Australian Studios Hanoi (Part of Australia/Asia, Striking Up Conversations)

The efforts on the part of the author and others to set up a studio for Australian artists, writers, historians and others within the Hanoi College of Fine Arts. Support being sought from the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and the art education institutions in Australia.

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Unpredictable Repercussions

The massacre of pro-democracy students in May 1992 was a watershed for Thai artists who began to identify with change, formed associations and took part in rallies, and called for public monuments to the tragedy. The City Art League was formed to present performance art in public places and the Concrete House to draw attention to AIDS through art activities. This brought social and political issues into the realm of art.

Chumpon Apisuk

Printmaking in Vietnam: Old and New

There are very few specialised printmakers in Vietnam, partly because of the expense of materials and equipment. Woodcuts, a traditional form, with the use of multiple coloured plates, are in demand but are now rare, engraving in both metal and plaster is growing, lithography dates from the anti-French resistance, and silkscreen was used for socialist posters in the 70s. Graphic arts are moving into the world of advertising where the money is.

Thuong Phan Cam

Making Asian Art Accessible to Westerners

Review of book 'Modern Art in Thailand, 19th and 20th Centuries' By Apinan Poshyananda Published by OUP, Singapore, 1992. An exemplary study of this period tracing traditional practice, regional categories, ethnic divisions, foreign arrivals, and the advent of modernism and westernisation in art and life. The reader gains insight into Buddhism and social structures including kingship in the course of looking at this complex history.

Alison Carroll

Images of Women by Women

Women are producing some of the most challenging art in the Philippines by using feminist themes and achieving a synthesis of art and feminism. These are drawings, paintings, 3D works in all media from papier machŽ to stone, and performance art. The work is confronting, emotive, full of vitality. Images are drawn from the kitchen, childcare, main domination, domestic surroundings and the natural world.

Imelda Cajipe-Endaya

Changing Attitudes to Ceramics

Ceramics have a long history in Vietnam and two 13th Century centres Bat Trang and Phu Lang are still active today. Old blue and white porcelain ware used to be in common use in peasant families, but different polychrome styles are now in vogue and fake antiques are common too. In some design colleges non-functional sculptural forms and decorative motifs have replaced functional ware, but there is a healthy expansion of production nationally.

Thuong Phan Cam

Woven Textiles: The Enduring Tradition

Traditional Philipino woven textiles are still made today, keeping alive an ancient regional art form which is poorly documented in museums and not well recognised. All the varied types of weaving are described and illustrated. The patterns, iconography and styles are now seen in modern interior design and in fashion and help to maintain something essentially Philipino in a society which has taken on the trappings of world culture.

David B. Baradas

"Current Issues" in Singaporean Art

A brief history of 20th Century art movements in Singapore and the state of art and art debate in the 1990s. In terms of how non-Singaporeans view and understand current art, the politically motivated performance art of Tang Da Wu and Amanda Heng in 1991-2 appears very similar to performance art in other countries but due to different cultural background it can be misread and those elements which are different are often ignored.

Cheo Chai Hiang

Posturings under the Bodhi Tree: The selling of Pseudo-Religion

Thai artists of the 'Buddhist Revival' claim to make Buddhist art just because they use the visual conventions of that tradition. The Tantric mandalas have been widely misappropriated. As soon as you take temple art out of the temple you run into difficulties of definition and authenticity. There is still traditional Buddhist art being made in the temples, but there is a great trade in pseudo-Buddhist art which is cheap and damaging.

Albert Paravi Wongchirachai

Culture of Silence: A Reading of Three Malaysian Artists

An overview of the history of Malaysian modernism and the work of three artists who rebelled against their Islamic-style training at the Institute of Teknologi Mara. Riaz Jamil Ahmad, Ahmad Shukri Elias and Tengku Sabri. Riaz and Ahmad paint in a neo-expressionist figurative mode, Tengku makes carved wood sculptures which have echoes of old Malay motifs. After some years of dissent the three have adopted a stratgic self-imposed culture of silence.

Ray Langenbach

Trailblazers Recognised at Last

3 major influences. Nguyen Sang (1923-1988) painted in a politically charged and nationalistic mode but always as a personal expression. Bui Xuan Phai (1920 - 1988) painted small streetscapes depicting the soul of old Hanoi, a nostalgic view. Nguyen Tu Nghiem (1922-) was more innovative looking again at ancient village sculpture in pagodas and paradoxically moves closer to a Modernist style.

Tuong Duong

Confess and Conceal: Asia/Australia Exhibition at AGWA

Review of Confess and Conceal a group show of 4 Asian and 7 Australian artists organised by the Art Gallery of WA and touring South East Asia. Catalogue has essay by Apinan Poshyananda discussing Thai women artists but fails to provide background to the other Asian works or whether Australia shares the sense of reorientation being experienced in Asia or whether it can be thought of as part of Asia.

John Mateer

An Australian Creates Space in Manila

From 1989 - 1991 artist Neil Roberts found himself engaged on a series of working visits to the Philippines. He decided to use only local materials, striking a welcome chord with his hosts. His tendency towards sparse presentation was in sharp contrast to the overload of the installations and paintings of local artists, echoing the contrast between Australian and Filipino attitudes to space. At ARX in Perth he collaborated with Cesare Syjuco who has the ART-LAB space in Manila.

Neil Roberts

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