031

Chapter1change . However, what the artist wanted toshow was the placeness where the body islooking at the object and to show the body as
a structure while facing each other; that is,"the relationship" made at a place in an instantwhen one meets another. Kim Bokyoung said
it was the realization of an "accident" in which
men met and experienced the world in themost fundamental meaning. ' i,..,_'At the same exhibition, Kim Kulim satwith his legs crossed and naked on cut tree
trunk, and tried to attain a state of perfectself-effacement (in). In From Phenomenon to
Traces, he wrapped the whole museum where
the 1st Korean Art Prize was held with whitecloth and buried the cloth in the hole of themain gate and placed a rock on it. He burnt thegrass on one side of the Han River with a series

According to Kim. accidents" open andshow the real obJect (thing) without
mediating images It simply describesthe "when," 'where,· 'who," • what"and "how. .. Kim Bokyoung, "The World
as Thing and Accident,' The5th ST
Exh1b1t1on
exh. cat (1976)

li:_:.o-

Lee Kunyong, Corporal Term, 1970,
tree trunk, root soil, and gravel

Lee Kunyong, Snail's Gallop,1979

Ii:.:. u 1
Kim Kuhm, From Phenomenon to Trace,1970

DAY2 October 1

Boundai:' Ridersof h.or('an \rt in 1960s-197~

Cultur al llclwllion in Asia l1g60 1989

11

John Cage tried to overcome the negative reality constructed by material
c1v1l1zat1onwith the transcendental
prospect of "Zen (t!l):·,.,Kim said Kwak lns1k(1919-88) was apioneer and quotes Kwak as saying,"there are lots of things 1nthe universe.
If we made them speak by themselves
and listened to them, something far
beyond our imaginations would happen. The words they would speak could
bring a new dimension ... I will stop
every action of expression and listen to
their words." Kwak lnsik, "Mono no
kotoba wo kiku ( I Listen to the Words ofThings)," Bijutsu Tech6,No. 315 (July
1969),p.45 Requoted in Kim Bokyoung,"Languages of Things," KoreanH,stoncal Conceptual Art 1970-80s,
Kyungkido Museum of Art, ed. (Seoul·
Noonb1t, 2011), p.37

Lee Ulan received attention from theJapanese art world after he interpreted
Phase-Mother Earth by Sekine Nobuo
in the "First Open Air Contemporary
Sculpture" exhibition at Kobe's Suma
R1kyuPark, not as a visual trick, but as"reality" Sekineco-editedPlacePhase
Time Open with Honda Shingo andKoshimizu Susumu which they self-published in Apnl 1970. Even though somearticles in the early 1970s were introduced 1nKorea, ironically the works of
Mono-ha were not introduced in print

For Japanese eyes, Lee's works
looked very Korean. Compared to his
works which felt natural and focusedon the relation between things rather
than the things themselves, Suga
Kishio's Infinite Conditions (1970) defam11ianzedan ordinary window by putting a piece of wood artificially into its
frame. Park Hyeri, "The Origin andAuthenticity of Korean Monochromein 1970s," Art History Forum, No.15
12002), pp.307-308.

Kwak Deokjoon (1937-), born 1nKyoto,
embodied another identity or diaspora
different from that of Lee Ulan and
Nam June Paik who had lived on theincompatible border of Korea andJapan. In the early stages, Kwak
expressed difflculty in his pnmitivestyled works. However, from the 1970s,
he started to cynically ridicule the formalized values made of the universal
language which embraced conceptual
art. Kwak's journey to look for his own
1dent1tycontinued, and, from the
1980s, he advocated for the logic ofdifference, making his double identity
meaningless and changeable032

of triangle shapes. 1" -" Most of his works
transcended the common language of society ,which made it impossible to communicate
with the public. "Tao(is)," an Asian philosophical idea, can be read as a signifier of a transcendental prospect. '·Kim Bokyoung called the works of Lee
Seungtaek and Kim Kulim "the languages ofthings" instead of addressing them with thegeneral term, conceptual art of the West, todraw distinction from the latter which wasmore concerned with (Foucauldian) "relation ."He said that they resisted any macro-subjects
which conservative and authorized groups had
desired in the process of modernization, andpursued their own micro-subject or anonymityof a subject, which made them realize things
and themselves as one unit, not dealing withthings in a manner that an object as macrosubject did. They touched things as matter anddisplaced them to nature in order to meet "theworld as it is" and emphasized the action thatmade things possess and speak their own
languages. Contrary to the logical languagesof the West, their "languages of things" weredifferent from what they showed as symbolicalor hermeneutical understandings of the traditional languages. 'At this point, we meet Lee Ufan (1936-).
"Phenomenological Introduction to Encounter
Meeting" was introduced in the 4th volume of
AG magazine published in 1971. It was theturning point for setting a new direction of
Korean contemporary art. In this article, hecriticized and tried to overcome the modern
philosophy of the West. He opposed the objec tification that it demanded in separating
beings from the world in which they belonged ,and called for the attitude to present the world
as it is "overcoming the modern." He didn't
show the oriental ism based on the colonial
view with which the West and the East wereseparated clearly, nor did he repeat the ultranationalistic idea of the "great one Asia" of the
1940s. He told about the self-reflection beyond
the geopolitical confrontation between the
East and the West. Lee's theory and practices
should be understood in a broader context ofprocess of self-reflection even by the West .
Korean art society noticed his importance fromthe beginning stage of monochrome paintings
after the mid-1970s. However, his theory andpractices which had developed out of those in
Mono-ha also influenced Korean performanceart and conceptual art since the late 1960s. '·His idea of "overcoming the modern" reached
to "corporal term." He said "I am a corporalterm which is already located in the world
before thinking about it, and it intuits and acts
Park Hyesung

Art Studies_Olat the same time ... The world is a kind ofextension of a body ." Realizing the notion of
one's body existing in the world just as one
sees and is seen at the same time, he said that
this is possible through the simultaneity ofexistence and consciousness. His works
intermediated with the corporal term weremade for men to exist concretely in the realworld, which meant his ideas of "relation
term," a structure of meeting of corporal term
and the world as it is, influenced Lee Kunyong's
Corporal Term (1970) and Relation Term (1972).
Lee's ideas and paintings played an
influential role in the development of Koreanmonochrome paintings, but they have beeninterpreted not only as Korean, but also as
Asian or even Western . He was somebody that was alienated in Korea, Japan andthe West and his identity of diaspora madeit possible for him to overcome the modern.
Similarly, Nam June Paik, who started as a
Fluxus artist and finally pioneered the area ofvideo art, sought for the coexistence of thelocal and global by intermixing high technology with Asian traditional philosophies such as
Zen, Taoism and Shamanism and so on. ·•It was Park Hyunki (1942-2000), anotherpioneering video artist, who was near to theideas and practices of Lee Ufan and the artists mentioned above. He changed video, aquintessence of material civilization and technology of the West, into a nature-friendly,
meditative and spiritual media. ,- His videos
sprouted at Daegu Contemporary Art Festival(1974-79) which was developed with the leadership of Lee Kangso. '' He presented a seriesof Video Pagoda. ii For him, stones were apart of nature that embraced ancient time andspace, stone graves were sacred and wereconnected to the other world. Pagodas were acondensation of civilization made with humandesire on the earth . The images of pagodas
were still like ones reflected in the mirror. They
were different from Paik's videos which usedtechnology aggressively and freely. His seriesof video pagodas were a connection/conflict
between artificiality and nature, materiality andimmateriality, and the real and the virtual, and
had "a structure of contradiction that has unification and in-betweenness at the same time"
told by Lee Ufan .

Conclu sion
The isolation from the public which theaforementioned avant-garde artists sought for
was ambivalent from its birth. Artists and critics of Minjung art in the 1980s who were called"political avant-garde" criticized them for their
Presentation2

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elitism, indifference to communicate with the
public, and their formalism which had lostits criticism against the absurd society . But I
think the artists of Minjung art overlooked theiropen attitude towards other layers or realitiesof the world and their connection with dailyness in the era of industrialization and modernization. Their works slipped on the binary
boundaries such as life/art, art for art's sake/political art, abstract/figurative, West/East,
elite/public, mind/matter, process/result, anduniversality/locality, and changed life and thesystem in their own way of cultural resistancewhich went beyond formal experimentation
under the strict rule of nationalism. According
to Jacques Ranciere (1940-) who talked about"the possibility of political revolution throughaesthetic revolution," the arts obtain "politicality" that can awaken "the distribution of thesensible" or discord even when they are heterogenous or when they are defined by theirown sensible way of existence to gain theirown autonomy .!!JThe young Korean artists of
the 1960s and 70s caused ruptures in various
levels making distorted localities in the universal incidents of anti-genre, anti-art systemand post-flatness, devaluing both hierarchyof the art system and ideology of nationalism
and industrialism restricting the freedom of all
members who shared the time and space in
Korea of the 1960s and 70s.

Kun Hong11ee ex-director of Kyu11gk1ao
Mu 0 eum of Art. called Parks works
Korear 11,nimahsr, 1nstallat1onvideo··
wt,,ct, ace epted both cone ept11alinstal
at1onand spintual'Tl1rnmalismofmono~hrolT'e pa,nt,ngs Furthermore, he
added that h,s works were more s,m,lar
to trcse cf Art Pnvera than these of
Mono-ha because they wer& ot med,tat,vr or conceptual but instead. rel •ct t!,e arts w,tt, leveryd, y] h'e K,mHonyhef. Park Hyunk, s Korean-otyIe
Min1ma11stVideo," Korean H,stoncal
Conceptu,:;/ Art 1970-80. Kyungk,doMuseulT' of Art, ed Seoul· Noonblt, 201'),,
Daegu was .i conservative local , ,ty andcenter of S0utheast Confucnn sch0I
r~ but bec.ime th€ ~radl.- of new art
by acc.ept,ng a new education systemin the era of modornizat,on. 'he Daegu
Contemporary Art Fest1va1served asno,nc ntum to ..:,vercomethe 1solat1OI'of JOCc'I
areas lrom the cultural
trend and to huald
new era .:if cultural
ocahzat,ol'"I

Jacques Rane,ere defines 'd1stnbut1onof the sensible" as establishing 'at one
and the same t,m., something comno1 th~t 1sshared dnd exclusive parts "Ironically, this simultaneously •elates toboth th€ comlT'onness and separationof a community Jacques Ranc,ere, The
Po/Illes of Afcsthf't1cs The D1stnbut1onoftf>eSensible trans Gabriel Rockhill
New York and Lol"'donContinuum lntnrat oral Puhhsh,nqGrcup, 2004), p.12

Ii:.: It
Park Hyunkl, Video Pagoda, 1978

DAY2 Octoberl

Bou11da1:l\iders of l\.orean.\rt in 1960~-19/(bCultural llebelli on in ,\sia 1960 - 1989

034

Art Studies_Ol

Art into Action:
Taiwanese Activists from 1960s to 1980s~ai Ying-ying
Professor, Graduate School of Arts Management and Cultural Policy, National Taiwan University of Arts

Introduction

Hsiao Chong-ray, "Between Radical
and Conservative-A Review on theDevelopment of Taiwanese Modern
Art Post WWII 1945-1983," Contempo-

rary Taiwanese Min the Era of Contention, Yen Chuan-ying et al. (Taipei:Taipei
Fine Art Museum, 2004), p.42.
()'J:

Lai Ying-ying, Taiwanese Avant-Garde:Complex Min the 1960s (Taipei:YuanLiou Publishing, 2003).

The 1960s was a period of time when
Mainland China suffered its Cultural Revolution
while Taiwan had survived the 228 massacre
after the KMT government moved into Taiwan.
Politicially, it was a time of international ten sion between a Free China and communism .
Socially, White Terror overshadowed theminds of young artists . It was a time that
Nihilism, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ,Fluxus, Neo Dada, Abstract Expressionism,and Pop art were whispered among the young ,literati in Taiwan. Some of them left Taiwan
for Europe and gained their reputation. Morestayed home embracing new ideas introduced
from friends abroad, reports of Life magazine ,and the American Information Center. Artists
grouped together to hold exhibitions , theater
performances, and magazine publications.

Taiwanese "Avant-garde " from the 1960s
The "Complex Art" trend in the 1960s
in Taiwan could be regarded as an importantmilestone in Taiwan avant-garde .'-'! By steppingout of the conventional criteria and experimenting in a serious and yet delightful attitude ,this type of art intended to break away fromthe long-existing limitations of creational
genres as well as barriers between those creative forms and society or life. ~The emergence of Complex art in Taiwan
acts not only as a pondering over the abstract
paintings of the 1950s, but also as a response
to contemporary Western mainstream philosophy and a retrospection toward local
cultures and zeitgeist as well. The previous
manifesto of abstract painting disappeared asLai Ying-ying

the environment changed. While re-thinking
over the meaning of art, artists also introduced
concepts on life and society and recognized
an interactive relationship between art, time,and space . Such an approach, one that soughtroots and a return-to-reality, became a crucialtransition for the development of arts and culture in later Taiwan .
The zeitgeist led different developments
in Taiwanese art in each period, respectively.
It is divided into four periods: Modern Painting
movement (1957-66), Complex art development(1966-70), Localization and Nativist Literary
movement (1970-83), and Multi-expressionism(1983-89) . The period from 1957 to 1966 could
be considered as the beginning and root ofavant-garde concepts in Taiwan. The tendency to seek "image-deconstruction" madeabstract art a symbol of the avant-garde at thattime. Several art groups were founded including the Fifth Moon Group by Liu Kuo-sung(1932-) and others as well as Ton-Fan Groupby Ho Kan (1932-) and Hsiao Chin (1935-). The
former became a major group that promoted
abstract paintings while the latter further proposed a modern art manifesto . At the sametime, as Taiwan joined the "Liberty World,"
many modern art trends which were alreadywidely known in the West also became known
here and thus pushed the relatively more conservative Taiwan art circles to the next step .
As the society evolved and thoughts like
Dadaism and Pop art were brought in during 1966 to 1970, the local art circle began toquestion abstraction of the 1950s. Abstract
painting was no longer the only method forart liberation. Complex art which adopted
multi-media and presentations became acreative approach for avant-garde artists. During
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this period, Ecole de Great Taipei, its manifesto by Huang Hua-chen (1935-96)and theexhibition, the establishment of the PaintingExclusive Art Group by Lee Charng-jiunn, the"Modern Poem" exhibition in 1966, and theexperimental performances and movies developed by Theatre magazine, all indicated arts'
gradual release from "schools" as a complex
and free presentation for many Taiwan artists.
In the decade from 1970 to 1980, thedifficult situation in diplomacy drove artists
to break away from the previous Westernoriented trend and to reconsider and focus on
localized and life-related approach . As a result,the Localization movement began . It consisted of self-taught artists, the revival of folkart, and development of the style of local realism. Artists in many fields and media such as
painting, sculpture, and ceramics, etc., all presented excellent art works such as the Banana
series by Y.J. Cho (1950-),Taichi series by Ju
Ming (1938-).and modern ceramic works by
Winnie Yang (1946-).
Some artists experimented in Taiwan
during 1980 to 1989 started to further exploreand discuss potential meanings of space. The
exhibitions entitled "Play of Space I" and "Playof Space II" of 1984 consisted of Richard Lin(aka Lin Show -yu , 1933-2011),Tsang Pu (1947-)
and Lai Tsun-tsun (1953-) who were considered
representatives of the avant-garde during thisperiod . Later, the founding of SOCA continued to develop based on this trend. Art practices based on the theme of social critique also
appeared at the same time . For instance, Lee
Ming-sheng (1952-)'s Mourning of a Tree aims
to discuss the relationship between the natural ecosystem and social environment. Whenthe martial law was officially declared an end
in 1987, the restriction of artistic creation was
also released. The development of Taiwan art
therefore would step into another new stage.
Arland Event.s from Lhc 1960s

Group was formed in 1957 by the alumni of the
National Taiwan Normal University such as Liu
Kuo-sung . As a response to Western paintings ,their goal was to return to the ethnologicalcharacteristics and contexts manifested in
traditional ink-brush paintings . The Ton-Fan
Group was established in 1956 by artists including Hsiao Chin and Li Yuan-chia (1929-94).
These artists learned about the developmentof modern paintings in the West throughtheir teacher Li Chung-sheng who studied
modern art in Japan. Discontent with theconservative art circle, they argued for theimportation of modern and new painting
styles into Taiwan . These groups successfully
introduced new concepts to Taiwan's circle ofarts and culture which further led to the
popularity of abstract art .'-'=
Meanwhile, some Taiwan artists wereinvolved with new development in Europe.
The Punta Movement was announced byAntonio Calderara (Italian, 1903-78), Eduarda
Emilia Maino (Italian, 1930-2004),Azuma
Kenjiro (Japanese, 1926-), Li Yuan-chia andHsiao Chin both from Taiwan, in Milan, Italyin 1962. Against the extremity of Abstract
Expressionism of the 1950s and influenced
by Hesychasm formed by Eastern philosophies, Punta artists believed the goal of art
creation should pursue a representation ofhumanity from an introspective viewpoint. ~Some works by Punta artists were exhibitedin Taiwan and gained great amount of discussions and feedback in local art circles . The
spirit and free form in this exhibition also givea tangible and visible example of Complex art
developing in Taiwan ...2 illl!.!!
During the mid-1960s, Complex art
emerged as a new possibility for art experiment. The "Ecole de Great Taipei Autumn"
exhibition in 1966, organized by Huang Huacheng, brought impact on art and culture
circles with fresh and new presentations. This
exhibition realized an anti-art manifesto by the

The revolutionary history of Taiwan art isconstructed by many events . At first, it is the"New Art Movement" advocated by Hou
Tien-hua (1909-83)and Li Chung-sheng (1912-84)
in 1950. Most members were artists who
settled down in Taiwan when the KMT government came from Mainland China.·'' However,many avant-garde activities at that time areoften accused of conspiracy because of theirassociation with politics . Many artists hence
moved or turned their focus abroad, and thismovement gradually declined. The next influential event is the founding of the Fifth Moon
Group and Ton-Fan Group. The Fifth Moon
OAY2 October!

The whole content of this manifesto will
be further discussed.

Hsiao Chong-ray, op. cit., p 62.

Lai Ying-ying, op cit., p. 214
ofi

While supporting mainstream trends
such as Anti-Communist and Anti•
Soviet Union soldiers, they also acqua
inted themselves more with modern art
and thoughts of the West. Artists in thismovement held exh1b1t1onssuch as"Collective Exhib1t1onof Modern Paintings" and "Free China Art Exhibition"and established several art groups,.-'

During this introduct,ve stage, the Chin
Sung incident forced local artists tobecome aware of the threat of political
ideology. Artist-poet Chin Sung showed
his abstract painting. Yearning for
Spring, and was reported to the authority on the suspicion of "vilifying thehead of state." The exhib1t1onwas canceled at the last minute. Consequently,
the China Modern Art Center concluded
without concrete results and the development of avant-garde art suffered certain setbacks.

..xLa, Ying-ying, op. cit., p.51

lii-:.111

Li Yuan-ch1a, LYC Museum 1973.
Collect1on of Mr Chu Wei-Pai. LYC
museum was opened to public ,nlate1960s and organized over 100 exh1bit1ons for the local community.
1i1,t.1rJ

Li Yuan-ch,a, Museum brochure, 1973.
Collection of Mr. Chu We1-Pa1.Li Yuanch,a ,s one of the founding members ofTon-Fan Art Group, highly respected byhis peers and respected as the pioneerof conceptual and abstract art ,n Taiwan.

•\rt into \ t·tion:Taina rw~t· \ di,i-,~ from l!X-i(}.,lo 19&)~

C11lt11rnl l11•b..Jlio11i11\., ia 1960 1989

lig I \
Huang Hua-cheng, Performance of
Waiting for Godot, 1965.
Courtesy Chuang Ling

Theatre magazine, 1965-68

036

artist: inside the exhibition space, all kinds ofeveryday objects were placed randomly on the
ground so that audiences directly "stepped"
onto them . Furthermore, Huang placed adoormat that was pasted with reproduced
images of world -famous masterpieces , leading the audience to enter by stepping on them .
Through the random and disordered arrangement of found -objects, artist criticized thesense of chaos in Taiwan society and hoped
the audiences ' activities in the exhibition space
would help them to demystify the myth of theexisting art scene . This exhibition is not only afulfillment of the manifesto, but also a classic
example of the explosive energy of Complex
art of the 1960s avant-garde.
The publishing of Theatre magazine andthe founding of the Painting-Exclusive Art
Group are also significant factors in the devel opment of Complex art during the 1960s.
Theatre magazine was published by those who
were discontent with the current mainstream
cinema presentations. The members of thismagazine also organized theater performancesand experimental films which provided contemporary avant-garde artists opportunities for

Art Studies_Ol

new media. Theatre magazine helped to promote Taiwan art experiments outside paintingsand literature, and further encouraged mutual
understanding and collaboration among artistsof poetry, painting, design, photography, film,
and theater. This magazine ended in 1968 due
to several of its editors going overseas topursue further career opportunities . " •· The
Painting-Exclusive Art Group was founded in1967 by Ma Kai-chao and others . They sought
to transcend formalism, in terms of stylisticpresentation, to present new relationships
between subjects and objects in paintings andto create new forms of aesthetic viewpoints.
They also brought Buddhist and avant-garde
aesthetics into their art production andbecame an art group that was infused withlocal thinking .
In 1970, Taiwan withdrew from the United
Nations. Cultural roots and realities wereconstantly questioned prior to the openingof the first modern art museum in 1983 whenmany artists returned to Taiwan to argue for
new art institutions , art system and interna tional exchanges . The 1980s allowed moreexperiments of media and space which are
best demonstrated by the exhib itions "Play ofSpace" I & II in 1984 and 1985. Gender , politicaland social taboos were challenged by artists
such as Chen Chieh-jen and Lee M ing-sheng .
Their performances and activities on thestreets reveal a new page of cultural rebellion
in Taiwan.

Artists and Th eir Wor ks
Li Yuan-chia (1929- 94) was born inGuangxi and entered the Taipei Normal School
majoring in Fine Arts in 1951. Li learned with Li
Chung -sheng and is one of the founding
members of the Ton-Fan Art Group . He went
to Italy to pursue his dream for modern art in
1962. Li showed his artworks at the renowned
Lisson Gallery in 1966 and gained muchattention. In 1968, he founded the Li Yuan-chia
Art Museum . Since he left Taiwan, Li settled
abroad and never returned again . He lived inEngland until his death in 1994. After encoun tering the current art movements in the West,
Li incorporated his Eastern cultural background into his works. In the early years , Li
specialized in abstract ink-brush paintings. For
example, in his artworks Emptiness, O.VD.X
and Nothingness , Nullity, and Vo,d, there isvery little depicted on the surface of the paint ing with plenty of blank space instead . Since
his museum was opened, Li has been devoted
in promoting art in communities and public
participation. Li can be regarded as the
LarYtng-ymg

Presentation 3

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Chapter1

pioneer of participatory art. His unique art
practices and philosophy are deeply admiredby his peers, and is respected as the first
conceptual artist.
Huang Hua-cheng (1935-96) was bornin Nan king and studied in the Fine Arts
Department of the National Taiwan Normal
University in 1954. In 1965 he worked as an
editor and layout designer for Theatre maga zine. He also participated in theater performances and experimental films. He and his"Ecole de Great Taipei Autumn" exhibition
were the most subversive art practice in theart circle. Critical of conventional, standardized art forms and thinking, Huang was very
versatile in different media and disciplines.
Huang claims "beauty/aesthetics exists
indeed in our life for real and for sure ." Heorganized his installation-exhibition in the fallof 1966, where the whole exhibition space
was regarded as a piece of artwork and audiences were allowed to walk inside the artwork/space. The randomly piled objects,
hung clothing, and pop music guided audiences to discard conventional aesthetics andto realize that "life is the real art." Excessing
over the limitation on materials and media,
and adopting spirits and thoughts as thefocus of his practice, Huang has been like alegendary hero in the history of Taiwan avantgarde. ri._,._;_,.i;transition develops from the experimental
photo and film in the 1960s, and return toimmortality of the ordinary life and people
from the 1970s. He is highly recognized for his
talents demonstrated in various different
media, photograph, film, music, etc . fi&-•'2.·'

Huang Hua-cheng, "Ecole de Great
Taipei Autumn," exhibition, 1966,
installation view
Photo: Chuang Ling

Huang Hua-cheng, "Ecole de Great
Taipei Autumn,'' exhibition, 1966,
installation view
Photo: Chuang Ling

Chang Chao-Tang, Headless Rear
Profile Portrait, 1965, gelatin-silver print.
Collection of the artist

liµ:.11X
Chang Chao-Tang, Backstage, 1976,
gelatin-silver print, 40.6x 50.8cm
Collection of the Taipei Fine Arts
MuseumChang Chao-tang (1943-) began to produce experimental images in 1964. In 1966,
upon being invited by Huang Hua-cheng,
Chang participated in art events and filmshows organized by Theatre magazine. In
1970, Chang founded Group Visual-10 andfurther advocated a "holistic art" whichemphasized the infusion of life and media.
Later, he continued to focus on social realism
in photography. In Chang's art practice, hestarts with descriptive figures and landscapephotography that require lighting for tableaus
and composition, and then he turned to surrealist images incorporated with sources fromliterature and paintings. His signature pieces
include the Headless Rear Profile Portraits
series in 1965, which, responding to the existentialist aura at that time, perfectly projects
the depressed environment of humanity withheadless figures. Another famous piece is
Happy Birthday in 1967, in which he chooses
ready-made found-objects in life and places
portrait photos on each of them. He intends tobreak away from the two-dimensional boundary of photography so one could have further
extensive thinking. Chang's artistic career andDAY2 October 1

Art int oAcl.io n:'laiwancse Activists from 1960s to 1980s

Cultur al 11,•lll'llion in \.sia 196o 1989

II~)

Hsieh Tehching (Sam). homepage.
• http://tehchinghsieh.com/(Accessed August, 2014)

Lee Ming-sheng, webpage at Taiwan
Contemporary Art Archive• http://wiki.avat-art.org/mediaw1ki/
index.ph~ia!ii(Accessed August, 2014)

Chen Chieh-Jen, webpage at Taiwan
Contemporary Art Archive• http.//wiki.avat-art.org/mediawiki/,ndex.phpilll.!'1-L(Accessed August, 2014)

Iiµ_.ll~J
Hsieh Tehch,ng (Sam), Cage Piece,
1978 -79,one-year performancelq.::.
111
Lee Ming-sheng, F,re Ball or C,rc/e,1993,
installation and performance
The 45th International B,ennale, Venice,
Italy, June 1993.
Collect,on of the artist
Photo: Chen Chang-hua

038

Hsieh Tehching (Sam)(1950- )was born in
Ping-dong. He went to America as a stowaway
in 1974 and was granted amnesty in 1988.
Since 1978, Hsieh had conducted action-art
performances and has gained wide attention from the American art circle. Currently,
he is compiling his own artwork documentation and actively accepting academic invitations . His most famous pieces consist of five
one-year projects from 1978 to 1986. Cage
Piece (OneYearPerformance
1978- 79) is a woodencage, built by Hsieh himself, placed in his studio. For the performance , he locked himself
up in this cage for the entire year. The second
piece, Time Clock Piece (OneYearPerformance
1980- 81) is where he punches his time card
every hour over the course of the year. Outdoor
Piece (OneYearPerformance1981-82)is the third
piece in which Hsieh lived outdoors throughout a year without entering any indoor space.
In the fourth piece, Rope Piece (Art/Life: OneYear
Performance1983- 84), Hsieh spent a year tied tofellow artist Linda Mary Montano (1942-)with
an 8-foot long rope. While attached, they wereto avoid all direct contact for the year. The last

La1Ymg y1ng

Art Studies_01

one is No Art Piece(OneYearPerformance
1985- 86),
in which Hsieh declined all artistic activities ,including producing, seeing, and speaking
about art, and simply lived that year.
Lee Ming-sheng(1952- ) was born in
Meinong, Kaohsiung . He began his artistic
practices after he went to college in 1977.
Mourning of a Tree of 1983 is the first artwork
discussing the issues of natural ecosystems
in Taiwan. The Purification of the Spirit of Lifeof the same year becomes the first publicizedaction-art piece in Taiwan, where the artist
travelled around the island on foot . He gained
worldwide fame with his artwork Fireball or
Sphere in 1993. Lee's creational themes often
relates to environmental conservation andhuman life . He expresses his artistic concepts
through action-art and opposes conventional
standards of arts and believes in care forhumanity and local culture. 'Chen Chieh-jen (1960- ) was born in
Taoyuan . During the 1980s, he once voiced his
discontent with martial law through action-art
performances and underground art creation in
the style of "guerrilla warfare." After the martial
law was declared to end in 1987, his creational
themes turn to historical memories andhumanitarian issues . In particular, he has
recently become more focused on thesocially marginalized and has produced
photography, installation, and performance .
Chen considers that the meaning of art is not
merely an introspection of reality, but also anexperiment of new social relationships during
the process of execution. Furthermore , via
his art productions, a new aesthetic imagination is thus opened. His famous artwork
Lingchi: Echoes of a Historical Photographtransforms the remains of those tortured or
executed into "passages" between the pastand the present. He proposes an examinationof punishment while discussing the victims'
states of mind. ll&o•

Presentation3

039

Chapter1

llµ,.11Chen Ch1eh-Jen,lmgchi Echoes of aHistorical Photograph, 2002,
video installation
Collection of the Ta1pe1Fine Arts
Museum

DAY2 October!

\rt into \cLio n:Tai,,an e!.e \ cti, i, t~ fro m 19('-,()':>
to 1980-.

Cullur al llt•lx•llio11iu \.sia 196o 1989

040

Art Studies_Ol

CulturalRebellion:
Japanfrornthe 1960s to the 1980s
Hayashi Michio
Professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts , Soph ia Univ ersity

The aim of today's session is to build ashared basis for further discussion by attempt ing an overview of the situation in Asia fromthe 1960s to the '80s through the lens of"rebellion," or what in Japanese would becalled teik6 or hank6.
I am responsible for speaking about theJapanese situation, but as time is extremely
limited, I am afraid I must speak in broad
terms . That the Cold War structure was animportant factor in determining cultural condi tions in Asia as a whole was something Suzuki
Katsuo addressed in his keynote speechyesterday, and it also relates to what I will be
discussing here.
I would first like to show a diagram ." Ina sense, if everyone can comprehend this diagram, then you could almost say my talk today
is done, and the rest is just filling in the details .

li:.!,.111

Diagram of Socio-Political Events andArts and Cultural Movements dunng
the 1960s to the '80s

This diagram attempts to summarize the cultural situation in Japan from the 1960s to the'80s along a chronological axis that proceedsfrom left to right, but, as you can see, there is adistinct, yellow band passing through the areaaround 1970, which divides the diagram into
differently colored sections between left andright. In other words, this division indicatesthat the time around 1970 was a major turning
point in the history of post-war Japan, and inparticular the history from the 1960s onward .
Normally, historical turning points are
more often considered to be catastrophic
events such as wars and political upheaval,
but no such major incident happened in Japan
in 1970. It is possible to suggest the Expo '70
in Osaka as an approximation, but, differingfrom the way that war , revolution, and political
upheaval prompt new changes exogenously,

politicalapathy...
---

Identitypolitics

invisibllltyof the coldwar

hflhconsumer
society... of slmulKnl

RetumtoPalnlfnl

SelbuCulbn

PresentatK>n4

Chapter1

Expo '70 was not the kind of event that could
start a chain reaction as an exogenous factor in
itself, and was instead more pronounced as a
"symptom" that was produced as the crystallization of already changing major currents .
Addressed from this perspective, thehypothesis of 1970 as a turning point may
appear somewhat unconvincing, but numerous critics have in fact supported this interpretation from diverse angles. Although it is
impossible to elaborate every instance, it is anestablished fact that it was around this timethat Japan's rapid economic growth slowed
down and the country entered a period of low
development . And the recognition that it wasagainst this backdrop that Japanese society
entered its next phase is broadly shared- by
thinkers such as Yoshimoto Takaaki and Mita
Munesuke, and more recently by figures suchas Osawa Masachi and Kitada Akihiro.
In fact, this analysis also holds up when
examining my own personal experiences.
Expanding the perspective beyond just Expo
'70, in 1972 there was the United Red Army's
Asama-Sanso incident and the reversion of
Okinawa, as well as the publication of Tanaka
Kakuei's Building a New Japan: A Plan for
Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago, while
1973 saw a series of symptomatic incidents
including that year's oil crisis. Concurrently,
in the music scene, for example, songs withstrong public messages had been relatively
common to that point, but with the appearance of singers like Arai Yumi (now known as
Matsutoya Yumi) and Inoue Yasui, there wasa shift toward "private" content. Taken as awhole, this certainly gives the sense that seismic shifts were occurring throughout the firsthalf of the 1970s.
There were similar changes in the art
world, too. Although this is a limited example, if the idea of the "avant-garde" as contemporary art practice-embodied
by groups
like Fluxus, Neo Dada and Hi Red Center(hereafter, HRC)-was already losing currency
in the 1960s, there was nevertheless no letting up in actions that intervened into anddisrupted public spaces and institutions .
The HRC is emblematic of this . The 1964
Tokyo Olympics was a symbol of Japan's
rapid economic growth, but the group held
events at sites across the city which seemed
to mock the attempts to sanitize and control
Tokyo's public, urban spaces that were occasioned by the games. fuL.., However, entering the 1970s, such artistic action as social
practice all but disappeared, although certainly there were elements that continued ona small scale, just as the New Left continued
DAY2 Octoberl

041

underground in the world of politics.
I won't go to the extent of quoting
Foucault and Lyotard, but the shift from the
grand narrative of "revolution" to the minor
narrative of "rebellion" or "resistance" is thechange that defines the political climate ofthis period. In that sense, since the 1970s,
movements that could call for an outspoken
challenge to power mostly fell silent, and theprimary concern of art shifted toward issuesof everyday, private life. As is indicated at thevery top of the diagram, once the fantasy of
revolution wore off in the early 1970s, and after
the momentary state of aphasia that directly
followed, the center of gravity moved toward"identity politics" dealing with issues related tothe subjective form of the "self," with a special
emphasis on gender and sexuality.
Behind this was the arrival of the highconsumer society, which Guy Debord
attempted to capture through his concept ofthe "spectacle," followed by Jean Baudrillard
through his concept of the "simulacrum ."There are differences in the evaluation of thechanges in the economic structure depending
upon what index is used, but broadly viewed,
there is no debating that generally it wasaround 1970 that Japan's industrial structurechanged from a focus on secondary industry (production) to a focus on tertiary industry(information, service, retail, and so on). In essence,industry as a whole shifted its weight from themaking of things to the selling of things-furthermore to the selling of intangible things
including information and services, and, above
all else, images. From the viewpoint of the consumer, this was a shift from the age of functional consumption based upon the use valueof a commodity to an age of semiotic consumption that emphasized the vague images
enveloping the commodity .
It could be said that the Tokyo Olympics
had a major role in the advance of this irreversible process, but around the same time,
the thoughts of figures like Walter Benjamin,
Marshall McLuhan, and Daniel Boorstin wereintroduced into the discourse on art, and in
tandem with the assertions of sociologists
like Tada Michitar6 and Kato Hidetoshi, terms
such as "reproduction," "phantasm" and "illusion (image)" flew about as buzzwords in analmost instantaneous response to the arrivalof the new age of semiotic consumption (inthis regard, lono Yoshiaki and Okada Takahiko played
central roles in the field of art criticism). ' In thiscontext, the proliferation of "images" throughreproductive media was admitted as an inescapable condition of contemporary production, while the question of how to circumvent
Cultural Rebellion:Japan from the 1960s lo the 1980s

See for example Yoshimoto Takaaki,
Waga tenk6, MyConvers1on](Tokyo
BungeishunJu. 1995); Mita Munesuke,
Genda1N,hon no kankaku to shis6 IThe
Thought and Sens1b1htyof Contemporary
Japan)(Tokyo: Kodansha,1995); andOsawa Masach1 and Kitada Akihiro.
Rekishi no "haJimari" [The "Beginning"of History) (Tokyo: Sayusha, 2008).
among others.
'1

Numerous treatises on the concepts ofreproduction and phantasm were published in the 1960s. Selected examples
include, Tada M1chitar6, Fukuse1ge1Jutsuron [Theoryof Art1strcReproduction]'Tokyo: Ke1s6Shob6, 1962) and a special
issue on the theory of reproduction 1n
8ljutsu Techo,No 346(September, 1971)
Further examples include, Fukuseijida,no sh1s6 Thought in the Age of Reproduction], Graph1cat,onI special issue](Tokyo: Fu11
Xerox, Apnl 1971); Zoku fukuse1pdai no sh1s6[Thought 1nthe Age of
Reproduction, Continued], Graphicatlon:;pec1al issue) (Tokyo: Xerox, October1974). In the context of art criticism,
representative titles include, Okada
Takah1ko, Kik1no kessh6: gendai bijutsu
oboegaki [Crystals of Crisis: Notes onContemporary Art) (Tokyo: lzara Shob6,1970); Okada Takah1ko, Gen'e1tek1nagenjitsu no yukue [The Whereabouts ofIllusory Reality) (Tokyo: Tabata Shoten,1970); T6no Yoshiak1's treatise on
America, Kyoz6ba,y6 koku shi [Writings
on the Land of Phantasm Cultivation)(Tokyo: B11utsuShuppan, 1968).

042

Cultur al lkb, ,llion iu \., ia 196o 1989

liµ,.1n
H, Red Center, Shutoken seis6 sem
sokush1n undo (Campaign to Promote
Cleanup and Orderliness of theMetropolitan Area). October 16, 1964.
Performance on the streets of Gmza,Tokyo
Photo: Hirata M,noruliµ;.11.\
Nakahira Takuma, Takanashi Yutaka,Taki K6J1,Okada Takahiko, PROVOKE
magaz,ne, November 1,1968

or break through this increasingly tight enclo sure was recognized as the challenge for all
fields of expression. Put in Marxist terms , thequestion was how to recover the integrity of
individual subjectivity from its bondage andalienation by the image, and, at the start of the
1970s, this critical awareness would generate a number of emblematic movements . The
representative case here is Mono-ha . Setting

Hayashi M1ch10

Art Studies_Ol

aside whether the name Mono-ha is ultimately
even appropriate or not, in reading the writingsfrom around 1970 by Lee Ufan, who served as
the movement's spokesman, one feels that at
the forefront of Lee's mind was the critique ofthe image as described above and, ultimately,a "rebellion" against the world of representation itself . For him, the "encounter" with"things" was an impetus for escaping the

Presentation4

Chapter1

world of meaning that stood upon the bondage of the image, and the recurrence of thesign and its consumption; it was an event that
could produce cracks in that world's protective shell. That he rejected "making" wasbecause he was aware of the danger that theact of "making" had in being immediately coopted into some kind of meaning. ·· So, forhim, the "work" was an "apparatus" for making encounters possible-a device for drawing the viewer's mind and body away fromthe net of everyday codes and toward what
could even be called a transcendental site . And
in their tendency to generally lack color, andavoid the use of recognizable, concrete images- whether reproductions or those drawn by
hand-the works of Mono-ha can be understood when viewed from this perspective.
Lee's core concept of the world "as it is"readily communicates his antipathy toward
the world of images. It is significant that thisoccurred in parallel to Expo '70, which vociferously proclaimed the technologically mediated image and the environmentalization of
information. This aspiration to the "as-it-is" is,in a sense, a reflection of the historical awareness that the direct-action-style disruptions
and interventions of the previous generation
could no longer be effective, and can also
be understood as the last form of resistancethat rejects the world of representation in its
entirety . Looking at how the concept of the"as-it-is" was also shared and appropriated by
the contemporaneous photographer and critic
Nakahira Takuma, we can confirm that thisinterpretation is not off the mark.
Through the limited-run publication,
PROVOKE(1968-69) which he helped to found,
Nakahira raised objections to the way thatphotographs are incorporated by language andnarrative as psychological representations,and, in order to break that filter, he sought ameans for presenting photography as a "provocative material" for escaping narrative. &"'What the artists behind this publication called"provocation" has correspondences with Lee's"encounter," and was rooted in a criticalawareness that questioned how to create
fissures and tears in the fabric of representation, so as to recuperate a holistic and directcontact with reality. However, a kind of romantic subjectivity latent within that approach was
also the reason why the dream of "provocation" had to go unfulfilled. In fact, this "provocation" was quickly rehabilitated by thesystem. Specifically, the massive DISCOVER
JAPAN advertising campaign sponsored by
Japanese National Railways (the predecessor toJR) facilely appropriated, as "style" alone, theDAY2 October 1

043

then-innovative and anti-orthodox technique,known as are, bure, boke ( grainy , blurry, out-offocus), that was pioneered by the PROVOKE
photographers such as Nakahira andMoriyama Daid6 .f!&.· What had been for themthe stamp of a physical encounter that could
shake their entire existence was transformed
into a signifier of mundane travel (the simulacrum of encounter) that could be consumed as anescape from the everyday, that is, leisure. It
was the resignation that everything, including
gestures of resistance, could now be encoded
and reiterated.
Grappling with this situation, Nakahira
sympathized with Lee's thinking, and invoked
his rhetoric in publishing Why an Illustrated
Botanical Dictionary? (1973), in which Nakahira
discussed photography as a path toward theworld "as-it-is." r The text is pervaded with thepessimism that the encirclement of the worldof images cannot be easily escaped; the sensethat the everyday world itself had become
adhered to the world of images, and the twowere now perceived as an inseparable entity .
This was saying almost the same thing as theworld of "hyperreality" that Jean Baudrillard
proposed through his concept of the "simulacrum." Baudrillard was primarily addressing
Euro-American society since the 1970s, but his
ideas also apply to Japan. With the end of
rapid economic growth and the shift toward
high consumer society, this was the moment
when the simulacralization of society as awhole proceeded all at once, with the prime
illustration of this being the diverse activities of
the Seibu (Saison) Group from the latter half ofthe 1970s onward ."· Operating not only
department stores but also art museums,
theaters, performance spaces, and cuttingedge bookshops, the Seibu Group would cometo represent the new cultural trends in the
consumption of "signs." And the illusion of the"self" that could be obtained from the simulation of "signs" would become an important
focal point in both cultural production andconsumption. This mood continued throughout the 1980s, and, in tandem with structuralist/post-structuralist textual analysis (theories ofsemiotic play), it produced clusters of "petit
rebellion" in sites across the everyday world.
The fantasy of revolution would be transformed/diffused as the play of the rebellious"I," but this was not just a simple trivialization .
Because the body and fantasy of the real "I"
are always either in excess of or produce lackin such semiotic play. This inevitably createsstrains in the "play," which leads to an achingstruggle over the constitution of the "I." In any
event, these identity issues about how to
Cullura l Rebellion : Japan from thf' 1960~ to the 1980s

Perhaps the representative example ofMono-ha"s cnt,que of '"making'" ,sSek,ne Nobuo·s statement in the roundtable discussion. 'Tsukuru to ,u koto
'Tsukuranai' to ,u koto" "Making' and'Not Making'; with Ikeda Masuo, Suga,
Kumi, Horiuchi Masakazu, Tono
Yoshiak, and Sekine, reproduced ,nBqutsu Tech6.No.315 (July1969)
pp 176-192.

Nakahira Takuma, Naze, shokubutsu
zukan ka [Why an Illustrated BotanicalD1ct1onary>](Tokyo:Chikuma Shob6,
1973)

Seibu Group changed its name to
Saison Group ,n the mid-1980s

DISCOVER JAPAN
campaign poster, 1970

Cultu ral lk lwllion in \.sia 196o 1989

11/i

From about this time, the ideals aspiring toward the future and the image ofthe future itself-which the Japanesemass mentality so blindly relied uponsince the high economic nse to the'bubble penod"-collapsed so rapidly
causing the conversion from a middle
class society to a disparate societyl,kakusashaka1).From these s1tuat1ons
emerged a new form of gaze directed at
the hard realities of the political andeconomic conditions [in Japan] whichwere once sugar-coated 1nthe image ofan advanced urban culture. 3.11, 1t
could be argued, panly triggered the
sharpening and proliferation of this new
type of gaze.

044

define the "I" became the "primary battlefield"of rebellion, and this tendency would only befurther amplified throughout the 1980s.
Considering this age of simulacra that
followed the transition period around 1970
from a different angle, it could also be said thatJapan had entered an era in which opposition
to the main framework defining its politicalsituation to that point-the U.S.- Japan
Security Treaty-disappeared, and the Cold
War structure itself was rendered invisible .
Specifically, the fantasy of revolution collapsed
with the Asama-Sanso incident of the early
1970s, and as the gaze toward the everyday "I"
became the baseline of cultural phenomena it
brought about a situation where the questioning of the framework of the Cold War, whichsurely prescribed the deepest parts of everyday life, no longer obtained any sense of reality. For example, the year 1972 saw thereversion of Okinawa and an "apparent" step
toward the resolution of the Cold War structure, but for the people of Okinawa this was ina sense the true beginning of the "cold"-nolonger "hot"-war. Ironically, for the rest ofJapan, Okinawa's visibility faded as it came tobe seen as a specifically "local" issue. In otherwords, the gaze toward Okinawa broadened
only in terms of culture/leisure, while thepolitical reality receded into the background . In
that sense, the economic chauvinism of therapid economic growth period had an aspectthat was "naturalized," as a mentality, from the1970s onward. The thought and sensibilities
that questioned political issues, and in particular major structural issues, were neutralized,
and perhaps ultimately even relegated to therealm of the unconscious, straight through tothe natural and nuclear disasters of March 11,
2011. Since 3.11,there has been a prompt
increase in the discussion of Fukushima andOkinawa as a pair; nuclear energy is anotherissue that has quietly but widely advanced
since the 1970s. It could be said that inaddressing these two problems together, weare finally confronting the mentality thatallowed the invisible Cold War structure to go
unquestioned to this point.
Reviewing the history, in the art world of
the 1950s there were works and movements- such as Reportage art and the print movement-that directly challenged the Cold War
structure itself, starting with the struggles over
U.S. military bases in Japan . ri;.,,,In the 1960s
there were also numerous cases of artists,such as the aforementioned HRC, directly
engaging with the massively transforming
urban space, and the political and economic
structures it represented (this includes Akasegawa
Hayashi M1ch10

ArtStudies_Ol

Genpei's Thousand -Yen Note Trial), and it is mypersonal impression that the current intensityof the gaze directed at this history is not unrelated to the post-3.11 situation . From a broader
perspective, perhaps it should be said thatmomentum had been gathering from around
1995, and finally erupted with 3.11.
In any case, if there is now a certain senseof reality to revisiting the art of the 1960s and'70s, I believe there are two factors at playhere. One is that the current situation in Japan
allows for the memory of these previously
existing examples of "rebellious" art to beperceived with a certain sense of reality. The
other is that there is a need for a genealogical retracing ( in the Nietzschean sense) of how
the double-sided construct that emerged in
the 1970s-with the simulacralization of reality and the shift toward identity issues on
one side, and the obscuring of the Cold War
structure on the other - came to define ourconsciousness over the years since its establishment. That is, there is a need for a dissection of our mentality .
To conclude, the situation in Japan that I
have sketched out here is, in fact, deeply
related to Japan's relations with other Asian
countries . Not only with regard to art, butalso in terms of culture in general, the links
between Asia and Japan follow two basic
patterns. In one, there is the rediscovery ofother Asian cultures as the forgotten origins
of Japanese culture. In the other, Asia is the
new market for Japanese mass culture .
Connected to a cultural-anthropological/
ethnographic perspective, the former has
followed an uninterrupted development sincethe 1960s, while the latter emerged primarily
in the 1980s, and has gradually overwhelmed
and occluded the former.
Certainly, this is a gross simplification,and something that needs to be examined
more closely, but the structural changes in
the Japanese view toward Asia are not unrelated to the simulacralization of the 1970s,
and one has the sense that this was also what
transformed the cultural -anthropological/eth nographic perspective that predates it. (Hereit should be noted that the successor campaign to
DISCOVER JAPAN was themed " EXOTICJAPAN ."The re-apprehension of Asia as a whole that occurredin the 1980s can be understood as a manifestation ofa similar gaze.) And even where there was con-cern for Asia in such cultural fields, we cannot
forget that this was countered with a consistent "indifference" toward the Cold War structure and Asia's political situation . In that sense,
the Cold War structure had the effect in Japanof focusing political consciousness exclusively
Presentation4

Chapter1045

on Japan-U.S. relations. Put another wayand this applies also to the case of Okinawaanother issue that must be carefully studied
going forward is the way that the cultural gaze
had a highly ideological effect of compensating for and covering up the lack in Japan's
political consciousness. In that sense, perhaps
there is also a need for the problem of cultural
rebellion to be read as the rebellion against
culture.
Here I must conclude my presentation on
the general situation and the issues that relate
to it, but it is my hope that it can in some way
provide a spark for further discussion. Thankyou for your attention .

Nakamura Hiroshi, 5th Sunagawa, 1955,
oil on plywood, 92.5 x 183 cm
Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Translated by Andrew Maerkle

DAY2 Dctoberl

Cultural Hebellion:Japan from the 1960sto the 1980s

047

Chapter
1

Day2
Session Il
In the Case of Southeast Asia......

Hayashi \lichio)uJin Seng
Competing Notions of the "Avant-garde" throughExhibitionary Discourses in Post-War Southeast Asia
from the 1950s to 1970s
Prapon Kurnjim
Magpie Modernity in Thai Art

Simon Soon
Malaysia: A Cultural Rebellion

Patrick D. Flore's"Suddenly Turning Visible":
Art as Experiment and Pedagogy in the Philippines\gtt) <'II Trinh Thi
Re-Reading History through Recycling Old Films

Discussion on Sessions I and U

Cultural l\cbcllio11i11Asia j1g6o- 1989.'i,•..,,io11II

048

Art Studies_Ol

Competing Notions of the ''Avant-garde"through Exhibitionary Discourses in
Post-War Southeast Asia from the
1950sto1970s
Yu Jin Seng
SeniorCurator,NationalGallerySingapore

This paper traces and examines the
emergence of competing claims and notionsof the "avant-garde" in post-war Southeast
Asia (1950sto the 1970s)driven by changing
exhibitionary formats, strategies, and concepts, advanced and deployed by artists, that
focuses on exhibitionary discourses on the"real" and the "new" produced by ideologically-based and critical exhibitions as new
exhibitionary modes . Some of these exhibitions examined include the Modern Art
Society(MAS) annual exhibitions (Singapore),"Towards a Mystical Reality" (Malaysia),Sang
Tao (CreationGroup)exhibitions (Vietnam),the"First Exhibition of Non-Objective Art in thePhilippines(FENOAP)"(Philippines),the Gerakan
Seni Rupa Baru (GSRB;NewArt Movement)exhibitions (Indonesia),and the Artists' Front ofThailand (TART)'sexhibitions. The different
notions of the "avant-garde" that is embraced,rejected or appropriated to suit local contexts
is examined as symptoms of cultural rebellions
in this paper through contested ideas of the"new" advanced by ideologically-based exhibitions that referenced the avant-garde along
formalist, subjective, and perceptual lines
with a lineage that is traced to the avant-garde
movement in Euro-America. Other competing
notions of the avant-garde gravitated towards
the "real" propelled by the critical exhibition
as an alternative exhibitionary mode to theideologically-based exhibitions . The criticalexhibition called for a reflexive approach tothinking about and making art based on theirsocial, political, and cultural realities, drawing from multiple frames of references besides
Euro-America, widening the scope of art that
includes conceptualism and traditional cultural forms and deployed art as a vehicle for
Yu Jin Seng

dissent and social change. Tensions between
the avant-garde, ideologically-based exhibition
and the critical exhibition were manifested indebates over the notions of the "real" and the"new." The contestation between the two new
exhibitionary modes-the ideologically-basedand critical exhibitions-intersects with global
contexts such as the radicalized student movements that started in Europe in 1968, the process of decolonization, the rise of the "Third
World" and the geo-cultural politics of the Cold
War. This paper will focus on the exhibitionary
discourses while acknowledging that an analysis of the artworks produced by both ideologically-based and critical exhibitions is needed tocomplete our understanding of this new exhibitionary mode.

From Salon to Ideologically-based andCritical Exhib itions:
The Avant -garde and the Critical
The art historical significance of exhibitions tend to be overlooked without examining
the different strategic systems of representation employed by different modes of exhibitions such as the Salon exhibition, medium orstyle-based exhibitions that promote a particular set of medium, styles, or even ideas.
Southeast Asia after World War 11was plunged
into a period of nationalist struggle againstcolonialism, and became an ideological battleground within the global context of the Cold
War . Artists who considered themselves theavant-garde burst into prominence in theregion in Southeast Asia within the context of
the Cold War and introduced a new mode of
exhibition-the ideologically-based exhibition-distinguished from earlier exhibitionary
Presentation1