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First ASEAN Symposium on Aesthetics, where
Wong Hoy Cheong , then a young graduate
who had returned from the United States,
began to question earlier postcolonial artistic
tendencies and preoccupation with mining the
mythical past. Instead he advanced the criticalinquiry of the present as a direction for contemporary art . I quote him here at length :we need to confront the fabric of everyday
life and not be tangled in the cobwebs of
the past. As it is, we have enough myths
andlegends,pucukrebungs,dragons
and phoenixes, batik motifs and wayang
kulit. The anonymous singers in Karaokelounges, the medicine men and prostitutes in the backlanes of Chowkit, Mat
Rocks and heavy-metal music, the squatters of Sungei Way, the computer salesman, the bank auditor, the travel agent-they too make up our culture. o!'

Zulkifh Dahlan, Keda1-Keda1(Shops),1973, acrylic on canvas, 158x266cm,
National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur

A detailed reading of this manifesto andhow it sets the agenda for Malaysian art in the
1990s is beyond the scope of our inquiry here
today . However, it sets up a contrast andallows us to consider the crystallization of adifferent commitment to cultural rebellion tothe one that is primarily seen through the
rubric of the nation. This is another story of
another time .

DAY2 October1\l ala.\bia: \ CulturalRebellion

Cultur al 111-l><·
llion in \., ia 1960 1989

066

ArtStudies_Ol"SuddenlyTurningVisible":
Art as Experimentand
Pedagogyin the Philippines
Patrick D. Flores
Professor, Art Studies Department , University of th e Philippines Diliman

Th e "G rea L" Phili ppin es:
Marcos an d Lhc Cul Lural Ce nl er of th ePhilippin es.
_.'I ~·.

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liµ.111
Inauguration of Folk Arts Theater withthe parade Kasaysayan ng Lah, (Historyof the Race),telling the story of theFilipino people from Stone Age to New
Society, 1974.

11~.,nImelda Marcos inspecting the construction of the Cultural Center of thePhilippines, 1969.

"This nation can be great again." This was
how Ferdinand Marcos enchanted the electorate in 1965 when he won his first presidential
election at a time when the Philippines "prided
itself on being the most 'advanced' in theregion ." •" In his inaugural speech, "Mandate to
Greatness;· he speaks of a "national greatness" founded on the patriotism of forebears
who had built the edifice of the "first modern
republic in Asia and Africa." "' This sense of"greatness" would feed into the global present
in the global south as Marcos was seriously
committed to the idea of a "Third World." He
hosted the ministerial meeting of the Group of
77 in 1976 in Manila, a coalition founded in1964 within the United Nations for developing
nation-states. In his remarks to the ministers,"Manila and the Global New Society," Marcos
invoked meetings and declarations such as theBandung Conference(1955),the Algiers
Charter(1967).and the Lima Declarations (1972
and 1975)as context and proposed the transfor mation of the Group of 77 into a Third World
Economic system .":This paper locates "cultural rebellion"
against this complicated background that similarly lays claim to a certain kind of revolution
and Third World globality. In order to do this,reflecting on the discourses of development,
identity, and democracy may prove useful atthe outset.
Development is broadly conceived, impli cating the economic policy of the Marcos government in the 1960s and '70s and its immense
outlays in infrastructure for culture as part ofPatrick D Flores

social development and to "fulfill the potential of the human personality." 1 The First Lady,
Imelda Marcos, would cast identity in termsof a crisis. Says Her Excellency: "throughcenturies the Filipino had been putting on amask in order to confound his conquerors .
When the time came for him to take off themask because it was no longer needed-hefound that it had become part of his face." ·This identity is a critique of the colonial or theWestern and this notion of the ethnic may inturn translate into the spectacle of diversity
in exotic representations that convey what
James Clifford calls "ethnographic surrealism ." The opening of the Folk Arts Theater in1974 presented a two-and-a-half hour parade,
depicting the entire range of Philippine history
and social development, from the Stone Ageto the New Society. &'..'! In a book publishedin 1971, on the eve of Martial Law, Ferdinand
Marcos stated that the Filipinos lived in a "revolutionary era," one marked by "swift, violent,
often disruptive change:· ,!, For him, democracy was the revolution of the time, a negation of the oligarchy on the one hand, and ofcommunism on the other. It also meant people
coming together as a collective under his andhis wife's paternal patronage .
These discourses of development, identity, and democracy condense in the Cultural
Center of the Philippines, the main edificefor culture in the Marcos government andImelda's brainchild. ~• In the atmosphereconditioned by the said discourses, the artist curator Raymundo Albano described a situation in art in which a world was "suddenly
turning visible ." "; This art world was no different from the world being made at a hectic
rhythm by the Marcos government .
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067

First, the government transformed a partof the Manila Bay, 77 hectares of foreshore
land , into a cultural complex. This unprecedented achievement in public works andarch itecture was part of the form of internationalism and the process of modernization. In
her speech to the delegates of the World Bankand International Monetary Fund meeting in
1976, Imelda was clear about her vision andgave full play to its montage: "you have cometo our country at a most exciting time though
at a somewhat awkward stage when we arenegot iating the challenging transition froma traditional order to a progressive humanist
society. This new complex of buildings erectedon land reclaimed from the sea stands in dramatic contrast to the slum areas that blight ourcity. The contrast of shrine and shanty symbolizes the shining future against our impoverished past."~ Moreover , the participation of
the Philippines in expositions and biennales
as well as the invitation of foreign artists andexhibitions to the Philippines was in cadencewith the transitivity of this internationalism.
This morphing is best imagined by theheady atmosphere at the Cultural Center itself,
which was simultaneously ethnic and cosmopolitan. Such a sensibility may be gleaned in
the project titled Ugnayan (Connection) in which
the ethn ic is renewed through a kind of musi cology that inscribed the local in the languageof the avant-garde. Jose M aceda, a pianist
trained in Paris, composed Ugnayan . Its
sources were "musique concrete (atmosphere,
waves , clouds, electronic technology) and sharedlabor and cooperation of large numbers ofpeople as a form of technology." '-'!)It aimed forthe synthesis of " ethnomus icology and composition as well as temporalitie s (that is, the past andthe present) :' According to Ramon Santos: "theconstruction of Ugnayan co nsists of twenty
51-minute layers of recorded sounds (mostly
from ethnic instruments), each layer to be broadcast by one of the 37 radio stations authorized
to operate in Metro-Manila . All stations were tobe synchronized to start the broadcast exactly
from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. on New Year's Day of1974, during which no other sound would beheard on Philippine airwave s:· &!.!J
Ugnayan , according to Santos, was significant in Philippine contemporary music as
it presented a synthesis of two separate disciplines: ethnomusicology and production. On
one hand, the recorded sou nds in Ugnayan
were sourced from traditional musical instruments and vocal sounds ident ified with prehistoric, indigenous, and ethni c traditions in Asiaand the Philippines . On the other , it involved
the collective effort of a large community ofpeople, which simultaneou sly assumed theroles of spectator-listener and the producer ofsound through the transisto r radios that they111

Patricio Abinales and Donna Amoroso,
State and Society in the Philippines(Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
Publishers, 2005), p.193.

Ferdinand Marcos' inauguration
speech '"Mandate for Greatness"' inIleana Maramag. ed .• The Second
Marcos Inaugural (Tokyo:Toppan Print.
1970). p.140.

(dFerdinand Marcos, Manila and the
Global New Society (Manila: Government
Printing Office, 1977).
o{Bureau of National and Foreign
Information, The Philippine Economy
in the Mid-Seventies: Development for
the New Society (Manila: The Philippines
Bureau of National and Foreign
Information, 1974), p.136.

Imelda Romualdez Marcos, "A Monument to the Filipino Spirit," The Ideas of
Imelda Romualdez Marcos, Vol.1, Ileana
Maramag, ed. (Manila: National Media
Production Center, 1978), p.113.

Ferdinand Marcos, Today's Revolution:
Democracy (Publisher unknown, 1971),
p.i.
Oj

Raymundo Albano, "Developmental
Art of the Philippines," Philippine Art
Supplement, Vol.2 No.4 (Manila: Cultural
Center of the Philippines, 1981), p.16.

Imelda Romualdez Marcos, "Between
Two Worlds," The Ideas of Imelda
Romualdez Marcos, Vol. 2, Ileana
Maramag, ed. (Manila: National Media
Production Center, 1978), p. 58.
0!)Ramon Santos, "Society and Poweras Music Composition," unpublishedessay.

li~.,dA crowd gathers around transistors in a
town plaza in the first Ugnayan assemblage, 1974.

"'Sudd enly 1Umin g Visible.,: Art as Experiment and Pedagogy ln tJ1e Philippin es

DAY 2 Octobe r 1,

C11lt11r
al Hehellio11i11\.,ia 1960 1989

Raymundo Albano, Step on the Sandand Make Footprints, 1975'"

Albano, op. cit., p 16.

Raymundo Albano, "Installations. A
Case for Hangings," Ph1hppmeArt
Supplement, Vol. 2 No.1 (Manila: Cultural
Center of the Ph11ipp1nes,
1981), p. 3,,
Albano, "Developmental Art of thePhilippines,"op. cit., p.16.

d
Ibid.

Alice Guillermo, Protest/Revolut,onary

Art m the Phihpp,nes 1970-1990 (Manila
Un1vers1tyof the Philippines, 2001),

p. 244068

brought along with them .
The gathering of different art forms at the
Cultural Center was part of Imelda's agendaof the "seven arts ." This interdisciplinary inclination found expression in experiments thatsought to convene a wide range of materials
for art, a mixing that was in many ways a translation of foreign forms . Two instances may beforegrounded in this respect: the curatorship ofmodern and contemporary visual art and thetranslation and staging of the "classics:·
The experimental art found hospitableground at the Cultural Center through thecuratorial and artistic practices of artist-curators Roberto Cha bet and Raymundo Albano.
Albano explains that "there was a need ... toopt for a learning-center type of a Museum,
but which would not in any way paralyze contemporary artistic concerns especially thoseof the young artists. Thus started what we call,'developmental art ."' By "developmental" hemeant "fast-action" just like how the government of the day carried out the "building ofroads, population control, or the establishment of security units ." He elaborates that the
Patrick D Flores

Art Studies_Ol

museum's curatorial policy was that of "stimulating public minds and at the same timeallowing the artists to question and investigate
with their work ." '" r.J!.,'_O_,
The key person here was Albano who
worked as director from around 1972 to1985
at the Cultural Center, replacing Chabet who
continued to organize exhibitions outside theCultural Center, like in Shop 6 (1976), and latertaught at the University of the Philippines
where he became very influential among aparticular set of students . He also instituted
the Thirteen Artists Awards that recognizedartists whose practice demonstrated what
he characterized as a "recentness:· At theheart of Albano's approach to art and curation was a certain authenticity of local expression mediated by a postcolonial perspective,
though filtered through a curiously nationalist
rhetoric. This approach kept in step with theeffort of the Marcos government to sort out aFilipino identity located somewhere between
a cultivated native civilization and an international vocabulary of modern art. These roughedges are finessed in "installation:' According
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to Albano: "if one were to consider a medium's intimacy to folk patterns, installations
are natural-born as against the alien intrusion of a two-dimensional Western object
like painting:' !! But then again, "installation"is also not exclusively Filipino. Albano proposed that it is "continental, but the disguise isthin as one realizes the works have charming
shortcomings, such as reduced scale, over orunder control, humor, et cetera:· !1 In his history of installations, he points to "hangings"
as an extension of sculpture done in 1968; hemakes mention of Danilo Dalena's piece titled
Levitation of Lazarus hung from the ceiling andhis own work called Alice, which he describes
as consisting of "painted metal hangings,
some spread on the floor with three painted
turtles moving about the room." !.l In 1980, theproject Art in the Regions: Baguio / Los Banos
was launched, presenting the projects ofJunyee and Santiago Bose. Junyee made his
first installation using indigenous materials in1970 through Balag(Trellis); and the practices ofthree female artists were particularly instructive: Genara Banzon, Judy Freya Sibayan, andLani Maestro. And finally in 1989, Roberto
Feleo's presence at the Third Havana Biennale
rearticulated the Third World as a discourse of"tradition and contemporaneity ."Alongside this conversation with thelocal and the global was the translation ofmodern dramatic texts as a testament to thetranslatability of the foreign as well as thecompetence of the vernacular to offer equivalent meanings . In the hands of Rolando Tinio,
the director of the resident theater companyof the Cultural Center, modernist texts like
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot andAugust Strindberg's Miss Julie and the operas
La Boheme and La Traviata were translated
and staged.
And finally, the third plane of the rebellion implicated in the life of the Cultural Center
was the resistance itself to the institution. Thiscame by way of the performance of David
Cortez Meda Ila at the opening of the Cultural
Center in 1969..!!&0. Medalla, who later moved
to England and became well-known for his
kinetic sculptures and took part in Harald
Szeemann's "When Attitudes Become Form"
exhibition in 1969, unfurled banners in thefoyer of the building and staged an impromptu
performance as he had previously done elsewhere in the country . The early performanceprojects of Jun Terra, Virgil Calaguian, AlanRivera, Raymundo Albano, and Jose Tence
Ruiz merit keener investigation.
This polemical and performative pause
recalls antecedent textual production of the
DAY 2 October 1

same persuasion. We take note of the 1976
Kaisahan Manifesto, presumably written by
the core of what will later be known as social
realist movement and the critic Alice
Guillermo . This crucial text includes the line:"we shall therefore develop an art that not
only depicts the life of the Filipino people but
also seeks to uplift their condition. We shalldevelop an art that enables them to see theessence, the patterns behind the scatteredphenomena and experience of our times. We
shall develop an art that shows the unity of
their interests and thus leads them to unite." !iThe Kaisahan was preceded by the initiative
Nagkakaisang Artista at Ark itekto (United
Artists and Architects) that began in 1969 andorganized events in 1971 and 72. Underlying"'SuddenlyTumingVisible"':A..1
1 asExpe rime nt and Pedagogyin the Philippines

liµ.11.i
David Medal\a protesting at the opening of the Cultural Center of thePhilippines.1969.

liµ.i,t)Antipas Delotavo. ltak Sa Puso Ni Mang
Juan (Dagger in Juan·s Heart), watercolor, 1978

Cullu ral Heht•ll io11i n \,, j;i 196o 1989"'••.,.,1011II

070

the ideology of social realism was socialism,
informed by Mao Zedong's Yan'an Forum lectures and the armed revolution waged acrossthe country. A stain of social realism would
be pursued by younger artists in the 1980s
through, for instance, Salingpusa (1985) that
helped form the mural group Sanggawa in
the 1990s. ''" ·1•of PETAwas the First Third World Theater
Festival and International Conference held in
Manila in 1971with the theme "Developing
Theater in Developing Countries ." Of the various foreign colleagues who came to Manila,
Yoo Dukhyung from South Korea and Fritz
Bennewitz of the German Democratic Republic
left lasting imprints. Yoo directed PETA's
ensemble in the play Alamang (Small Shrimp), atranslation of a Korean folktale that was interpreted through a mixture of Chinese movement, Philippine music, shadow play, andimprovised sound patterns of different intonations and pitches. r'.!Lc; Bennewitz of the Weimar
National Theater, for his part, introduced
Bertolt Brecht and the Brechtian approachto the historicization of the dramatic text andits theatrical articulation . For instance, thePhilippine translation of The Caucasian Chalk
Circle is set in 1840 in Mindanao when the
Spanish forces attacked the islands of Sulu
and Basilan. He then directed Brecht's Galileo
Galilei in 1980 and Macbeth in 1984. As part of
the wider program of PETAfor the pedagogyof people 's theater, it formulated the Integrated
Arts Workshop in 1973 which was later known
as the Basic Integrated Theater Arts Workshop
in 1978. '' k_ ..,Related to the movement in theater was
the "emergence of a new cinema" by wayof the short film . The filmmaker and historian Nick Deocampo begins his story of thisemergence with the Oberhausen Manifesto
of 1962 which declares: "the old cinema isdead, we believe in the new ." He then narrates
important events in the history from the First
National Festival of Short Films in 1964.
Crucial in this narration was the foundingof the Movie Workers Welfare Foundation or
Mowelfund in 1974 and the University of theFilm Center in 1976 both of which conducted
workshops . Their efforts centered on training
and harnessing the short film to sustain an
independent cinema distinct from the film

Pedagogy and Expe riment Elsewhere
While the Cultural Center of thePhilippines was the monolith that centralized
the official cultural program of the country,
there were parallel forces that sought to build
up their own agenda largely in the context
of pedagogy and experiment. Pedagogy andexperiment may have been the logic of practiceanimating these efforts : to democratize accessto the skills of art and the resources of innovation beyond the conventions of the academy,
the state, and institutions . Exemplary in thisregard was the Philippine Educational Theater
Organization or the PETAfounded in 1967
with the vision of a "people's theater." Central
in the advocacy of PETAwas training, which
was mainly undertaken through the Central
Institute ofTheater Arts in the Philippines or
CITAPthat later became the Central Instituteof Theater Arts in Southeast Asia or CITASA.
The PETAstaged its first production amid theruins of lntramuros, the Spanish enclave ofcolonial Manila, in a theater combining theproscenium, the Japanese hanamichi, and thearena style. A watershed event in the history

riµ.o;
Yoo Dukhyung,Alamang (Small Shnmp),
for the Philippine Educational Theater
Association, 1971

riµ.c1~PETA Theater Workshop Manual Series
1 . BITAW (Basic Integrated Theater Arts
Workshop), Quezon City: Philippine
Educallonal Theater Association, 19B9.

Art Studies_Ol

fiµ. "~I
Nick Deocampo, 0/Ner, 1983

Patnck D. Flores

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industry. The 1983 films of Deocampo andRaymond Red, Oliver and Magpakailanman(Forevermore) respectively, dwell on social
inequality and historical memory; they represent the impulses of this movement. •~1i.i.-'-'!J
An important precursor, of course, would be
Kidlat Tahimik's paradigmatic Third World film
Perfumed Nightmare, screened in 1977 in
Berlin and then distributed by Francis Ford
Coppola . & '" From this community came Tad
Ermitano, a pioneer video artist in Southeast
Asia who attended a workshop at Mowelfund;he made the animation Panaginip ng Pera
(Dream of Money) in 1989. Ermitano represents atype of crossover artist, along with Lirio
Salvador and Diokno Pasilan, who honed thepractice of intermedia art through the punkand rock music scene in the 1980s.
Part of the decentralization of the Cultural
Center would be the vital signs of cultural
life outside Manila. Worth noting were thefounding of the Black Artists in Asia in 1986 in
Bacolod in the Visayas, the group of islands incentral Philippines, that ultimately led to theorganization of the Visayas Islands Visual Arts
Exhibition and Conference in 1990. In 1988,
the Baguio Arts Guild was set up in Baguio,
a city in Northern Philippines, an artist initiative that conceived the Baguio Arts Festival
in 1989.~ The women as well organized
themselves in 1987 through the Kababaihan
sa Sining at Bagong Sibal na Kamalayan(KASIBULAN; Women in Art and Emerging
Consciousness) which might have been one of
the first organizations of contemporary female
artists in Southeast Asia . This history of artist initiatives should be seen in relation to ahistory of the building of modern institutions
beginning in 1960.
This paper is an attempt to constellate in
Philippine art history what has been framed as"rebellion" by this seminar. It is clear that thesituation in the Philippines was exceedingly
complex and that its trajectories of articulation
were multiple. It is, therefore, unproductive,
if not totally distorted, to invest too much inconceptualism or conceptual art as the overdetermination of this robust ecology of efforts.
There can be no political future if we fail tobroaden the sympathies of modernity and its
afterlives in Southeast Asia.

DAY 2 October 1,.,
Laura Samson et al., A Contmwng
Narrative on Ph1ilppme Theater The
Story of PETA (Phihppme Edur.at1onal
Theater Association) Marnia: Phtltppine
Educational Theater Association, 2008).

,1,
Nick Deocampo, Short Film.
Emergence of a New Ph1hppme Cinema: Marnia: CommuntcatioP ~oundat,on for
As,a. 1985)

Ii:.::.,,
Kidlat Tah1m1k,Perfumed Nightmare,1977li;.{.11

Santiago Bose, Baguio Arts Festival-sudclenlJl i1ming\ 'isible-: \rt as E:\JX'rimcnt a.nd Pedagog_,,in the Philippine...

C111!11r
al lk h,·llion iu \.sia 196o 1989

072

Art Studies_Ol

Re-Reading HistorythroughRecycling Old Films
guyen Trinh Thi
Video Artist

Of relevance to the forum's topics, I'll talkabout two main areas of my work :1
Nhan Van Giai Ph am
Since 2007, I've been researching anddocumenting the surviving poets of Nhan VanGiai Pham (Humanism-Works of Beauty), a literary
movement in the late 1950s that was soon suppressed by the Communist Party, and its legacy
of dissent in Vietnamese art over the past five
decades. While some of the founders spentyears in jail, others lost their right to publish forthree to four decades; a generation of avantgarde artists who promised to revolutionize
Vietnamese poetry and the arts was lost.
This intellectual dissident movement,
starting even before the Chinese Hundred
Flowers Campaign, can be considered the firstof its kind in Southeast Asia, and thus far the
only instance of widespread intellectual dissidence ever to occur in North Vietnam .
Despite suppression in the following
decades ( in the 1960s through the '80s), a numberof the forbidden artists continued to work in
the dark including Tran Dan, Le Oat, Dang Dinh
Hung, and Bui Xuan Phai, whose remarkablemodern innovations have only been discov ered by the public in recent years.
BackgroundThe year 1956 was one upheaval for the
nascent socialist state in North Vietnam . Not
only was the countryside in disarray, but nosooner had land reform ended than the cam paign to reeducate the capitalists plunged
the cities into fear. The whole country was
Nguyen Tnnh Thi

in turmoil, and the atmosphere was stoked
by a series of developments that comprised
the only instance of widespread intellectual dissent ever to occur in North Vietnam .
Commonly referred to as the Nhan Van-Giai
Pham period, the interlude received its namefrom two short-lived periodicals in which poets
and intellectuals voiced their concerns andcriticisms of the Party and the government.
Among artists and intellectuals thatjoined the periodicals were poets Tran Dan,
Hoang Cam, i:;;.. Le Oat, Nguyen Huu Dang,
Phung Quan, composer Van Cao (author of thenational anthem), musician Tu Phac, painterBui Xuan Phai, lawyer Nguyen Manh Tuong,
Dr. Dang Van Ngu, and philosopher Tran Due
Thao. The first edition of Giai Pham was published in March, 1956. By December 1956,
they had published two issues (Fall and Spring)of Giai Pham and five issues of Nhan Van.
However, this brief period of openness (withsome similarities to the Chinese Hundred Flowers
Campaign), in which the intellectuals called
for freedom of expression and debated government policies, ended two years later as
the Communist Party, under the influence ofChina, suppressed dissent . In 1958, the Party
launched a campaign against "saboteurs on
the ideological and cultural front," with a reeducation course organized for nearly 500
writers and artists in Hanoi.
As the Vietnam War was escalating in
the mid-1960s, the communist regime in
Hanoi was striving to make sure that artists
and writers concentrated on the fight against
American imperialism and the construction ofsocialism in the North. A political surge against
the so-called Anti-Party Revisionists between
1963 and 1967 only intensified the general
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nervousness in North Vietnamese society .
Government suppression led to decadesof professional and economic deprivation
for the participants of Nhan Van-Giai Pham,including long jail terms for a few who wereconsidered to be the key leaders.
Between 1975, when the Vietnam War
ended, and 1986, when economic reforms
known as Doi Moi began in the country ,Vietnam was virtually isolated from the rest of
the world, and, for 30 years before that, hadbeen engaged in various versions of civil war .
In effect, "much of the Vietnamese artistic
sensibility had been 'frozen' in time with theEuropean post-impressionist style firmly established along with small traces of modernism :· 'In the pre-Doi Moi period, until the late1980s, artists were expected to follow guide lines set by the Ministry of Culture for thecreation and exhibition of nationalist social ist art. Abstraction and nudity were forbidden
until 1991, and artists were closely watched foranti-patriotic sentiments . The artists who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d'lndochine,
founded in 1925, came to the attention of international art observers after the onset of the Doi
Moi period. According to the Asia Art Archive,
the first international exhibition of Vietnamesecontemporary art outside Vietnam , since theend of the war, took place in 1991at Plum

DAY2 Octobe r 1

Blossoms Gallery inHong Kong, when Bui
Xuan Phai (1922- 88)
and Nguyen Tu Nghiem(1922-)-members of
the NhanVan-Giai Phammovement-were thetwo representatives
from the colonial period .
Having defied authorities in refusing to com ply with regulations onart, they are remem bered as the fathers ofmodern painting .
Although theVietnam War has generated a great deal ofinterest among historians and polit ical scientists, the war-generation artists has notreceived as much attention from international
museums and galleries as th e younger art ists
who came of age after Doi Moi , w ith only a
few exhibitions having taken place outside ofVietnam . These artists also include those bornin the 1940s who did not part icipate in the war
or were active in the national art exhibitions
such as Nguyen Trung (1940-) and Vu Dan Tan(1946- 2009).i;,,. Both artists can be consideredoutsiders to the establishment but both havebeen active as artists.

Re.Reading l-listor:' 1hroubrf1He<_)ding Old Film.-.

Tran Th, Huynh Nga, 'Contemporary
Vietnamese art during Do, Moi,"
VietnamArtBooks, November 19 (2002)• http://www.vietnamartbook.com/
article/art,cle.html1id=232(Accessed January, 2015)

li:.!.OI
Nguyen Trmh Thi (left), Hoang Cam(right), 2008'© Jamie Maxtone-Grahamliµ:.11,
Bui Xuan Phai (left), Vu Dan Tan (right),
Courtesy of Asia Art Archive (AAA)074

Cultural Hebl'llion in \., ia 1960 1989

The Vietnam Film Studio later split
into the Feature Film Stud 10,theDocumentary and Science Film Studio,
and the Animation Studio.

Indeed, 1986 can be considered a pivotal
moment for the Vietnamese arts, and the very
beginning of Vietnamese contemporary art.
Today, in the midst of rapid economic andsocial changes brought on since 1986, when
the Vietnamese Communist Party adopted amarket-oriented development strategy and set
out to integrate Vietnam into regional andinternational networks, issues about culture,
tradition, modernity, intellectual freedom, andnational identity-once dominating the intellectual discourse of the 1950s- have returnedto the public arena to be discussed anddebated with passion.

2
Fo und Foot.age

Ii,!. 01
Tran Van Thuy, Story of Kindness (t,lm
st,11',1987. colorfilm.43'

Nguyen Trinh Thi, Song to the Front (filmst,11),2011, single-channel video. 5· 14'.
bl.ick and-white, sound (based on thet,lm Song to the Fronr directed by Tran Dae,n 1973)

fi:,::0.1
Nguyen Trinh Thi. Vietnam the Movie(film st,11),work-in-progress. expectedcompletion: 2015, approx.60'

In terms of Vietnamese cinema, the late
1950s also laid the ground for the national
institutional structure for managing national
movie activities in Vietnam, which has
remained largely unchanged over the next
half-century . Between 1956 and 1959, state owned cinema institutions were establishedin Hanoi-the Vietnam Film Studio, theMovie Distribution Company, the Cinema
Department, the Cinema Newspaper, and theHanoi Cinema College.
With the end of the First Indochina War
and the creation of North and South Vietnam,
there were two Vietnamese film industries,
with the Hanoi industry focusing on propaganda films documenting the Vietnam War,and Saigon producing mostly war-themed or
comedy films. After the fall of Saigon in 1975,
studios in the former South Vietnam also

Nguyen Tnnh Thi

ArtStudies_Ol

turned to making Social Realism films, focus ing on heroic efforts in the revolution, humansuffering created by the war, and social problems of post-war reconstruction.
Now a Vietnamese documentary classic,
Tran Van Thuy's1987 film Story of Kindness (orHow to Behave) i;,._ symbolically marked the endof the post-war subsidy-period cinema and the
beginning of the contemporary period . Tran, as
all other filmmakers of that time, was working
within the state-controlled film system, yet hewas brave to the extent of risking his own
security to make a film that forcefully pursued
the truth . Originally banned in Vietnam, Storyof Kindness-which explores the realities
behind the nationalistic slogans to reveal
troubling scenes of Vietnamese life-was
released only after the intervention ofCommunist Party leader Nguyen Van Linh.
I've been collecting and re-working foundfootages including classical films, of which I'll
show a couple of examples.
Song to the Front (2011) !l · is the firstfrom my intended Vietnamese Classics Re-Cut
Series. The original film was produced in 1973
by the Vietnam Feature Film Studio, a propaganda film aimed at drumming up patriotism.
Vietnam the Movie Ii, • is a survey of how
the word "Vietnam" appeared internationally( usually as a wa r. a symbol . an ideology , a concept),

particularly in the context of the Vietnam War
and also legacy of the Indochina War. It looks
into the ways popular media form our collective imaginations, memories, and understand ings of a war, a country, a nation.
My motivations in recycling found foot ages-also including corporate video materi als, contemporary press photos , and homemovies-is to preserve, deconstruct, andsubvert different kinds of aesthetics andlanguages in film and media ; to re-tell, rethink, re-read, and re-engage with history.

Presentation5

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Chapter1

to speak about Vietnar.m.
At random, if you like.

DAY2 October 1

He-Reading I lislOI) through He<:ycling Old Films

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I

I
I

1

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1111111111111111111111111111
1 1 111111

Discussion on Sessions I and ll....

Ha ashi M1chm.I~llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

077

Chapter1

Critical Possibilities :The "Third World " Id eology and ''Asia as Method"

Hayashi Michio

We have this discussion time until 6:30p .m., and I am hoping that we could first have an internal
discussion among ourselves for maybe 20 minutes, and then open the entire discussion to the floor.
So observers, you also have plenty of chances to ask questions later.
Where to begin? We had many different types of presentations, but I want to start with a very
basic theoretical question. Suzuki-san brought up the notion of the "Third World" as a critical possibility in his keynote speech last night. "What kind of Third World theory can we re-imagine at thispoint of history?" is something that Suzuki-san proposed as a theme to think about. Patrick, youalso mentioned the Third World in your presentation a couple of times, while on the other hand, Yu
Jin, you introduced Chen Kuan-hsing's concept of "Asia as Method."
So broadly speaking, "how could these two positions, these theoretical frames interact or havea relationship with each other?" That is something that I would like to start the discussion with.
Maybe, starting with Yu Jin? Do you see the Third World as a kind of viable theoretical option in lightof "Asia as Method"?
Yu Jin Seng

Actually, yes, because Chen Kuan-hsing is also engaged with the concept of the Third World.
I think that this idea, this concept is really important to him. In relation to our discussions today
about "Asia as Method," something that came to my mind again and again, as I listened, was about
the multiple frames of references that are really central to Chen Kuan-hsing' s concept of "Asia as
Method." And we talked about it in our own many different ways.
For example, if you look at certain strategies adopted by artists, earlier there was the idea
about Complex art by Prof. Lai, but I think there was in some sense a desire for creative freedom.
So trying to be free from all kinds of imposed categories, especially from the West or EuroAmerican categories; artists could use any materials, any ideas, and any concepts. So that is reallyin line with the idea of multiple frames of references whereby an artist need not necessarily justdraw from one but from different references and sources. That's one example.
There were also others like the artistic shift to the public, community-based engagement.
So, again, that is a shifting, a drawing from a completely different frame of reference as well. I thinkthat is something we can think about in terms of artistic strategies of resistance, as acts of rebellion.
Because when we have acts of rebellion, we must be able to articulate it, articulate that resistanceor that rebellion as well.
This is where I think Chen Kuan-hsing's method is quite useful because he looks at interdiscursivity; he looks at discursive formation across different disciplines, be it literature, theater, artistic
practices and so on. So if we could find some common or shared articulations of resistance acrossdisciplines, it could be a way in which we could develop an idea of how cultural rebellion actually
emerged in Asia; shared metaphors, concepts, issues that artists engaged with , for example. So
that could be one of the ways in which we could deal with this idea of cultural rebellion.
Hayashi Michio

So the Third World in that sense is not really an imagination of a unitary subject . It is actually a kindof, say, attitudinal or behavioral kind of philosophy.
YuJin Seng

Yes, very much so.
Hayashi Michio

So multiplicity can be found in different localities. In relation to that, then, I think what really struck
me in your presentation, Simon, is that you talked about "nation" as a kind of agent of cultural rebellion. And later in your presentation, you said there's a strategy of exclusion from the nations thatbrought about some problems.
So, when we talk about resistance or rebellion (in the Third World way), we have to think about
rebellion against "what." In that sense, what you are arguing is that the object of rebellion, is historically determined and it shifts with time .
DAY 2 October 1

Discussion on Sessions I and U

Cultur a l Heb,•llion in \.sia 1960 1989

078

ArtStudies_01

I was perhaps also thinking more about the dialectic of how this idea of Third World ism cameabout . Therefore, I think it's really interesting that Yu Jin actually brought up "Asia as Method"
because I think Chen wasn't only talking about this; he had registered this idea on three different
levels, three different processes: the first, deimperialization, the second is decolonialization andthe third, he very clumsily calls it, "de-Cold War ." Perhaps I think that is quite a useful term for us tothink through: that perhaps the Cold War binary is something that artists, adopting this attitude of
Third Worldism, was trying to transcend .
Iiµ:.Il l
Wu B1duan and Jin Shangy,,
Chairman Mao with the People of
Asia, Afnca and Lalin America,

1961

1:1Li

Just to give some background because I'm a little bit confused . When we're talking about theThird World theories, on which level are we talking about? Because actually, there were two levels,
two kinds of Third World theories. One of them is before 1974 where the main characteristic is that
it is based on Cold War politics: on the one side there was America and Britain as the first world, andon the other, Russia and East Europe as the second world . The independent part, the middle part isthe third world.
But in 1974 when Mao Zedong met with the President of Zambia, he totally revised the Third
World theory. He revised it as America and Russia, the two imperialist nations, as the first world,
and the countries that follow them as second world. And we, like the nations you showed in yourpainting, are the third world.
That is another background about the Third World divisions that also reflects the turning point
since China tried to escape from this kind of Cold War structure in 1974. It's a very Chinese versionof the Third World.
HayashiMictuo

In relation to that, I have a question for Suzuki-san. You showed a very interesting painting: Mao
Zedong shaking hands with other people from African and Asian nations where there is also Japanas a woman in the middle . f!); These representatives included in the painting are not only representatives of socialist countries. They also include, possibly, the liberal camp also?
PiliThis includes Africa, Asian countries, and also Latin America. So that's our standard descriptionof the Third World.
l::!fil,ashiMichiQ

So this is not a Cold War division . This represents a geographical extension of the Chinese version of
the Third World?
P_j_l,1

Yes, because if it were based on the Cold War, the Japanese woman should be on the other side.
l::!fil,asl:liMichiq

Right . Suzuki-san, do you have any comments about the Third World issue?
Suzuki _Katsuq

In my presentation yesterday, in fact, I specifically referred to Chen Kuan-hsing's Asia as Method,
and when thinking about the overall framework of this exhibition, I think having multiple reference
points, or pluralizing our reference points, could be one of the goals we set for ourselves. In order todo this, we could set reference points that are cross-genre so that we not only have a spatial, synchronic width, but also historical and diachronic constellations. That is how I very vaguely imagined
the framework of this exhibition to be. Yu Jin, I think, articulated that very clearly with exhibitions inmind which has been extremely helpful for me, so I am very grateful for that .
The Cold War, or rather with 1970 as the turning point, as I pointed out, there was a majortransformation in perception. My hypothesis is that from these various changes in global geopolitics, we can, in fact, see the processes in which artists began to achieve a sense of criticality in theirartistic practices, and also the sense of unity, or united-ness, and of aiming for the same goal.
Referring to Yu Jin's presentation again, he explained that around 1970 was also the time when
new movements, to borrow his term "critical exhibitions," emerged in various parts of Asia . And in
D1scuss1onChapter1

079

these "critical exhibitions," I think some of the key terms that appeared in the latter presentations
such as "pedagogy" are also included .
I brought this book with me today as an example, The Playful Revolution: Theater and Liberationin Asia written by Eugene van Erven. In this book, case studies of PETA(Philippine Educational Theater
Association) from the Philippines and the theatrical movements, or "theaters for revolution," fromThailand, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea are included; precisely the topics that we have been discussing today.
To elaborate a little on why I initially imagined this exhibition to be cross-genred; Hayashi-san
mentioned in his presentation that the Cold War structure began to be less visible after 1970, butwhen we think about the conception of "Asia" in Japan, rather it was after 1970 that the momentum of creating cultural networks with other Asian countries really flourished. For example, theJapanese underground theater group, Kura Tento (Black Tent), established workshops with PETA,and
there were also cases where Thai theater groups were invited to Japan. These all happened during
the 1970s through the '80s. So when I was imagining the word "solidarity," I was actually thinking ofthat period, a little before or after 1970 through to the '80s, where minorities were actively creatingthese movements, joining hands to create a public space that transcended national borders. These
included the use of theaters, small media, and other printed media; various media were utilized andstrategies were adopted to generate alternative spaces. The reason why I imagined a cross-genre
approach was because I could visualize those movements .
So, I think one of our goals is to precisely recontextualize this into the visual arts and create
these multiple frames of references through this project. Just to clarify, though, this is not to createa Third World in a so-called geographical sense. I mean it more in the sense of connecting the various people and groups who want to make changes and create movements from around the world;
these people and movements that, in a larger context, can be considered movements that generatea rewriting of the existing world map. That is how I understand Third World ism to be.
Hayashi Michio

In other words, the Third World doesn't exist in any map; it is a kind of virtual space where people
can have meaningful interactions. I think it is very important that you pointed out this gaining of criticality in the 1970s in various different locations where artists actually gained the space of freedom
from the authoritarian power in which peer-to-peer connections became possible . So we can imagine these alternative spaces as a space of the Third World.

Geographi cal versus
Id eological ''Asia"

Patrick Flores

I think the Third World as a term is productive on certain different levels. But I'm just wondering how this project will see the Third World in relation to the idea of region, which is Asia.
Because we're gathering examples of practices from a particular region: Asia. So in a way it isalready geographically demarcated . So how do we mediate the geography with another imagination of solidarity or a gathering, which is the Third World?
So when you mentioned, Michio, about the relationship between "Asia as Method" and theThird World, I thought it's an interesting juxtaposition between the two phrases. If we are to productively appropriate the discourse of the Third World, how do we situate that in relation to theidea of Asia as a geographical imagination?
Hayashi Michio

In other words, Patrick's question can be rephrased as, "the Third World can exist anywhere,
between the West and Asia, or West and Japan or Africa or wherever. If it's a virtual space, whyis there a need to pin it down onto a geographical map?"
But historically speaking, I think what Suzuki-san has in mind-and this is my interpretation of what he told me the other day-is that maybe through the 1960s, '70s and '80s there
actually already were movements in Japan which sought connections with other Asian countries. There were actual practices that supported the idea of the Third World imagination in theJapanese context. But that connection or possibility has quite systematically been suppresseduntil, I would even say, now.
DAY2 Octobe r 1

Discussion o n Sess ions I and II

Cullural Helwlli on in \si al1g60 1989

080

Art Studies_Ol

Now we have so many Asian art exhibitions that basically started in the 1980s, not to mention
the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum . So there is that tradition and awareness from the 1980s. However,for the 1960s and '70s, we haven't really looked back on these interconnections between Japaneseand other Asian countries' practices because it has been overshadowed due to our preoccupation in
the relationship between Japan and the West.
So I think one of the motivations for you, Suzuki-san, is to rediscover these lost connections of
the 1960s and '70s. In that sense, I think it's not only a theoretical framework, it is also based on historical occurrences .
Patrick Flores

But my only fear is that the Third World presupposes a more inclusive, a more expansive context .
Hayashi Michio

Exactly. But I think that is good, no?
Patrick Flores

Yes. But the region of Asia significantly limits it, that's what I fear. So we might be, in a way,diminishing the energy of the Third World by situating it within a geographical area.
Hayashi Michio

There is that danger, yes. So, in that sense, I think Suzuki-san or this exhibition project has to bevery careful about how to present this case as an exhibition : whether we should present it as an
exemplary case of Third World possibilities that could occur anywhere in the world, or we present it
as the Third World . I think it is the former: we treat Asian cases as an exemplary case of many otherpossibilities.
Suzuki Katsuo

If I may, one key issue that can connect the two ideas, "Third World" theory and "Asia as
Method," is the Cold War structure which was unique to Asia. This structure did not exist anywhere
else, it was very unique to Asia. While it is true that there is a geographical limitation, I believe it
was a hugely significant determining factor for various cultural activities within Asia in general. So
how we understand and consider this particular Cold War situation in Asia will, I think, allow us toseek ways in which we can think about the postcolonial conditions in Asia. This, I believe will, in thelong run, elucidate the meaningfulness in the limitation of Third World ism and of Asia.

niversalist versu s
Lo caJ Discours e ofMod erni sm

Hayashi Michio

Following up on that Third World issue, what I sensed or saw recurrently in some of the presentations today is that these local practices may have in fact been a reaction against the universalist
discourse of modernism. But in other presentations, for example in Ms. Park and Pi Li's presentations, this universalist discourse, notion of humanism, or the metaphysical could function as a
medium for these rebellious practices . Conversely, in other contexts such as in Indonesia or
Malaysia, I think this universalist discourse of modernism is somewhat seen as Western-centric
to a degree. Therefore, how do we reconcile these two different strategies of rebellions? I thinkthat is something which came to me as a very difficult question. Ms . Park or Pi Li, do you have
any thoughts on this? I mean, maybe it is contextual; this universalist discourse could function asa very effective tool in certain political contexts. In any case, the impressions I got from yourpresentations are very different in terms of the use of that concept of universal humanism.
Ms. Park, in your case, if I may add, you talked about these very interesting artists and themonochrome painters of the 1960s and '70s, but didn't go into the Minjung art movement of the
1980s. My understanding of the Minjung art movement is that it really emphasized the local,
indigenous elements as opposed to the avant-garde practices you presented today of the 1960sand '70s, which, if I understood it correctly, are much more closer to the universalist notion.
So what is the relationship between the two kinds of rebellions, if you can call them that?

Discussion

Chapter1

081

Park Hyesung

Actually, they are the same: what the authorized artist system did to the unauthorized or thethird unfocused art are similar . The Minjung artists did the same thing as other artists, I think. So
I agree with your question : how should we show or present these kinds of works, the rebellious
works in an exhibition, precisely because the museum is the antithesis of their reactions. So while I
don't want to say we should " embrace" their activist reactions, my question is "how can we determine, say, or use a word that expresses our action or our attitude toward them? " The starting pointis the same. So there is a double burden : how to show "Asia as Method," and how to show these
forms of rebellion that are invisible to the public. That is a question I would like to pose.
f-:la_yash.1!\11ich10

Thank you . I don't know if this dualism of the universalist versus local discourse can actually be
a productive one, but I am nevertheless interested in the notion of translatability that, Patrick,you brought up in your presentation . Because if the notion of solidarity is very important, asSuzuki -san says, I think we have to focus on the possible ways of presenting local rebellious
practices to audiences of other cultures . So whether these rebellious practices are truly or com pletely determined by contextual frames, or do they produce something that can be translated
into other possibilities in other contexts?
P__iltrick
l'lores

In some cases that duality doesn't hold. For instance, a Malaysian artist like Syed Ahmad Jamal
would credit, in fact , Abstract Expressionism as giving him the fundamental condition to be free.
I think he is quoted as saying that it was modernist form that gave him the freedom to express himself.
Another exemplary case would be Raymundo Albano's essay on installation in which heargues that installation is also a local form because it's instinctive. At the same time , he is not sayingthat installation is purely Filipino, because it's part of an internationalist vocabulary of art. So I think
there are cases that demonstrate this duality of the local and Western doesn't really hold .
H_!!VQ_§_h1
Mic_h1p

In relation to that, Yu Jin, I think your posing of these multiple references is a very important theoretical notion for this Third World subject . In this discussion , what really amazes me is that weare all discussing this in English, we all got degrees studying in universities, we all use the samereferential points-postcolonial theory such as Homi Bhabha's etc . - , and we are literally sharing
these reference points . I don 't think we can ignore this reality: we ' re sharing the same set of concepts and theoretical prepositions. That's not the only determining element, of course, but isn't
it something that ensures the translatability to a certain degree (likethe installation as an international
vocabulary)?It could function in a very oppressive way, but at the same time, we actually share
the history of modernism with different timeframes etc . Modernism is still something that we all,more or less, have a common understanding of, and that is what allows this discussion to takeplace . So, modernism, after all, could be seen as a basis for this translatability of rebellion . Yu Jin,do you have any thoughts?
Yu_Jin__Serui

I have one thought in mind, which is from the phrase "aesthetics of rebellion " in Suzuki-san's
diagram . Although it's in terms of practices, style and so on, here, I'm thinking maybe one produc tive way to rethink this might be to think of it in terms of artistic strategies, rather than specificstyles or medium and so on. I think that would perhaps allow us to find a more common ground;to look at strategies of resistance or rebellion by artists. Whether or not they adopt strategies interms of the universalist or the local modes, for me, they share a common desire for a decolonization or deimperialization of the universal or the local.
So it is still the same , just that the strategy they use is different of which there are so manyand each of us have talked about them in our own way . For example, Pi Li talked about the Stars
Group (££@:if.) and the No Name Group (•~@f.) as having no unitary style. That itself is a strategy of resistance that talks about multiple frames of references by refusing to be locked into one
style, so there is no one unitary style to frame them into one. I think that's one way we can try to
unravel this .

DAY 2 October 1

Discussionon Sessions I and D

Cuhural l\ebdlion in \ sia 196o 1989

St•:-.:-. 1011

I and II

082

Art Studies_Ol

Rebellion:
Insid e and Outside Institutions

Choi Eunju

If I may add. I was involved in the "Cubism in Asia" exhibition in 2005, and at that time wewere confronted with the similar questions: what is the common ground, the differentiation
among Asian countries, and among Asian modernism and experimental arts? At the time it wasvery difficult to juxtapose the concepts with each country's situation. So if we take that into
account, I think we might as well raise the basic questions for the seminar and exhibition itself.
We've been discussing the regional differentiation in Asian countries and also thinking of theperiodical differences.
So I think that what we need to figure out is the artist's ultimate purpose of taking up theconcept of rebellion in each country and in each period, and why they wanted to break throughall kinds of obstacles in their society and period. We can then further discuss the concept andmake things productive in finding the answer to the questions raised here.
f'.qrl<_f:!yesunq

My first question was similar. How can we include and show "rebellion" in the museum? The
main theme of my paper is precisely that. The movements I discussed show not only the aesthetic
but also political or socio-political rebellion against society. It is difficult to distinguish the boundary between aesthetics and reality. But we have to find this gap or the niche between them.
So I express this kind of duality as a rupture on every level. I want to see their works not only
as the rebellion against Formalism . So we may need to find a new word for it.
Hayashi MichiQI think, really, Suzuki-san, in the process of shaping the concept for this exhibition, one of the key
issues is whether or not we include those rebellious practices within the art historical context ascultural rebellion, especially in relation to the more public, socially engaged art practices outside
the museum. So how much are we going to stretch the concept of "rebellion," I think, is a very
important issue to think about .
Patrick Flores

Michio, isn't it also the issue of the historical avant-garde? That it's the same, do you think?
That it is analogous?
Hayashi Michie

I think it is very similar. Clement Greenberg and Peter Burger's use and notions of the avant-garde
were completely different . So the same thing can be said about rebellion: is it a rebellion within theart context or rebellion outside the museum and directly engaging in the social practices. That's
something that we need to sort out.
Maybe it's time to open up the discussion to the floor. But still, everybody can participate.
So now I would like to open the discussion to the entire room. If there's anybody who wants toraise questions or respond to some of the questions which have been discussed, then please raise
your hand.

To the Floor:
A Re-reading of the "Third World" Theoryi<:l3tao~_Mam1

I have a question for Ushiroshoji-san (Ushiroshoji Masahiro) . I would like to hear your thoughts,
Ushiroshoji-san, on these discussions so far because some of these younger panelists have been
studying these historical facts as a history, but you have actually experienced these times, atleast the 1980s. So having seen the progress of these discussions, I was just wondering how you
would comment on these discussions by younger generations .

01scuss1on