Dear friends and colleagues
I have been taking a lot of my books out of storage, unpacking them and shelving them in my new library. Amongst them was the catalogue for the first Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art held in Brisbane in 1993.
Many participants, especially the critics and curators from South-East Asia, have talked of how important this event was. Not only to see the art from their nation in an international context, but most especially for the possibility to meet other colleagues from the region, normally for the first time. (You must remember there was and is no equivalent in Asia-Pacific to what Paris was from the 1850s to 1939, or either London or Berlin has been in recent years – a metropolitan centre where artists from all Europe could gather, mingle, argue and discuss, learn and steal from one another. Since 2000 both Hong Kong and Singapore have sought to be that place, but though artists may exhibit there, hardly any have chosen to live in either. For one thing, they are both too expensive.)
Works by seventy-six artists from East Asia, South-East Asia and the South Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea) were shown in that first APT. (It is normally referred to by that acronym.) This was very much a moment in Australia’s political and cultural pivot away from the British Commonwealth and the USA towards its actual geographical neighbours. Nine artists from each of Indonesia and the Philippines were included, more than from China and as many as Australia itself. The nine from Indonesia included two artists who made installations including Dadang Christanto, two who made installations and paintings including Heri Dono and five painters, amongst them Srihadi. The Philippines had installations by four artists including Santiago Bose and paintings by Brenda Fajardo and three others, plus ceramics by a sculptor.
Two pages from the catalogue of APT1
In subsequent years South Asia was included and then all of Asia, up to and including Turkey. It is impossible to reverse that expansion now, but that was probably a mistake. It has become too unfocussed. Over half the world is in Asia after all.
Indonesia and the Phipippines were never again to be so generously represented. By APT5 in 2006 the only artist from either country was Indonesian Eko Nugroho, in APT6 The Aquilizons from The Philippines and Rudi Mantofani, a Jogja painter, bizarrely represented by his customised guitars both showed. APT7 Manuel Ocampo sent work from the Philippines, Wedhar Riyadi and Uji “Hahan” Handoko from Jogja both showed along with Bali born, long resident in Australia, Tintin Wulia.
The latest version of the Asia-Pacific Triennial APT8 is opening soon (on 21st November) and the list of artists included is available (see https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/apt8) There is one Indonesian artist, the Berlin based performance artist Melati Suryodarmo, two Filipinos, film maker Lav Diaz, David Medalla who has lived in London since the Sixties when he was a doyen of experimnetal art there, and two Filipinas, film maker Kiri Daleni and Goldsmiths taught Maria Tanaguchi. In addition, Yason Banal is curating a programme of independent film.
One thing I have learmed is that a golden rule of writing and curating in another culture is not to just bring the predelictions of your own place but to listen to artists, art lovers and cognoscenti of that other region and try to understand their own preferences. To just look at things that seem “exotic” or that look just like things you can find at home is to fail. A visit to another culture should be a challenge of your aesthetic tastes, not merely a confirmation of them.
I have no problem with the selection of any of these six artists, they are all good artists (and pals in many cases) but it is not a representative sample of what is going on, any more than the last few APTs. APT1 did give a balance of artists working in conventional and other media. But it is very hard to imagine a sixty-two year old figurative painter, as Srihadi was in 1993, being selected today.
Statement from catalogue of APT3
In South-East Asia the divide between “Auction artists” and “Biennial artists” as they are sometimes termed here seems starker than elsewhere. But it is not a case of one type good, one type bad: there are good, bad and meretricious artists in both categories. Nor are the two categories mutually incompatible, one of the most interesting phenomena in Indonesia and the Philippines are the number of painters who also make installations: Ay Tjoe Christine, Leslie de Chavez, Ugo Untoro, Louie Cordero, etc. It is a phenomenon as yet unnoticed by the curators from Brisbane.
Flicking through another book as I unpacked I read my old friend Eugene Tan writing in 2009 of a “kind of cultural homogenization, the stablishment of an international language of contemporary art, or more specifically, a reinforcement of the hegemony of art discourses originating in Europe and America.” This is, of course, the exact opposite of what APT was meant to do.
This matters also, firstly, because many works for APT are commissioned or purchased. As a result the Queensland Art Gallery has a unique collection of art from the region. But how representative it is or will be is another question. Is it content to merely become the museum of Asian-Pacific International Biennial Art? Secondly, it matters, because APT has become a major locus for writing and discussion. Look how much bigger the catalogues have become! Their value as reference books will be vitiated if the selection remains so partial.
But whatever my cavils, please go! The opening weekends of APT are exciting events, where artists and writers give presentations, artists do performances etc. If you do manage to go, I am sure you will have a great time.
Have a great week!
Tony