The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial:

Unravelling the Curatorial Narrative(s)

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As the APT so triumphantly demonstrates, art today is absolutely global and contemporary, but this means that there is no longer any centre of art against which we can judge the rest of the world and no history of art against which we can measure the present.

Rex Butler, 2012¹

The Asia Pacific Triennial (APT) has, for over two decades and eight instalments, been one of the most anticipated events in the Australian cultural landscape. It brings together and celebrates the diversity of art emerging from the Asia Pacific region, and has resulted in one of the most significant collections of Asian and Pacific art in existence today.²However, covering such a large geographic area in one, albeit monumental, exhibition is understandably a complicated undertaking: the appeal of the APT and the difficulty in curating it are one and the same. In her review for The Art Newspaper, Anna Somers Cocks explains, ‘it [the APT] does not impose the Western concept of what is or is not contemporary art on cultures with completely different traditions, aesthetics and philosophy’.³ In the place of history, curators focus on an overarching theme to tie the works together. APT8’s concerns were the body and performance in art. Under this broad theme, the links drawn between artworks illuminate the possibilities of transcultural dialogue, or deliberately clash, highlighting dislocations as brilliantly as parallels. A close examination of this exhibition reveals a lot about the wider context of biennial culture, the blockbuster exhibition, and the curatorial frameworks that support them.

When curating blockbuster exhibitions, large art institutions are under pressure to appeal to the general public, while maintaining the interest of a specialised... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Kira Dalena, Erased Slogans, 2013. Edition 3. Inkjet print on Photorag Baryta 100% cotton fibre-based gloss paper A.P., 73.7 x 101.6cm. Courtesy 1335MAMBINI, Philippines.

Abdul Abdullah, The wedding (Conspiracy to commit), 2015. From ‘Coming to terms’ series, 2015. Chromogenic print, ed. 1/5 + 2 AP, 100 x 200cm. Purchased 2015 with funds from the Future Collective through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation. Collection Queensland Art Gallery.