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

The majority of the artists participating in the second Triennial work with installation and sculptural concerns. The decision to site the greater proportion of the exhibition within the Gallery pose.d highly challenging logistical hurdles.The intricate and lively negotiations between the artists and Gallery staff were further activated by the arrival of almost fifty artists, who travelled to Brisbane to install their work and participate in the opening events.Wherever possible, artists and speakers embarked on a complex program of residencies and visits across Australia, meeting and working with artists, cultural and arts communities and wider audiences. This process of making the Triennial accessible to the broader community is a pivotal aspect of the project. As the final distillation of this process, the exhibition itself becomes a catalytic event, providing new channels to deepen the territories of discourse. Through the artists' talks, performances and statements; the conference, Present Encounters; and publications; opportunities are provided for artists (and others) to speak and be heard. Simultaneously, the connections that occur in between these events generate their own vitality and future. From a personal perspective, my faith in the project has been continually renewed by the generosity of spirit and professional integrity offered by those involved. Shifting Dialogue Languages, like meanings, are various. Artists were invited to accompany their work with statements. The tales told are nuanced, they speak of faux nostalgia, of vulnerability, of yearning for the future, of song cycles, voyages through history, comic dreams, the ploys of fast culture, urban ecology, border crossings, insidious violence, locating the spiritual, the subtleties of gender, hope, and reinvesting in the materials and practices of traditions. A number of artists refer to aspects of personal narratives as metaphors for the social dimension. For others, issues of social change become allegories for the private domain. As Trinh T Minh-Ha writes, 'To create is not so much to make something new as to shift. Not to shift from a lesser place to a higher or better one, but to shift, intransitively'. 9 The Asia-Pacific Triennial attempts to create a space for shifting, it is a constantly evolving, unfinished work-in-progress that focuses on voices from the edges. This project is not concerned with the impossible task of transmitting the facts of worlds not our own, but rather, the simple task of encounter; of looking at, talking about and listening to art. 'Strategies of displacement defy the world of compartmentalisation and the systems of dependence it engenders, while filling the shifting space of creation with a passion called wonder.' 10 Rhana Devenport, Senior Project Officer, APT, Queensland Art Gallery,Australia 36 I cu RATO RI A L E ss AY s 1 Ong Keng Sen, 'lntercultural Exchange and Dialogue in the Arts', Paper presented to the AsiaEdge/Tokyo Symposium, Tokyo, 1996. Ong Keng Sen has had extensive experience with cross-cultural performance projects, particularly through TheatreWorks (Singapore) Ltd where he is currently Artistic Director. 2 Apinan Poshyananda, 'From Hybrid Space to Alien Territory' in TransCulture !exhibition catalogue], 'Venice Biennale', 1995, p.78. 3 Shimizu Toshia, Visions ofHappiness·Ten Asian ContemporaryArtists [exhibition catalogue], The Japan Foundation ASEAN Culture Centre,Tokyo,1995, p.17. 4 Apinan Poshyananda,p.78. 5 Cai Guo Qiang, Cai Guo Qiang 'From The Pan-Pacific' [exhibition catalogue], lwaki City Art Museum, lwaki,p.128 Geeta Kapur, 'TheRecent Developments of "Southern" Contemporary Art Avant– garde Art Practice in the Emerging Context', Paper presented to the Unity in Diversity. Contemporary Art of the Non-Aligned Countries Conference, Jakarta, 1995. The important contribution of recent contemporary art events to the exposure and discussion of eitherAsian or Pacific contemporary art must be acknowledged. These events include the '4th Asian Art Show: Fukuoka: Realism as an Attitude' Fukuoka, 'Visions of Happiness', Tokyo, 1995 (and other Japan Foundation exhibitions), the newly-established 'Kwangju Biennale', South Korea, the 'Chiang Mai Social Installations: Thailand, 'Festivals ofPacific Arts'and 'SouthPacific Festival of Arts'. John Pule,unpublished Artist's Statement, Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art,Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1996. 9 Trinh T. Minh-Ha, When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Genderand Cultural Politics, Routledge, New York, 1991, p.108 10 Trinh T. Minh-Ha, p.23. Top Xu Bing Abook from the sky 1987-91 Installation of printed banners and wooden boxes Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of ContemporaryAsian Art Bottom Cai Guo Qiang Bringing to Venice what Marco Polo forgot Project, 1995 The Present Situation of Japanese Art Furnia Nanjo The Japanese art which began to appear in the late 1980s obviously reflects the culture of the contemporary Japanese city. This places it at an opposite pole from the strongly nature-oriented mono-ha movement which emerged at the end of the 1960s. What, then, are the characteristics of Japan's contemporary urban culture? Today's cities are a mixture of radically different cultures, as was Rome in ancient times, and Paris and New York more recently. However, the manner of cultural mixing in the modern cities of Asia is somewhat different from that of these international cities of the past, since the possibilities for combinations of disparate cultural elements are broader and more extensive than ever before. There is a potential for the creation of an entirely new culture when these diverse elements are used, quoted, reinterpreted, and juxtaposed, while ignoring or overpowering the original cultural context. In addition to varied combinations of different cultures, there is the coexistence of past and present. The rapid development of computers and the electronics industry in Asian cities leads to a revolutionary, futuristic image of society, while at the same time, customs, habits, ways of living and systems handed down from ancient times are still functioning.The contrasts create extreme tensions and tremendous possibilities. These new cultural and social conditions are emerging conspicuously today in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, but Japan was the pioneer in taking this direction. Following World War 11, Japan was forced to abandon a large part of its heritage because of defeat in war, and it also gave up many of its traditional values. Tokyo experienced dramatic changes in the 1960s. Much of the older culture and many social arrangements and customs were abandoned. At the same time, new ways of living and new industries and businesses were created. New architecture was built and new social systems developed. New hopes and visions of the future were born. The Japanese, rather than grieving for what was lost, were faced with an urgent need to accept and assimilate the new conditions and deal with them effectively: They did this by developing an advanced economy, better information and transportation technology, and internationalising trade and industry. The cultural changes which resulted from these developments merit attention. The situation in Asia differs from the way modernism was developed in the West-through choices made by elite culture administrators and bureaucrats; but this is not to say that modernism did not play a part in Asian development. The modern history of Asia can be described as a history of the transplantation and development of modernism, with variations depending on regional circumstances.