncl ear. Viewing Th ird World contemporary art only through the frame of post-avant-garde/post-modernity is push ing obscu rity towards a more obscu re cond ition . Until now, the obscu rity of modern art developments in the Third World has been ignored within contemporary art discussions. This denial is related to a strong tendency in contemporary art development to refuse any discussion of modern art, Modernism or modernity. Not only have curators of the mainstream demonstrated this refusal, but also, cu rators of the Third World dealing with contemporary art, who have tried hard to adjust their attitudes in return for acknowledgment. In the international art world, the Thi rd World has never really had the opportun ity to fi nd (or understand) its own artistic development, either within modern art, or now, within contemporary art. In my opinion, discussions which refuse to evaluate the effects of modern art development of the Third World , never really deny totality; which is the crux of the difficulty in understanding Th ird World art. Thus, the discussion of absolutism, tota lity and singularism in Modernism , in my opin ion , shou ld be opened aga i n within contemporary art d iscourse, by way of seeing the difference of artistic development of modern art behind the emergence of world contemporary art. This state of difference cannot be seen only by elaborating difference in cultura l background. We can start discussing this matter with reference to Nederveen Pieterse's opinion on the unpacking of the specificity of Western modernity. In regard to this we can go back to the debate on , 'what is Modernism'. In an essay entitled , 'When Was Modernism', Raymond Wi lliams stated : 'Modernism' as a title for whole cultu ral movement . . . has been retrospective as a general term since the 1 950s, thereby stranding the dominant version of 'modern' or even 'absolute modern', between, say, 1 880 and 1 940s. 5 Wi l l iams's opinion answered a question which had been i n my mind for a long time. This answer made me aware that Modernism is not an ideology. Thus, its absolutism and totality as a belief should be questioned . Modernism is related to a retrospective concept and relates d i rectly to certai n developments and realities since the eighteenth century. In a word: Western reality. Thus, Modern ism (with capital M) , i n my vision , is modern ism which shows Western interpretations of development after experienci ng modernity and other rea l ities in the modern world . Then I came to a real isation, if Western society could come to modernism through its realities, why couldn't societies outside the West? There is a common perception that the world outside the West adopted both modernity and Western culture after World War I I . This is perhaps the reason why Modernism outside the West has been described as an adoption of Western modern ideology. However, this is not true. For example, in cou ntries like I ndonesia and The Philippines, which were colonised by Western nations, Western culture has been influential since the seventeenth century and has resulted in hybrid cultures. Within these cultures, the spi rit of modernisation was influential in the eighteenth century. Through evolutionary development, it grew into a different modernity. For example, the self-identification of I ndigenous people under colonialism grew toward nationalism around the time of World War I I . Withi n this mod ification process, we could fi nd the I ndonesian pa inter Raden Saleh and the F i li pino painter Juan Luna , who were i nvolved in the Romantic movement in Europe in the n i neteenth centu ry. This shows the relationship between art in I ndonesia and The Philippines 29