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

to their own reckoning resisted the application of such codes. The unease generated by these rep– resentations and manoeuvres is comparable to that which surfaces in discourses in modern art which tend to deal with or resist paradigms from the West as being sovereign. While these engagements are necessary and therefore applauded, critical attention and enterprise appear to stagnate, even atrophy, along these fronts; the situation has led to an ironic twist in the state of art historical scholarship. Art historical debate concerning the validity of pre-modern South-East Asia as a distinct region has been weighed by the mass of Indian (and, for that matter, Chinese) cultural imprints, leading to perceptions of the region as a passive dependency or cultural colony. This has dampened comparative study on a regional basis, that is until recently; Giteau's interpretation of the Harihara from Prasat Andet is symptomatic of alternative interests and perspectives, bringing into relief connections within the region; in this vein, the study of ceramics in relation to patterns of trading have further consolidated intraregional connections. These latter approaches point to other historiographical modes by which the South-East Asian past can be mapped. Modern art historical discourses have tended to stay within boundaries circumscribing post– colonial nation states. The principal aims have been to develop histories of modern art along national, domestic turfs. Rarely do writers step outside them to look at and ascertain the goings– on across boundaries. Consequently, comparative studies on a regional basis are undeveloped; perceptions of the emergence and development of modernism in terms of regional dynamics or in terms of historical processes particular to South– East Asia as a region have not been advanced. Movements of peoples, languages, technologies, commodities and belief systems across boundaries and seas within South-East Asia have been continuous over the millennia. We need not only cite events from the distant past, as in the case of Jayavarman II who is said to have sought refuge in Java from the succession disputes in Cambodia, and then returned to establish the royal capital at Angkor in 802 A.O. transhipping conceptions of kingship and temple architecture from Java along with his return, as evidence for such intraregional movements and connections. During the 1940s and 1950s, intense links between Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia were forged arising from strategies aimed at dismantling colonialism; these engagements involved writers and artists whose interactions were consequential in the practice of and thinking on art. 18 Manifestations such as these have not been featured in the customary chronicles of art; neither have they been reckoned in any art historical sense, deeply. Such occurrences can be multiplied to exemplify intraregional connections throughout South-East Asia. The prospects for constructing regionalist approaches or perspectives are fecund and, I dare say, rewarding. A commencement can be made with thorough reviews and studies of extant writings on art in the twentieth century in South-East Asia along with the considerations suggested earlier. This is a means of bringing into prominence literature on art that can serve or be claimed as texts; such a body is indispensable for advancing methodologies pertinent to historical explications of art in South-East Asia. Studies of these as texts can throw into relief converging or overlapping historical situations within which discourses take place; such endeavours can also prise open divergences which register differences and intense localisation within the region. In embarking upon these endeavours, the writing of history and criticism of art can be moved to deeper, reflexive levels, leading to the provision of art historio– graphies which can assume contending or competing status with historiographies that are esteemed to be dominant and emanating invariably from the West. T.K. Sabapathy, Art Historian and Lecturer in the History of Art and Architecture, National University of Singapore This notion is derived from John Clark who, inhis formulation, proposes 'the fwin tyrannies of authentic origination and correct understanding'.See 'Open and Closed Discourses of Modernity in Asian Art' in Modernity in Asian Art, ed.John Clark, Wild Peony, Sydney,1993, p.6. Marian Pastor Roces, 'words', in eyeline, 22123, summer,1993, pp.47-48. Jim Supangkat, 'Knowing and understanding the differences', in Orientation, the Gate Foundation, Amsterdam, 1995. 4 Claire Holt, Art in Indonesia: Continuities andChange, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1977, pp.211-254 Ananda Coomaraswamy, Historyof Indian and Indonesian Art, Dover Publications, New York, 1965, p.157. All references are from this edition.The publisher's note states that this edition 'is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work first published by Karl W. Hiersemann in 1957' Coomaraswamy,p.157. Coomaraswamy, pp.183-183. Madeleine Giteau, Khmer Sculpture and the AngkorCivilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 1965, p.60 Giteau, p.29. 10 Coomaraswamy, p.157. 11 Giteau, p.30. 12 George CoedM, The lndianized States ofSoutheast Asia, ed. W. F. Vella, trans. S. Browning Cowing, East-West Centre Press, Honolulu, 1968, pp.15-16 13 Coed~s. p.252 14 Coed~s. p.255. 15 George Coed~s. 'Preface', in Jean Boisselier, Manuel d'ArcMologie d'Extreme– Orient,Premi~re Partie, Asie du Sud-Est, Tome 1, Le Cambodge, A. & J. Picard, Paris, 1966, p.xiv. 16 Roxas Aurora Lim, The Evidence ofCeramics as an Aid inUnderstanding the Pattern of Trade in the Philippines andSoutheastAsia, Asian Studies Monograph No.036, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok,1987, p.55. 17 Lee Chor Lin, Batik, Creating an Identity, National Museum, Singapore, 1991,p.21. 18 For adetailed, personal, account of these interactions see Singapore and the Indonesian Revolution 1945-50: Recollections ofSuryono Oarusman, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1992. Contemporary Art and The Limits of Globalisation Nicholas Thomas In the eyes of outsiders, the art of the Pacific has always been traditional rather than contemporary. Oceania, like Africa, has long been renowned for the power and diversity of its 'primitive' arts, and the last hundred years has witnessed an extraordinary aesthetic, economic, and scholarly investment in the arts of the region. Vast numbers of pieces have been trafficked in, catalogued, stored, exhibited, and published. This investment has thrown shadows across contemporary cultural expression in the region. Anyone seeking to move beyond the primitivist vision has had to insist that 'contemporary' art is just as important and authentic as 'traditional' art. Such debate has proceeded in many contexts. It may be claimed that in some countries such as Aotearoa/New Zealand, the battle has been won. Institutions and exhibitions now feature both old and recent, traditional and contemporary, traditionalist and hybrid. At best, then, a continuum of cultural expressions is presented, with the implication that all possess value and validity. 'Traditional' and 'contemporary' seem, however, to have become words that we are stuck with. The dichotomy remains a problem, not because all dichotomies are necessarily bad, but because it suggests a linear progression from the traditional to the contemporary. This 'from-to' evolution does not simply suggest that tradition belongs to the past and contemporary art to modernity. It differentiates among arts that in a temporal sense all belong to the present. Carved and woven objects produced in rural communities for local use or for sale are contrasted with urban art produced for the art market and an international audience. Carvings and videos are among the works now being created by Maori, but the former are often described as traditional and the latter as contemporary, because one medium and genre has local and pre-contact antecedents, while the other does not. 'Contemporary' could simply mean 'of the present', but often means 'of the international art world'. It has become vital to move beyond this language. The traditional/contemporary dichotomy subsumes cultural expressions and histories to a narrative that is untrue to the uneven and problematic extension of modernity across regions such as Oceania. The cultural heterogeneity that persists through globalisation-and has been reinforced in reaction to it-is marked not by simple variety or diversity in contemporary art, but by almost incommensurable differences among contemporary aesthetic expressions. Consider two examples, one more an 'artifact' than an 'art work'. The first is a woven pandanus basket from the village of Melsisi on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. Es sAvs I 17