More from this Issue
Testing the Waters
The First Asia Pacific Triennial, at the Queensland Art Gallery was not only a large imaginatively curated exhibition from many Asian countries and Australia but a ground-breaking conference Identity, Tradition and Change: in which historians, curators, administrators and artists all had equal billing. Well funded, it was able to bring hundreds of people together to enjoy as well as critique the event, and feedback was sought to inform the future form of the event.
An Art Space in QSNCC
The Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre was opened in 1991. It includes an art space managed by the new company CON-tempus which strives to introduce the idea of an art dealership in an art community in which up to now artists have had to handle their own marketing and promotion. The directors hope to foster art collecting, and make artists less commercial in their outlook and more willing to create better and more radical art.
An Australian on the Road to Shah Alam
An account of an artist in residency in 1993 at the Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM) at Shah Alam outside Kuala Lumpur. The spatial excitement of the building was not matched by its usability or enlightened curriculum. She produced an installation using local materials and learned about ITM's positive discrimination in favour of bumi putera students (local Malay) and how the school fits into the Islamic State.
Refugees Confronting Memory
The US/Mexico based Border Workshop group worked on a collaborative shopfront installation in 1992 with the Cabramatta community of western Sydney where many Indo-Chinese refugee populations settled in the 70s. A large installation representing a refugee boat and a walk-in temple containing video monitors playing back student interviews with local people.
Introduction to Art in Vietnam
Vietnam has a long and diverse cultural history with strong sculptural traditions of Dong Son and Cham ethnic groups. At various times artists went to Europe to study and French art was a strong influence. In the north a socialist realist mode flowered in the 60s and 'formalism' was repudiated. Printmaking and political posters were strong during the war. Now painting flourishes; in Hanoi 'the village' is an inspiration, in Saigon various western styles are seen.
Thawan Duchanee: Art and Philanthropy
Thawan Duchanee is a successful Thai artist whose studies abroad helped him to create a new Thai art which is a hybrid of western and eastern ideas. He set up a museum in Chiang Rai to promote all the contemporary Thai arts and has funded many scholarships. He was a resident artist at the University of Melbourne April-May 1993 where he created a huge painting as well as an 'Oz' version of his Thai homes using various elements as votives to nature.
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.
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.
The Gordon Darling Foundation
Background to the Foundation and its support for the Artlink special issue on South East Asia. The personal interest on the part of benefactors Gordon and Marilyn Darling in the traditional cultures of South East Asia. Their mission to start the first national portrait gallery in Australia.
To be an artist
The author recounts her education in a Thai boarding school under the male patriarchal system. As an artist she has tried to come to terms with her upbringing and her work has reflected the situation for her mother and grandmother as well as the death from cancer of her father. She describes her installation work 'Dinner with Cancer' as a commentary on consumption - "humans are not only consumers, they are also being consumed".
Refocusing the Gaze
Review of the First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Sept - Dec 1993. The rationale for selection, search for different voices from each country, enormous diversity, some common threads eg experience of colonisation; politicisation; role of religion in some countries. Dramatic performances by Dadang Christanto (Indonesia) and S. Chandrasekeran (Singapore). Theme of environmental pollution also appears in several works.
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.