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

Niranjan Rajah WHO Do You 'Represent'? (And For Whom Do You Make Your 'Representations '?) With apologies to those who are averse to European and American references, I would like to begin with a cartoon by Ad Reinhardt. 'HA HA, WHAT DOES TH IS REPRESENT?' says the figure in the suit pointing at an abstract painting : 'WHAT DO YOU REPRESENT?' bellows back the pai nting , its abstract lines now gathered i n an anthropomorphic scowl . According to David Batchelor this cartoon 'asserts a belief i n the capacity of art to enable reflection upon the prevailing conventions, habits and prejudices of a culture, rather than to be a mute reflection of that dominant culture'. It is the modernist displacement of representation to its own perimeter i n the cause of abstraction that has, today, 'turned' into the contextual and deconstructive approaches that constitute postmodern ism. This 'postmodernism' is, simply, the application of the 'theory of the sign' (empty or otherwise) to the analysis and practice of cultural production . I n this 'semiotic' paradigm, abstraction itself is reconstituted as representation and even a Mond rian represents 'something' after all. It is i n the climate of an i nternational return to 'figu ration', within this 'return of representation', that the present renaissance of Asian art is taking place . I nclusive as the i nternational mainstream is of 'difference', its parameters are derived from the i mperatives of European and American aesthetics, philosophy and politics. There is an area mapped out for 'us' i n this alien cartography but 'our' place within 'thei r' discourse is inscribed in the langue of liberalism and the parole of the Lacanian 'mirror stage'. It is essential that, i n broaching i nternational contexts, the art of Asia brings its own terms of reference to these emerging arenas. In societies where 'free speech' is not consecrated as the deity of political life, 'subversive' gestures do not translate i nto cultural signifiers. The transformation of social and political issues i nto artistic practice, that is so familiar in the jaded yet nevertheless 'democratic' art of the West, has been slow to emerge in Asia. The 'critical' art that is the staple diet of Western culture vultures does not whet the appetites of their Eastern counterparts. To the extent that such art is practised i n our more authoritarian societies, artists, quite literally, run the risk of being 'disciplined and pun ished'. In recent years, however, g iven the g lobalisation of art markets, our artists are finding audiences away from home. Supported by those whose interests the rhetoric of 'free speech' serves, a flock of dissident artists has emerged . These artists inhabit contexts within which their gestures appear to represent some notion of universal democracy. As an artist who represents himself, I am delighted by the widening field of visibility and will, surely, attempt to exploit its possibilities. However, as an art h istorian and a theorist who, dare I say the word , 'represents' the art of h is country, I feel the need to urge caution . Many Asian countries display some ambivalence towards t he 'fine art ' we are celebrating at this Asia-Pacific Triennial - ambivalence that is reflected in scant infra-structure and reticent i nstitutional support. This is not simply the result of apathy or intransigence. It is, instead , a meaningful reflection of the living tradition and traditional val ues that contest and compete with the modernity and modernisms of our various cultures. As Ananda Coomaraswamy has explained , there was once a unity of art and work. In our traditional societies art was i nseparable from manufacture and use. When a thing was produced for a given purpose, it was by 'art' that it was properly made. This harmony was ruptured when the modern system of manufacture gave rise to two different kinds of makers of things. First, the privileged 'artist' who works from 'inspiration', and then , beneath h im, the labourer who makes thi ngs that other men (the artists of course) have imagi ned . While functional things (now made by labour) are reduced to barren utilitarianism , 'works of art' are elevated to serve as objects of pure aesthetic contemplation. 62