Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

a long time that the art market is one of the most typical global markets. The distribution of the centre's ideas, concepts, discourses, values, bureaucracy and ideologies to the four corners of the world is a 'natural' phenomenon in today's landscape of global art. Lately, globalisation of the centre's establishments of art becomes a new trend . In addition to the existing international biennales such as Venice Biennale and Documenta, th is new trend is re­ empowering further the centre's position of control over the global network of art activities. The recent expansion of the Guggenheim Museum from New York to Berl i n , Bilbao and probably to other cities in the coming years is a perfect example of this global isation of art institutions. The result is certainly the re-enforcement of the institution's dominant position in the art world . The merging of one of the most established institutions, New York's Museum of Modern Art and PS 1 , known for its independent and experimental p ractices, not only makes for a spectacular d rama but a lso raises speculation as to their future strategy to compete with their neighbours in the age of globalisation . It's true that how to go g lobal and turn oneself into a super power is no longer a subject of art criticism and critical art today. It is a fundamental aspect of the real ity of art itself. How to counterbalance such a re-empowerment of the centre's institutions is an urgent challenge that non-western institutions of art should take up if they hope to carry on their battles of survival and development. As an answer to the challenge, many non-western cities have created new international events such as Havana Biennale, Kwangju Biennale, Johannesburg Biennale, Istanbul Biennale, Dakar Biennale and Taipei Biennale, among others, wh ile new museums and galleries of art are being constructed . It's true that there is a lack of art institutions and infrastructure for contemporary art creation in the non-western world. However, as we have argued, at the turn of the m illenn ium , art creation's real significance should be inscribed in multi-orientality, fluidity, flexibility, uncertainty, 'immateriality' and 'cultural hybridity'. The lack of established infrastructure in the non-western world should therefore be considered an advantage rather than a default since it is possible to explore the 'no-man's land' for art creation in the most flexible and open-ended way in order to re-endow art with new freedom and connection with real l ife. One should catch such a chance to invent new forms of presentation and expression in different spaces , going beyond the framework of traditional museums and other forms of institutions. It's true that with those new biennales across the non-western world, one can witness the formation of another, equally important and more promising global network of 'institutional isation' of art taking place while the term 'institution' is undergoing a deconstructive re-examination. The future evolution of this network, along with the stabilisation and normalisation of the flexible and open forms of its existence, will finally break the boundary of art itself and, on the other hand, transgress the borderl ine between the centre and periphery. The very intellectual base for such a new network is no doubt the 'consciousness of networking' itself. On the one hand, it reflects the reality of the network of global cities as the new centre of global economy and culture . On the other hand, it also reminds us of the new way of communication implied in the metaphor of the Internet. Of course, many artists are largely exploring the global cyberspace opened by the Internet while others, less literally, invent other forms of networking . In fact, the interaction among different points of the network is even more important than the network itself. This 'consciousness of networking' as a new focus of cultural and artistic debates also includes the necessity of involvement with the re-negotiation between the global and local. Actually, the very aim of constructing such an alternative network is to create a new kind of networking situated between the global and local. It is in such a 'glocal' area, the third space, that new forms of expression , new cultural and artistic commitments, and new rel ationships between art language and ideas, between imagination and real ity become possible. It is highly interesting to observe that the new biennales happening out of the West not only try to open themselves up to be global but also, more importantly, bring the global perspective into direct confrontation, translation and negotiation with their various local conditions. To emphasise their particular positions and visions, biennales such as the Havana Biennale, Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane and Taipei Biennale have been mainly focusing on non­ western art while others are trying to bring more global creations u nder 'local lights'. The 1 997 Johannesburg Biennale, entitled 'Trade Routes, History and Geography' attempts to reveal the intense exchange between globalisation and the current changes in the newly-born South Africa. Kwangju Biennale of the same year also makes this negotiation between the global 1 04