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

incorporating and enlarging the areas that you cover, and not to diminish discussion of issues such as Sonabai and other people who are part of the parallel culture rather than the so­ called contemporary culture that we are talking about. Charles Green A question and a comment for John Clark. I want to correct but also endorse some of what you said, and that's in no way to deny the generosity of the APT as a vision and as a performance. Marian on day one did in fact speak about the way forms are chosen by artists in order to transact business internationally. That was a statement that she might have taken up but held from - a positive analysis of why artists mod ify their form, their point of view, in order to transact business is particularly interesting, because it's not simply compromise, it's in fact making a point similar to Michael Mel's, and that is that the object doesn't necessarily equal the artist's point of view in a very strict literalist way. There's also another similar category that you mentioned about art that's visible internationally but is invisible locally, and that's the circulation and enactment of false d issidence as sanctioned dissidence. John Clark I agree with what you've said . There are some people in the room l ike myself who spend a lot of time interviewing artists . When we interview artists we ask them what they think about various selections from various exhibitions . Whether or not they produce work to the specifications of a curator or not, th is is a very, very tender area . It's an area of the relationship between institutions and if you like between mediators and producers which is central to the work of exhibitions of this kind which has not been discussed, and artists when they discuss it with you discuss it in the way a pol itician talks about another politician's foibles off the record, because they don't want it to get back to the curator. We havn't touched this taboo. David Will iams It may be a difference between the curator and the institution putting together the exhibition and the artist who doesn't have that responsibility. There's probably a d ifference there - not to set aside the point. John Clark That won't work. The problem is that this institution and this exhibition , valuable and wonderful that it is representing a certain kind of national effort of a kind which I think many people in the room would be appraising and thinking highly of, nevertheless is a validation exercise for artists and for their work. It resituates them internationally, it resituates them domestically. I'm willing to comment on that, that means the y 're afraid of that kind of validation working negatively in their direction . But it is a fact of art history that we have to encounter these kinds of j udgements. Wendy Grace-Dawson, Tutor University of South Austral ia John Clark, how do you suggest that artist selection in international exhibitions are addressed so that a new model is developed to address these issues? John Clark Choose different curators. 1 47