The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

KaibeJUA I Shields of Identity Lives and works in Banz, Papua New Guinea Untitled (six 2six) shield 1993 Wood and synthetic polymer paint 159x62x5cm Collection: Centre Culture! Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Noum~a 116 I ART I s T s: PA c I FI c Any facet of Papua New Guinean life, be it social, cultural, economic or other, has always encountered numerous changes. Shifts and changes resulting from Western social, cultural and economic influences, and the crisscrossing of ideas and practices, have provided for a robust and very dynamic way of life. Indeed, these changes have generated a very lively and vibrant Papua New Guinean context of history and tradition, and of innovation and change. Everyday practices, beliefs, values, attitudes and perceptions have continually undergone reconsideration and adjustment. It is in this context that many artists in Papua New Guinea have considered these influences and changes in their lives. Acknowledging history and tradition, these artists are taking on the challenges and proposals put forth by the new and reconstructing them. Their constructions and reconstructions proposition new domains and possibilities and, in doing so, explore contemporary ways of representing meaningful and significant Papua New Guinean realities. Kaibel Ka'a is one such artist who is engaged in rethinking his own cultural context and examining and analysing the influences that continually bombard him. Kaibel's work is closely associated with the war shields from his culture and the appropriation and juxtaposition of popular Western and contemporary Papua New Guinean images and icons onto the war shields. On an immediate level, it may be obvious to delineate particular icons and images and even deliberate on their originality. However, Kaibel's shields recontextualise the icons and images and introduce questions relating to any original and organic sense of meaning in the iconography of popular culture. Through inversion, the shields provide a new vitality and meaning within the artist's own context. Traditionally, the shields were predominantly constructed by individual men to defend themselves during tribal conflicts against enemies. Each shield was made from a plank-like slab of a particular tree. Once cured and dried, the shield was shaped and smoothed to a size adequate to cover a single warrior standing behind it and light enough to move quickly with it. Vines were threaded in the middle to form a loop for manipulation and a sling was usually attached for carrying the shield around the shoulder. Decoration of the shields was achieved firstly by using charcoal and earth colours, predominantly brown and white.There were no particularly elaborate design and colour schemes on the shields. Commonly, a shield had either a square or triangle in the middle and the rest of the area would be covered with a single colour. Plumes of the cassowary bird were the second aspect to decorations. Three to four stems of plumes were inserted at the top of the shield and held in place by vines. Today many of the shields are constructed from material such as plywood, empty 44-gallon drums cut in half, and reshaped corrugated iron. The paints used on the shields are mainly oil-based house paints readily available from hardware shops. While there was previously a lack of imagery, the projection of images on the shields provides important inversions of popular Western and contemporary Papua New Guinean images and idioms for the artist's cultural context. One of the shields is painted with the face of the comic character Phantom. Phantom comics were popular, particularly among the young, and notions of 'the ghost who walks', male strength, bravery and individuality were identified with the comic figure. Kaibel has reinstated these attributes in the local context by placing the Phantom's face on the shield, as tribal warfare is a male dominated affair and similar qualities in warriors are held in high regard. Traditionally these qualities were understood but today they have been crystallised and represented through another medium. The idiom of 'six 2 six' within the Papua New Guinea context means a dusk to dawn party. The use of the Raggiana Birds of Paradise above and the image of the 'death skull' is particularly significant. 1 The inscription of these birds and the 'six 2 six' and 'death skull' in Kaibel's context may mean that the particular war was a very difficult, long and bitter conflict that resulted in much loss of life. The modernisation of Papua New Guinea and the availability of materials, ideas and images has unfolded a changing and challenging reality for Papua New Guineans and others. The proposition that artists like Kaibel are putting to us is for a new intellectual and cultural freedom that first and foremost must guarantee their freedom to think and articulate through their selected medium of expression. Michael A.Mel,Artist andWriter,Goroka, PapuaNew Guinea 1 MichaelO'Hanlon, Paradise, BritishMuseum, London1993.