The Long Stare: Seeing Contemporary Asian art Now

Issue 20:2 | June 2000

Survey of recent art from Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnem, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan as seen during the three editions of the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery as well as flow-on from these events. A group of editors expert in different regions with writers from all over the Asia Pacific. Reviews

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In this issue

Australia and Asia: Friends and Family

The past 10 years have seen the building of ties between Australians and Asians through the interactions occasioned by the three Asia-Pacific Triennial exhibitions in Brisbane. There are now many personal and binding friendships across the region which did not exist before. This changes our concept of 'region' significantly.

Pat Hoffie

Geography, Indigeneity and Dissonance

Some of the many complex questions raised by the Asia-Pacific Triennials relate to where artists originate from, how they relate to indigenous issues of their country, and the possibility of dissonant voices being heard through the exhibition which would not be tolerated in their country of origin. This is increasingly important in an Australian political climate which has downplayed our relations with the Asian region.

Suhanya Raffel

Myths and Histories: A Vietnamese Story

The inside story of the first selection of a Vietnamese artist for the Asia-Pacific Triennial. Vietnamese artists in the early 1990s were free to make art of their choice, as the grip of state-run culture began to relax. The significance of the resulting elegiac romantic paintings was lost on some critics of the Triennial who did not appreciate this history. The curatorial structuring of the Triennial helped to go beyond the official line of ministries of culture.

Alison Carroll

Asian Engagements: Tubes of Bamboo

In this brief article Turner focuses on the Queensland Art Gallerys Asia-Pacific Triennial. From the beginning, the Asia-Pacific Triennial was conceived as more than an art exhibition. It was equally about creating a network of contacts with artists and art institutions, a research base and permanent collection of contemporary Asian art and a forum for discussion of the art of the region. Artists discussed include Geeta Kapur, Marian Pastor Roces, Xu Bing, Santiago Bose, John Frank Sabado and Dadang Christanto.

Caroline Turner

The Tate goes modern

The Tate Modern opened in May 2000 to great fanfare and applause. The refurbished power station on the Thames now houses the international post-1900 art of the Tate collection. The public has rushed to visit with huge crowds enjoying the experience, but putting pressure on the facility. Critics have questioned the way the work has been arranged by theme rather than by school, chronology or geography.

Stephanie Britton

Polemic: Why did they Cancel Sensation?

Brook discusses what he believes to be the two main problems with the cancellation of the Sensation exhibition at the National Gallery - to locate the issue and to restore some gravity, so that instead of the noise increasing with distance from the issue, it diminishes. The key figure discussed is the Director of the NGA, Dr Kennedy with the notion of Quality dominating the content of the article.

Donald Brook

Beyond Language

Although often disguised as an innocent communication tool, language is defined, and, in turn, defines the parameters of all aspects of life, from the most personal and private to socio-political conditions and power structures. Giakoumi discusses this fact in relation to artist's experiences of living and working in countries where language barriers are apparent. Four works by artists Shigeaki Iwai, Xu Bing, Kim Young-Jin and Lee Mingwei are closely examined through this text.

Dionissia Giakoumi

The Arts of Diplomacy

Manton looks at the relationship between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the art world in Australia, one that seems to have been difficult, particularly since the 1970s when the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board gave way to a National Gallery and an Australian Council for the Arts. Furthermore this text examines the growing relations between Australian and Asian art communities during the second half of the 20th century.

Neil Manton

Expanding Horizons: Art from Taiwan

This article looks at the recent history of cultural exchange between Australia and Taiwan and briefly examines the background of the shifts occuring within the Taiwanese art scene from an Australian context. Furthermore it examines some of the continuities and changes in the late 1990s with a particular emphasis on the works by artists Wu Tien-Chang and Wu Mali included in the Second and Third Asia-Pacific Triennial.

Deborah Hart

Korean Contemporary Art in the 1990s

Korean art in the nineties experienced an era of unprecedented freedom and a remarkable upsurge in visual expression. Ahn looks at the progression of Korean art and politics during the later years of the 20th century and at a few of the central art figures: Kim Myung-hye, Choi Jeong-hwa, Kim Jun, Kim Soo-ja, Han Myung-Ok, Choi Jae-eun, Kim Young-jin and Lee Bul.

Soyeon Ahn

Radicalising Tradition: Painting in Pakistan

The teaching of miniature painting has, since the 1980s when it became a part of the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, become a highly respected and important traditional genre. The role of miniature painting also came to represent many of the anxieties that entangled this postcolonial society in search of its own identity. Hashmi examines the importance of this artistic form with reference to the works of Nahid Fakhruddin, Shahzia Sikander, Imran Qureshi, Tanzeen Qayyum, Talha Rathore, Aisha Khalid and Nusra Latif.

Salimi Hashmi

Shifts and Transitions in Indonesian Art and Society

This article looks at the East Timor crisis and the attempted boycott of the APT 3 at the Queensland Art Gallery subsequent to Indonesian artists participating in the event. Marianto examines this in relation to the shifting powers in Indonesia at the time from the ruling of President Habibie to the fourth leader Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) and presents a list of what could be considered seven strands of artistic concern within Indonesia: The critical group, alternative art, art for art's sake, conventional art, marginalised individuals, media-influenced art and feminist artists.

Dwi Marianto

The Enigma of Japanese Contemporary Art

Japanese culture at the end of the twentieth century was at an intersection of past, present and future. Exhibitions including Against Nature at the Grey Art Gallery in New York (1989), Japanese Ways, Western Means at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane (1989), A cabinet of Signs at the Tate Gallery Liverpool (1991) and Zones of Love at the MCA Sydney (1991) showed for the first time the complex and urban basis of Japanese art in the 1980s, a time of considerable transition in Japanese art practice. Featured artists included Shigeo Toya, Kimio Tsuchiya, Yasamasa Morimura, Takashi Murakami, Emiko Kasahara, Masato Nakamura, Yukinori Yanagi, Katsushige Nakahashi and Tatsuo Miyajima.

Caroline Turner

Dragon seeds and flea circuses: some moments and movements in contemporary Chinese art

Post-revolutionary China was a time of testing boundaries of official tolerance and experimentation with the newly accessible Western art ideas. The first art exhibitions were held and groups formed, as artists started to realise they were not, as Mao said, just the hair on the skin of socialism. Resistance to the old political order and a deliberate courting of Western buyers with post-Mao imagery has to give way to finding an original voice.

Sang Ye