Curtin University Connects with Singapore

Cover of Curtin University Connects with Singapore
0.562
Writing through the archive: the art writing marathon
Feature
Jacqueline Millner
0.8
Ethics and aesthetics: D Harding, Luciano Benetton and Terra Incognita: inclusiveness is a good way
Feature
Ian McLean

Published 30 March 2022
0.8
In conversation: Sebastian Goldspink and Una Rey
Feature
Sebastian Goldspink and Una Rey

Published 30 March 2022
The David Roche Foundation
0.8
The museum fell silent
Feature
Elspeth Pitt

Published 30 March 2022
0.8
Kings of wishful thinking: internet irony and its illusionary critics
Feature
Olivia Bennett

Published 30 March 2022
0.8
Damper is a language word for art
Feature
Dominique Chen

Published 30 March 2022
Desert Mob
0.8
Someone has to be innocent: a reflection on the post-2020 art critic
Feature
John Mateer

Published 30 March 2022
0.8
A case for writing contemporary art history
Feature
Aneta Trajkoski

Published 30 March 2022

Curtin University developed ties with Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand since its foundation in the sixties, initially through Engineering and Business and then through the Design School spearheaded by artist-lecturers Nola Farman, Paum Gaunt and Head of Design John Teschendorff. Frequent visits and exchanges and enrolling Asian students have all helped the School of Art there to identify as a South East Asian art school.

Buy   or   Subscribe
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

More from this Issue Full Issue Contents

Trailblazers Recognised at Last
Feature
Tuong Duong

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.

Published December 1993
Learning About Difference
Feature
Joan Grounds

Artist Joan Grounds describes the experience of her first residency in Thailand in 1989. Her lack of knowledge of Thai culture and language and having to operate in a climate where open critical debate about art or other topics was not possible were some of the challenges she faced. Since then she has returned four times to make art works in Thailand and witnessed the rapid changes which occurred over the period including a greater willingness to discuss issues.

Published December 1993
Confronting Paradox
Feature
Anne Kirker

As a Director of the School of Fine Art at Silpakorn University, Somporn Rodboon has been instrumental in helping students get an international perspective. She invited Australian women eg Joan Grounds, Noelene Lucas, to be artists-in-residence. Diane Mantzaris arrived in 1992 and made a suite of contentious computer generated prints dealing with the May anti-democracy military crackdown.

Published December 1993
Looking to Origins: Mastura Abdul Rahman
Feature
Sim Tan

Mastura Abdul Rahman is a Malaysian Islamic woman artist and draws on the tradition of SE Asian woven textiles in the very precise ordering of her compositions which depict the arrangement of traditional Malay houses seen from above. Traditional head and breast cloths are ritual objects of great potency with the power to kill the weaver who makes a mistake in the design. To the initiated the paintings embody some of the same aura.

Published December 1993
Culture of Silence: A Reading of Three Malaysian Artists
Feature
Ray Langenbach

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.

Published December 1993
The Shaping of Contemporary Art in Malaysia: New art new voices
Feature
Hoy Cheong Wong

Theatre director Krishen Jit talks to artist Wong Hoy Cheong about contemporary Malaysian art and his adoption of a figurative style of painting after he returned from study in the USA. This is being used by young artists in Malaysia as an expression of rebellion, as is performance art. Malaysian society avoids dissenting voices and has been slow to accept the angst in modernism, which perhaps has only just been fully internalised though it was introduced in the fifties.

Published December 1993
Indigenous Statements Now
Feature
Jeannie E. Javelosa

From early 80s artists began to search for local identity - the use of local indigenous materials was part of this. One 70s pioneer was Junyee who used living plant material in performance art. Roberto Villanueva and Santiago Bose work in mixed media to explore ideas of being Philipino in a modern world. Imelda Cajipe-Endaya's paintings deal with 3rd world citizens, women, migrant workers, poverty. Roberto Feleo uses mythic narrative in a playful idiom.

Published December 1993
Images of Women by Women
Feature
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya

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.

Published December 1993
Introduction to Philippines Art and Culture
Feature
Jeannie E. Javelosa

Many ethnic groups have melded to form the present day Philippines. Colonial rule and the influence of the US, Spain and Japan have all left their mark while there is still much resistance to losing traditional values. Art expression is varied and unrestricted and since the 1990s regional areas have come to the fore. Support from the state has been erratic. Artists are struggling against the onslaught of capitalist developments and art for investment.

Published December 1993
Fauzan Omar - Layers of Meaning
Feature
Michael O+Ferrall

Malaysian artist Fauzan B Haji Omar has worked in collage and mixed media since the eighties when Malaysa was freeing itself of British influence. For some time he used strips of torn canvas heavily encrusted with paint, followed by work which draws inspiration from rotting jungle vegetation, reflecting the changing landscape where the natural world gives way first to rubber plantations and now to golf courses and industrial estates.

Published December 1993
Unpredictable Repercussions
Feature
Chumpon Apisuk

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.

Published December 1993
Introduction to Indonesian Modern Art
Feature
Jim Supangkat

There are perennial debates within art circles in Indonesia about applying terms like surrealism to local art. The history and geography of Indonesia mean that theirs is a 'different' kind of modern art which took the form of an art rejecting Dutch colonial rule. Later, in the 80s the influential theorist Dr Soedjoko advocated including traditional art and craft in the fine art canon. He predicted a shift in world focus from Europe and America to the South.

Published December 1993
 
ACE Open
Artshub
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
NAVA