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

which interests me most in Japan falls under the category contempureri aato which is written in the syllabic alphabet to denote foreign words or ideas - same as Makudonarudo and hoto dogu. Primarily because N ihonga follows trad itions and tendencies outside the avant garde lineage of the western art world, it receives l ittle notice outside of Japan . This is an issue we can perhaps talk about later on the panel , as I am sure that there is plenty of tradition-oriented art celebrated locally that has little or no significance abroad or with in the international context. Maybe the relevance of art wh ich follows local or craft or folk trad itions (or dare I say low art, not high art) should be more deeply discussed . Let's get back to museums and artists - local and international. Vishakha Desai, Apinan Poshyananda and Fumio Nanjo, among others, have written about the problem that to the average museum visitor in the West, 'Asian Art' connotes ancient bronze Buddhas, ink­ brushed calligraphy and jade carvings - to many, exotica - so the average American (and perhaps the average Australian) has no expectation of innovative, contemporary creativity from artists living and working across Asia today. They want old Oriental ism . On the flip side, during this century, many Asian artists were inspired and influenced in diverse ways by western art, but soon Asian artists working in modernist and post-modernist vocabularies were accused of being derivative - too western . Important art h istorical scholarship is under way to explore the local aspects of Asian Modern ism. For international exhibitions, I am interested in considering the work of Asian artists in areas outside of contemporary art centres who have one foot planted firmly in their own culture and the other already in, or stepping towards advanced contemporary art and its issues . All artists should be aware of their own self identity and its roots in one or several cultural contexts, and work outward from there with recognition of the context of international contemporary art. This doesn't sound like a controversial idea, but I got in trouble at a conference in Los Angeles earl ier th is year for saying that. During the Q&A session a young Asian artist in the aud ience attacked th is metaphor by taking off his shoes and socks and lifted his feet towards the speakers' table to show me that although his skin colour marked him as Asian , the bottoms of his feet were white, much like mine. The metaphor of this biological fact intrigued me, though I didn't immediately know how to respond. Apinan Poshyananda, also a panelist, cut into the d iscussion and asked the gentleman to put his feet back down because, as a fellow Asian , he was shocked and personally insulted by a d isplay that, within Asia, would be considered deeply rude and contemptuous. He quickly put his foot back down . The power of a gesture, like the diverse culturally-linked symbols and rich local vocabularies that artists use, can be overlooked , misread , or sh ift in meaning once it leaves its local context. The APT must continue to focus on the meaning and inter-cultural resonances of new art made with in this region , without particular care for the colour of one's skin or their passport. 1 1 5