The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

INTRODUCTION 21 ZICO ALBAIQUNI Indonesia b.1987 A Biennale and the Orient Painter (detail) 2018 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas / 120 x 100cm / Courtesy: The artist and Yavuz Gallery, Singapore / Proposed for the Queensland Art Gallery Collection Chris Saines cnzm Director, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) shares many of the ambitions that so keenly influenced the first, some 25 years ago. Then, as now, there were no predetermined principles shaping the exhibition. Moreover, where common themes occurred across the Asia Pacific, as indeed they did, they worked to enrich the fabric of the Triennial with each iteration. As with preceding Triennials, the ninth is underpinned by curatorial travel and fieldwork, built on the assumption that direct experiences and conversations on the ground generate the most informed framework. It is these personal connections that keep the series dynamic and sustain its freshness. Artists and audiences come to the APT knowing they will experience the unexpected, and that they will be, by turns, delighted, enlightened and challenged. In Brisbane, every three years, they know they will see original and engaging works of art, and that they will see them represented in new frames of reference. In September 1993, the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) presented ‘The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT1), making it the first art institution to comprehensively address the art of the region. Its artworks, installations and performances — the work of 76 artists selected by a national committee from 12 countries and Hong Kong — struck a chord with Australian audiences and resonated just as widely with the communities from which its artists hailed. The purpose of APT1 was not to position Brisbane as the centre of the Asia Pacific art world, or lay any particular claim to the artists featured, but to try to understand the dynamic work that was emerging from this rapidly evolving region, of which Australia was an integral part. With a focus on ‘intellectual and artistic exchanges of ideas’, APT1 was a courageous commingling of regional optimism and real world pragmatism. 1 That foundational decree now seems to border on the utopic. Then, as now, artworks and ideas are inevitably freighted with meanings that accrue to them in their unique contexts of production. It is impossible to ignore the divergent political, social and moral belief systems of different countries, cultures and artists. Indeed, it is the sheer diversity of world views, and the insights into them, which energises each APT and inspires conversations around the region and further afield. Addressing a range of issues then relatively untilled by Australia’s major art institutions, early APTs faced challenging terrain. They needed to negotiate the strictures of the established art pedagogy in certain countries, as well as the urgent demands of emerging artists, who, were their work to be displayed in their own country, might face censorship, imprisonment or worse. There were also tensions between tradition and change in the drive to reframe the customary as contemporary, particularly in works from Australia and the Pacific. In these realms and in others, the APT was a zone of unceasing ideological and art historical debate, where art and ideas could flourish unconstrained, and where the cultural stakes were driven hard into the ground by artists and observers alike. These were trailblazing, testing times that fundamentally shaped the institution’s purpose and vision and irrevocably influenced the Triennial’s reputation. Today, the region looks very different to the one that APT1 assayed in 1993, as Australia sought to project itself into the region, rather than overlooking it on the way to Europe or the United States. The geopolitical plates have moved radically and multiple times since, most recently with the retreat of the United States from the region and China’s advance. The countries of the Pacific might well be the litmus of that change, with infrastructure investment and aid dollars tightly interwoven with economic and political reach. In addition, nationalism has risen at the cost of globalism, especially in terms of trade negotiations, and it can sometimes provide cover for a troubling increase in authoritarianism. How, then, should the Asia Pacific Triennial continue to host the work of artists who raise their voices against these forces in the region? The right response, decades on, is to continue to provide an open and safe platform for art and artists to flourish by engaging an ever-widening audience. The Triennial’s long and distinguished history now sees its curatorium returning to the work of artists included in earlier iterations. Japan’s Shinro Ohtake and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Anne Noble, both part of the first APT, INTRODUCTION