1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

18 then can Euramerican s ty le s be re la tiv iz ed when t h e i r t r a n s f e r is the founding: moment for a r t discourses? How can Indonesian, and in many senses Malay, Thai, and Phillipine, a r t i s t s r e la tiv ize Euramerican s ty lis tic discourse, when it is th e i r only such discourse? They can because althougrh Euramerican painting- may have become th e i r only a r tis tic discourse, th e ir expression is from a position within t h e i r own cu ltu ra l discourse . Tha t is, the func tion of othering- the p a s t which a lready ex is ts in t h e i r cu ltu re is a r tic u la ted through reference to a wide and by no means mono-dimensional se t of va lues , sometimes in decoration and c ra ft, sometimes in oral lit e r a tu r e , whereas th e i r o the ring of the p r e s en t is carried out by th e ir r e la tiv iz a tion of Euramerican a r t i s t i c discourse. It is simply eas ie r for the c ritic or h is to r ian to map t h a t o the ring in a r t i s t i c , especially p ic to ria l, discourse when such an a r t discourse is a lready p resen t. The fac t t h a t is a lready so c learly p re sen t in China, Japan , Korea, and Taiwan, can ac tua lly be misleading, for what is o the red in the e s tab lishmen t of modern a r t discourses may appear in p la s t ic art works, bu t can re fe r to discourses found elsewhere which have borrowed th a t expression. Thus only can one begin to und e r s tan d th e manipula tion of 'Tantric ' symbols in some Indian pa in ting in th e early 19 70 s , or the manipula tion of Chinese 'cha rac te r ' forms in the la te 1980s . In life as in art, we should not ana ly tica lly assume the con ten t plane is the same as t h a t of expression . 3 I th ink it is possible to consider double o th e r ing on the analogy of Bateson's Learning' III . Exactly how it is to be defined and understood will take a long time for semiotics and r e l a t ed d isc ip linary knowledge in art h is to ry to work out, but in a rud imen tary sense the re is some kind of control re la tion between the d iscourses of works and in t e rp r e t a t io n s which