Two exhibitions of contemporary Asian art
At the two ends of the globe, in New York and in Brisbane, Australia, two ambitious exhibitions hope to significantly change the dynamics that govern the international reception of contemporary Asian Art. The Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane attempts to promote an East/East dialogue. The Asia Society show in New York is keen to bring contemporary Asian art into the American arena.
Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions opened on 4 October 1996 in New York, and features the work of twenty-seven artists from five countries: India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea; countries whose significant artistic achievements in recent times remain largely unknown in the West. The two million dollar Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT) at the Queensland Art Gallery features the works of more than a hundred artists from the Asia-Pacific region and was accompanied by a three-day conference attended by almost all the important players in the Asian art world. Both exhibitions express a new confidence and indicate a deliberate distancing from traditional modernist hegemonies.
Asian art has until recently, been viewed on an international platform through a static, colonial prism that exoticised what was alien and incomprehensible. Discourse on the arts of Asia dealt only with the past and dismissed contemporary efforts as - derivative from Western art. Unfortunately, till very recently, Asian countries have tended to absorb this negative view and reinforce it by neglecting the development of their contemporary art.
Western curators and museum directors who arbitrate the tastes of the affluent half of the world, have judged Asian modernism by tenets and constructs born in response to their own modernist development and which are not always applicable to the Asian context. Conversely they have criticised, as... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline