Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 1993 : Exhibition report

Australia. New approaches to art have been developed, some rejecting Western imperatives, and we are also now seeing other artists confident in their synthesising of Western art approaches, to the point of consciously rejecting an anti-Western position in the recognition that both Western and non-Western artists have been, and continue to be, inspired by each other’s cultures. The writers in Tradition and Change reflect the need for pluralistic interpretations and challenge the concept of a linear progression in art. In these essays, as in this exhibition, there is a forceful denial of the idea of art emanating only from major centres in Europe and North America and of an 'international style' which can now be seen as, in many ways, an aberration of the Cold War. The issues of colonialism are very much in the past and it is the present and the future that engage intellectual debate and artistic endeavour. While the past in terms of history and culture is not ignored, what is caiied for is a method of art criticism, free from the Euro-American paradigm, not with the aim of replacing it with a new theoretical position, but with the objective of developing different perspectives. Both the book and this exhibition reinforce the fact that there is a decisive move away from the hegemony of major centres and a move to, or indeed a return to, multi-polarity. While there is no homogenous identity for the art of this region, there are shared approaches and ideas held in common. These aspects deserve much greater attention from scholars. Today’s contemporary art is a product of tradition, past historical cultural encounters, the confrontation with the West in more modern times, and the recent economic, technological and information changes which have pushed the world to a ‘global culture’ and greatly accelerated those changes. Artists today have to confront a myriad of such changes in making sense out of contemporary events and many respond with passion to social and political issues within society. In some cases artists are now refocusing on examining the uniqueness of their national identity; others go beyond national identity in exploring universal themes; neo- traditional artists provide a challenge to the precepts of modernism and to the truisms of twentieth-century society and ‘global culture’; the survival of myth and ritual from ancient times reaffirms the strength of cultural traditions thought lost or extinguished. As Professor Wang Gungwu has noted in the Foreword to Tradition and Change, contemporary artists have a significant roie to piay in the complex cultural interactions of our world. Above all, this first Triennial exhibition shows the art of the region to be diverse yet at times intensely locally specific while, at the same time, engaging with international art practice. There is no sense of a homogenous regional identity yet there are common themes which emerge from the art. Among these themes are national identity and the place of tradition with rapidly diversifying and changing societies, religion and spirituality, the role of women in society, social and political concerns, and especially ecological issues and the worldwide problem of environmental degradation. Many of the artists in this exhibition also take up the issues of a world apparently moving towards a ‘global culture’ in communications but at the same time reconstituting itself through local contexts of identity. It is in this connection that intraregional perspectives have a special validity. While there is no theme for this exhibition there is a thesis; that is that Euro-Americentric perspectives are no longer valid as a formula for evaluating the art of this region.