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

SESSION 7 : COLLECTI NG AND EXH I BITING ASIAN AND PAC I FIC ART Anne Kirker (Chai r) The fi rst session today is on the topic of Collecting and Exh ibiti ng Asian and Pacific Art and to discuss aspects of it I am joined by very distinguished speakers from Singapore, Japan, South Korea, New Caledonia and Hong Kong , with an Australian col league to comment at the end . But first a few observations to i ntroduce the session . As we live i n a time of intercultu ral dialogue, the emphasis has moved away from solely bu i ld ing up collections from a Eurocentric perspective , towards one wh ich grapples with imagery which requires an altogether different mindset. We have been reminded of this chal lenge by papers already presented at this conference. At the start of the nineties, landmark books by Karp and Lavine such as 'Exh ibiting Cultures' which underscored how identity, taste and meaning are increasingly scrutin ised in our museums; these texts have been importantly joined by the writings of scholars in this reg ion (many of who are in this room today) . What has been clearly indicated is that the trad itional function of art and other museums is rapidly moving away from aspi ring to a timeless, universal presence that safe­ guards historical collections. I nstead , the art museum is moving towards being a forum where confrontation , experimentation and debate are encouraged . This is especially so in the contemporary art arena. Collecting policies are breaking from the old stereotypes; here for instance at the Queensland Art Gallery we have expanded the international collection base to i nclude, i ndeed emphasise, the art practise of cultures in the Asian and Pacific region . The Triennial has been a major impetus for this development. Such an event, and the consequences for collecting by public institutions, has chal lenged anachronistic policies and trad itional methods of d isplay. One very obvious observation about this new approach is that projects whether they come under the heading of 'collecting' or 'exhibiting' are open-ended and take i nto account constant change and revision . They are broad-ranging , not excl usive; they expose 'difference' and do not attempt to homogen ise the curatorial process. Although a tendency still persists to appropriate histories of art from the Asia and Pacific reg ion within the grand narrative of Western modernity, understandable because many curators and art educators have been trained accord i ng to European models, there is more than ever a climate now which is willing to break with orthodoxies and try new ways. This is not a passive process as Chumpon Apisuk stated yesterday - sometimes we have so seek permission to make art - and by extension , as curators, we also have to seek permission to col lect art and to seek counsel about how it should be displayed . We are encouraged to question our assumptions about the notion of curati ng , of collecting and exhi biting non­ European art. Within the forum of the contemporary art museum , there are multiple possibi l ities to acknowledge contradictions and cultural interventions. The site of these enquiries begins to resemble an active resea rch laboratory with CD Rom facilities, rather than a static collection store - display areas become a workshop for creative activity wh ich has as its by-product objects or ephemeral events. Perhaps the time will come when the only gold frames we see i n art museums are those i ntended as a parody of the past. 91