APT6 in Review

The visual splendour and dynamism began from the moment I walked into the vast ground floor of the Gallery of Modern Art, sweeping away any lingering doubts about the merit of staging an exhibition dedicated to the Asia Pacific. Gabriella Coslovich, The Age , January 2010 12 Nicholas Bonner in discussion about works from the Mansudae Art Studio in North Korea, APT6 Opening Weekend, December 2009. Pictured is Work team contest 2009 — a large mosaic commissioned from Kim Hung Il and Kang Yong Sam of the Mansudae Art Studio. Photograph: Natasha Harth The Exhibition Conceptually rich and aesthetically engaging, APT6 presented new and recent work from across the region. The exhibition offered numerous opportunities to question what constitutes contemporary art in Asia and the Pacific through widely varying practices and approaches. APT6 encompassed a number of specific focuses and thematic links, while also considering recent shifts in contemporary art from communities that have not previously been represented in the APT. The work of artists from West Asia, for example, reflected the influence of Islam, from the Middle East through South and South-East Asia and Fiji. This was contextualised by significant, curated Australian Cinémathèque programs, which profiled both cinematic and geopolitical relationships throughout the Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh, India, Kashmir, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and across West Asia to the Middle East. Collaboration was a major theme of APT6, from the collective projects of Melbourne artist group DAMP and Japan’s YNG (Yoshitomo Nara and the design firm graf), to Wit Pimkanchanapong and Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan’s participatory activities, to the interdisciplinary art of Thukral and Tagra and Shirana Shahbazi. The effects of rapid economic development was another major theme, apparent in the work of artists Chen Qiulin, Subodh Gupta and Farhad Moshiri, as well as a number of works featured in the APT6 project The Mekong. The shifting nature of industry and labour across the Asia Pacific region was echoed in works by Yang Shaobin, Chen Chieh-jen, Yao Jui-chung, and Robin White, Leba Toki and Bale Jione. Three special projects within APT involved Gallery staff working with local experts to realise in-depth investigations of practices and regions: • Beijing-based British filmmaker Nicholas Bonner co-curated a major presentation of works by the artists of the Mansudae Art Studio in Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK), featuring prints, ink and oil paintings, and a commissioned mosaic work. This was the first time art from this nation had been exhibited in Australia; • A significant program of video clips, documentaries and concert footage comprised Pacific Reggae: Roots Beyond the Reef — an innovative showcase of reggae music and video from Melanesia and Polynesia. Developed with New Zealand-born, Sydney-based broadcaster Brent Clough, Pacific Reggae demonstrated the importance of this musical form in expressing social and cultural issues across the Pacific; • A lyrical display of works from South-East Asia formed The Mekong, co-curated by Vietnamese artist Rich Streitmatter-Tran. Using the river as a metaphor to consider the flows of social change through Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, the project offered an introduction to the burgeoning art activity in this dynamic and complex region.