The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

It is an irony that the West has accepted the great achievements of the art of this region of the distant past but has on the whole paid too little attention to the immediate past and the present. The West has almost entirely ignored the fascinating story of the adoption of new ideas and their effect in art (as, for example, Islam in South-East Asia). Western modern art critics have largely been interested only in the development of Western ideas in the art of the region. They have judged this art by its integration of aWestern tradition. Their interpretation has too often been a product of cultural assumptions, for example, in the way Western art critics have seen Western abstraction in Asian art without taking into account possible Eastern art approaches; or in the overemphasis of a socioeconomic context rather than a mystical-aesthetic one. Cultural interaction is no new phenomenon in this region and has taken place over the centuries. The history of the region is one of cultural engagement and adaption which may makeWestern influences seem minor to future historians. What Dr Apinan Poshyananda says about Thailand holds true for the region as a whole. 'Cultural syncretism' has been fundamental and contemporary art cannot be fully understood by looking through the windows of the 'Euro-American paradigm'. 3 Yet this is exactly the criterion that had been applied. At the important conference on contemporary Asian art held in 1991,4 the issue was raised whether the art under discussion was 'derivative' of Western ideas. This issue was once and for all put to rest by a South- East Asian speaker who asked how longWestern art critics believed they could 'own' the ideas of modernism and post-modernism. Artists trained in well-established national art schools, and many having travelled abroad widely, cannot fail to be aware of art outside their own cultural and regional environment. The essays in Tradition and Change document the global move away from dependence on international critical approaches that was evident two and three decades ago, including in 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 in the recognition that both Western and non-Western artists have been, and continue to be, inspired by each other's cultures. The writers reflect the need for pluralistic interpretations and challenge the concept of a linear progression in art. There is a forceful denial of the idea of art emanating only from major centres in Europe and North America and of an 'inter- national style' which can now be seen as, in many ways, an aberration of the Cold War. The issues of colonialism are also 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 called 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. Today's contemporary art is a product of tradition, past historical cultural encounters, the confrontation with the West in more modern times, continuing cross-cultural influences, 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 9 on examining the uniqueness of their national identity; others go beyond national identity in exploring universal themes; nee-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, contemporary artists have a significant role to play in the complex cultural interactions of our world. s 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 hom- ogenous regional identity, yet there are common themes which emerge from the art. Among these themes are national identity and the place of tradition within rapidly 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 communi- cations 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. The confidence, relevance and vitality of the art will be a revelation to many curators in the West. The opportunities for intraregional interchange generated by forums such as the Triennial will, it is to be hoped, provide newways of looking at art on the basis of equality without a 'centre' or 'centres', as well as an approach to cultural interchange open to the future in which we can recognise what we have in common and yet respect what is different. caroline Turner Deputy Director & Manager, International Programs Queensland Art Gallery Redza Piyadasa, 'Modern Art Activity in Asia - Strategies for a More Meaningful Accountability', Paper delivered at Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh, 1986. 2 T. K. Sabapathy, Continuity: The Shapes of Time [exhibition catalogue], ASEAN Mobile Exhibition, 1985,quoted in Piyadasa, 'Modern Art Activity in Asia', p.4. 3 Apinan Poshyananda, 'The development of contemporary art of Thailand:Traditionalism in reverse: in Tradition and Change· ContemporaryArt ofAsia and the Pacific, ed.Caroline Turner, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1993, p.93. 4 Conference convened by Dr John Clark, Australian National University, Canberra, 1991. 5 Wang Gungwu, Foreword, Tradition and Change.