062

20
Among the hst of initiatives of the CCP
was the production of public murals andmonuments affirming indigenous or folk
imagery as symbols of national pride andhistory . See Patrick D. Flores," Unholy
Alliance Between Art and Philippines
2000," in Pananaw 1: 77 .

21
Poshyananda, " Traditional Aesthetics, "129.

and the need to develop pedagogical strategies
based on conditions of society including classand gender relations. Endaya's remarks can be
chiefly taken as an artistic statement rather than adescription of a broad practice in the Philippines.
However, this proposed dual but intertwined
strategy reflected Endaya's appreciation of vital
issues in Philippine contemporary art . Indigenousart practices should not fall simply into formalist
categories of art making, but rather be rendered
dynamic by insisting on their role with regard tosocio-political matters. This is to be read in relation
to tumultuous developments that took place in thePhilippines in the 1970s and 1980s, and the logicalemergence of political art. Social realism emerged
as a popular artistic movement following the imposition of Martial Law in 1972, its leading proponent
being the Kaisahan group of painters, establishedin 1977.The virility and relevance of the Kaisahan
artists-which included Pablo Beans Santos, Edgar
Talusan Fernandez and Nunelucio Alvarado, among
others-contrasted against the relative aloofness ofinternationalist art presented at the Cultural Centerof the Philippines (CCP) during the 1970s. Thisdevelopment would prove significant in signaling
the need to invest indigenous art with modes ofconceptualisms sympathetic to political struggles if
this "indigenous art" were to not be seen as a newwave of formalism that is socially alienating, or berelegated as part of the cultural language of a pastregime. ~ At the same time, the perceived sterilityof ASEAN cultural initiatives-that these are vehicles
of diplomacy and brotherhood-had promptedSoutheast Asian critics and artists to seek new
vigor in locating and addressing social and politicaltensions regionally. In practice, ASEAN exhibitions
tended to neutralize culture so as to seek commonalities and aid diplomacy. The efforts in mobilizing
traditional aesthetics can be seen in this light intandem with developing a language contributive toa larger international discourse . Endaya's proposal issignificant for it recognizes that social and politicalcritique forms part of a currency of internationalism .
For Apinan, while positing the primacy of message,
traditional aesthetics, however, should not be seen
as a prerequisite of regional expressions:
To reveal tensions and dislocations of crosscultural, crossclass, crossgender relations,artists should be opened to all kinds ofpossibilities-drawing, painting, sculpture,

Ahmad Mas had I

Art Studies_03

installation, performance, video, film and computer. If the message is conveyed successfully,
oils on canvas, slabs of concrete or chunks ofmetal can be as potent as works made fromindigenous art materials .~This is true as contemporary artists today are
deploying a range of formal and conceptual
approaches reflecting the variety of technologies
and concerns . Yet this mix of tradition and social
critique has proved successful in parts . Apinan,himself a curator in later years, would invoke
tradition principally as a strategic way to solicit theWestern gaze, cond itioned by a particular cultural
imagination of Asia and desires for Asia, and theWest's general disdain for non-authentic Asian art .
Exhibitions such as "Traditions/Tensions"(1996-98)
and the first two installments of the APT (1993and1996)demonstrate considerable interest from within
the United States and Australia for exotic/seductive/
tragic Asians.
Conclusion
The limited discussion above describes regionality as a series of cultural interactions principally
defined by larger forces of political and economic
relations expressed through institutions and theirmechanisms and their actions. Critical within theseinteractions is the currency of exchange proposed
and articulated . These currencies, whether they
were abstract art or traditional aesthetics, evolveand devolve in significance and circulation. There
are also complementary and competing regionalities functioning like fluid blocs that expand, contract
and mutate, and each may emphasize alternate
forms of currency. The cultures of Southeast Asia
continue to create platforms for expression anddebates between members contingent on the significance and strength of their political and economic
relations. This task is necessary as it provides alayer of identification correlating to community andnation while we acknowledge and address the shifts
and tensions that permeate the various discoursesof the individual, community and state. The promiscuity of international relations means however, that
this will continue simultaneously amongst othertasks of regionality . Hence the plurality of internationality, which has to be expressed as a broad
canvas with many oddly shaped circles-sharp anddotted lines, drawn, erased, and redrawn .

063

CulturalTransformations
inthe Asia-Pacific:
TheAsia-PacificTriennialof
ContemporaryArt andthe FukuokaAsianArtTriennale
Compared

C&rolineTumer
CarolineTurneris currentlyAdjunctSeniorResearchFellowin the Research
School of Humanities
and the Arts,

AuatnllianNationalUniwrsity.
Previouslyshewas Deputy Dinlctorof the QueenslandArt Galleryand
co-founderand Project Directorof the
Asia-PacificTriennial of Contemporary
Art (1993, 1996,1999).She has written
extensivelyon contemporary Asianart. Her publications include Tradition
and Change:ContemporaryArtof Asiaand the Pacilli::(1993),Art and Social
Change:Contampora,y Art in Asia andthe Pacific (2005), andArt and Human
Rights:Contemporary Asian Contexts(with Jen Webb, 2016).

The essay is interested in the processes of change inthe field of culture in the Asia-Pacific. A vital aspect of
this process is the effort to cross borders and binaries
and to inhabit a shared space in both curatorial anddiscursive practice. The author characterizes thisprocess as a "cultural transformation" and proposes a
way to explain its complexity through the comparative
approach. Caroline Tumer is keen on two modalities ofcultural transformation in two sites-Fukuoka in Japanand Brisbane in Australia-through their respective
initiatives, namely the Asian Art Show, Fukuoka, andsubsequent Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, and the AsiaPacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. These projects
were conceived in the 1980s through the 1990s andexist to this day. This close reading of the Fukuoka andBrisbane initiatives fleshes out the circumstances andconsequences of "artistic cultural exchange" and "crosscultural encounters" arising from an environment of a"dynamic contemporary art." Such an atmosphere ofcreativity deserves a "new intellectual framework" inorder to revisit categories like "Asia-Pacific" and the"West:· The latter are not to be acceptedas givens but
are made to become part of the interrogation, as wellas the reconstruction. In sketching out the comparative
nodes that link Fukuoka and Brisbane, Tumer surveys
the theoretical positions of curators and historians andlays out affinities in terms of how the exhibition projects
are based in museums; how they sustain a program
every three years through exhibitions apart from theircollections; the ambivalent ties of Japan and Australia to
the region; and how the nexus to the region was shapedby war and trade. Fukuoka and Brisbane have invested
and continue to invest in the research and the collection of
Asian art, always aware of the critique of the Euramericanmodel of contemporary art and a "universalizing global
culture." These programs in the two cities have generated
opportunities and communities amid the conflicts andchances to come together.
[PF)

Source: First presented as a paper at
the conference convened by John Clark
et al., "Our Modernities: Positioning
Asian Art Now," organized by the
Asia Research Institute and History
Department, National Universityof Singapore, and held at the Asian
Civilisations Museum, February 19-22,
2004. Subsequently published as"Cultural Transformations in the AsiaPacific: The Asia-Pacific Triennial andthe Fukuoka Triennale Compared."in Eyeof the Beholder: Reception,

Audience and Practiceof Modem AsianArt, ed. John Clark, Maurizio Peleggi
and T.K.Sabapathy, University ofSydney East Asia Sarles, no.15 (Sydney:

Wild Peony, 2006), 221-243.

Shaping the History of Art
In SOutheutAlia

Author 's Note

This essay focuses on a comparison of
the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale and theAsia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art. Since first publication, both the
Fukuoka Triennale and the Asia-Pacific
Triennial have continued to holdexhibitions. As at 2016, there havenow been eight Asia-Pacific Triennial
exhibitions and five Fukuoka Triennales.
There were of course also a number of
Asian art exhib1t1onsat the Fukuoka Art
Museum between 1979/80 and 1999
( including four editions of the Asian Art
Show, which was the forerunner of the
Fukuoka Triennale). The Asian exhibitions at Fukuoka began earlier and are
greater in number than the Asia-Pacific
Triennial exhibitions.

01

Wang Gungwu,"Foreword," in Tradition
and Change: Contemporary Art of Asiaand the Paclf,c, ed. Caroline Turner(Brisbane: University of Queensland
Press, 1993), vii.

02
Zhang Ging, "Beyond Leh and Right,"
introduction to Shanghai Biennale
2000, exh. cat. (Shanghai: Shanghai An
Museum, 2000).

03
See a discussion of this in relation to Latin
America in Gerardo Mosquera, "GoodBye Identity, Welcome Difference: From
Latin American An to An From Latin
America," ThirdTexr56 (2001 ): 25-32.
04

Fora discussionof these issuessee Glen
St. John Barclay,"Geopolitical Changes
1nAsia and the Pacific" 1nArt and Social
Change: Contemporary Art ,n Asia andthe Pactfic,ed. Caroline Turner (Canberra:
Pandanus Books, 2005) .

064

In 1993, the distinguished historian of Asia,
Professor Wang Gungwu, wrote:
I would like to believe that artistic exchanges
enrich the cultures involved. How enriching,
however, depends on whether the imaginativeand sensitive exponents of any art receive therespect of those who support and judge them .Q!
Professor Wang's comments are especially relevantto the aims of the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale andBrisbane's Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art . Both projects are based on a philosophy of artistic cultural exchange and cross-cultural encounters
between artists from different countries and local
audiences in their respective countries-Japanand Australia. In this sense, both are more than art
exhibitions, and both aspire to a much larger role in
the art and culture of the region.
Among the many transformations in the
Asia-Pacific in the decade of the 1990s has been
the emergence of a dynamic contemporary art
supported by museums, international exhib.itions,commercial galleries and networks of scholars andartist-run spaces. Undoubtedly, a new intellectual
framework for defining the art of this region isunder construction.
The concept of the recurring international
exhibition of contemporary art-the biennale andtriennale-has been embraced in the region. Two of
the earliest were the Triennale-lndia (established 1968)
and the Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh (established1981). Zhang Ging, one of the curators of the 2000
Shanghai Biennale, wrote in the catalogue to thatexhibition:

05
Chief Curator, the Museum of Modern
An, Kamakura & Hayama. [At time ofwriting, He 1snow directorof the same
museum.]06
M12usawaTsutomu, "Opening
Commentfor Session I," in TheJapanFoundation 30th Anniversary lnternat1onal
Symposium 2002: "Asiain Transition:
Representat,on and ldentity"Report(Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 2002 ),234-235.

07
Richard Austin, conversations withthe author, 1990s; Adrian MacGregor,"Interview with Richard Austin," The
AJ.Jstralian,December 10, 1999.

Art exhibitions are springing up everywhere:[the] Yokohama Triennale, Kwang-ju[Gwangju] Biennale, Asia-Pacific Triennial ofContemporary Art (i.e., Brisbane), Singapore
Biennale, Taipei Biennale [sic], opening up new
possibilities on the international stage. Eachshow with a unique perspective and approach
vigorously examines the status quo and discusses the future ... of Asia -Pacific culture. ~What is "Asia-Pacific culture"? This question iscomplicated by the fact there is no cultural homogeneity in the region. The term "Asia-Pacific" is aconstruct, best defined similarly to "Latin America,"
without implying historical or cultural sameness. ~"Asia-Pacific" is a problematic term. Some would
say it includes the United States and the Americas;
others would confine the region to Asia and islandsin the Pacific. Some have suggested that Australia
invented the term; others that Japan did so. The
term was popular in the 1990s, but its usage isfading as new geopolitical realities merge into
new, more complex regional groupings, especiallyin the 21st century, with the rising significance ofinterregional groupings related to the economic andCarolin • Turner

Art Studies_03

political power of China and India. The geopoliticaltectonic plates have been shifting dramatically inthe region and this will undoubtedly affect cultural
exchanges and the terms of those exchanges . Q.!
A Japan Foundation forum in 2002 concluded that
"Asia" is also a problematic concept . Speaking
there, Mizusawa Tsutomu ~ said:
Nationalism and Asian self-awarenesscame together over a century ago and, as it
were, caught fire, leading to the formationof many theories of the identity of Asia . The
existence of these theories, besides raising
the question of what Asia is in real terms,
demonstrates the historical fact that Asia has
been a form of discourse. Ql!
Many speakers at the same forum suggested that
"Asia" is not so much a geographical entity as it isan idea constructed in counterpoint to "Europe" orthe "West ." But many contemporary writers-for
example, John Gray-have suggested that there
is also no such entity as the "West"-which, it canbe argued, has ceased to have a definite meaning
except in the United States.
When I presented a version of this essay atthe "Our Modernities" conference in Singapore
in 2004, I related a story which was relevant bothto my subject and to the audience in Singapore.
In February 1942, a young Australian army officer,
Richard Austin, spent the night before Singapore
fell to the Imperial Japanese Army looking for a
Japanese dictionary. Having taught himself someJapanese, he passed years of internment in Changi
prison camp and on the Burma railroad as a campinterpreter for his fellow Australian prisoners. On
one occasion, he had to represent the prisoners in
Burma in an approach to the Japanese commandant
to request more food, telling him the men were
too sick to work without extra rations. As he spoke
he noticed in the jungle hut behind the Japanesesoldier a piece of calligraphy hanging on the wall,with a single flower in a jar of water beneath it . The
commandant asked him if he knew what the calligraphy meant, and Austin said he was not certain. "Itmeans," the Japanese replied, "that life is transient
and we must accept without complaint whateverfate holds in store for us. There will be no more foodand the men must return to work." Austin would
later recall that in that moment was born someunderstanding of an entirely different view of lifeand death and of the need for greater knowledge ofanother's culture . .QI Working as an Australian diplomat, Austin went on after the war to become fluent
in Japanese, a collector of Japanese art and a great
admirer of Japanese culture . Acknowledging his
work in bringing the two countries closer together,in the late 1990s the Emperor of Japan awarded
Austin one of Japan's highest decorations, the Orderof the Rising Sun.
Why do I tell this story? Because in many

065

Chapter1

ways the Asia -Pacific Triennial was born in theprison camp at Changi and on the Burma railroad,not only because years later, when Austin becamechairman of trustees at the Queensland Art Gallery
in 1987, he threw his weight beh ind a policy of Asian
exhibitions, but also because the Second World
War forced a generation of Australians who became
prominent in the postwar era to confront the realityof Australia's geographical position on the edgeof As ia. In the same way it can be argued that the
Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, an exhibition createdto show contemporary Asian art in Japan , andwhich began in 1979/80, was also, in part at least, a
product of the Second World War .
By beginning w ith the war I do not mean topresent a simplistic portrait of these two exhibitions
as mere diplomatic exercises. Cultural exchanges
are of course influenced by historical and politicalforces. As the late Edward Said wrote in Culture
and Imperialism, we need to understand that
other identities, peoples, cultures "have always
overlapped one another , through unhierarchicalinfluence , crossing , incorporation , recollection,
deliberate forgetfulness and, of course, conflict.'' 08
Writing in 2003 in the introduction to the exhibi tion " Under Construction, " in a piece entitled "ThePossibility of a Collaborative Space," Furuichi
Yasuko of the Japan Foundation observed:
Discussing Asia in Japan is a perplexing andawkward business, probably because thecomplex circumstances in the prewar days
and the memories of war that follow have notbeen properly reconciled , and remain an issue.
The historical past of Japan 's aggressive war
on, and colonial control of, East and Southeast
Asia was an Eastern variant of modern Westernimperialism , and has continued to have a subtle
effect on Japan's relations with other parts of
the region, preventing any real development in
As ian cultural exchange . For example, art programs that promoted Asian art in Japan were
initially regarded as Orientalism -based culturalimperialism on the part of an economically
better off Japan by the relevant Asian countries,
and were at times criticized by the arts professionals in the region. Both those criticizing andthose being criticized could not help but besensitive to the memories of the past . Ql!
Today, she argues, this is changing because of theinterdependence of the region (i.e., Asia) and an
expectation that the concept of "Asia" will help
people in the region acquire a new identity in a
globalizing world. On the other hand, as Ushiroshoji
Masahiro , formerly chief curator at the Fukuoka
Asian Art Museum , has observed, Australia had its
own problems with engaging with the region. "Japanand Australia," he wrote in 2000, "are located at
the frontier in terms of geographical Asia. Not only
that, they have the ir place at the frontier in terms of

2004

history as wel l." He descr ibes Japan 's wartime roleand the war 's unfortunate legacy, but continues :"On the other hand, Austr alia is a descendant of a
British colony built over th e land of the Aborigines . It
also has the negative histo ry of the exclusive White
Australia policy." !.Q Japan and Australia have bothchanged since the 1940s, but in relation to Asia
throughout the last 70-plus years , both countries
have in a sense been "outs iders " looking in.
The Fukuoka and Brisbane exhibitions are
strikingly similar in many respects . Both are museum based exhibitions, somew hat unusual in the worldof biennales and triennales , and both are based on
the concept that a museum has a responsibility to
be a forum for opening up ideas about our changing
world and a place for audiences to engage withother cultures and to learn about those cultures .
Both exhibitions have stated objectives that areunashamedly about chang ing perceptions regarding
Asia in the countries in whi ch they originate. Bothhave attracted large audiences and have been
audience-centered but also artist-driven . The twomuseums are based in two countries, Japan andAustralia , neither of which has ever completely
considered itself part of As ia, with both having
amb ivalent relationships to the region. Within thesecountries, Fukuoka and Brisbane are both provincial
cities, each with a populat ion of around one-anda-quarter million people at t he time the exhibitions
were founded in the 1990s- one in the provincial
south in relation to the great urban center of Tokyo,
and the other in the subtrop ical north and distanced
from the southeastern political and economic triangleof Sydney, Melbourne and t he national capital,
Canberra. Both cities are natural gateways to Asia,with trade and other econom ic reasons for engaging
with Asia, and both are adm inistered by provincial
and city governments determined to make a
distinguishing contribution to that engagement. Bothhave an interesting history as gateways. For example,
Fukuoka is the site where archaeological objects
showing the cultural influence upon Japan from the
Asian mainland were discovered, and was the targetof the Mongol invasion fleets of Kublai Khan that weredestroyed by typhoons in the 13th century, while
Brisbane was the headquarters of General Douglas
MacArthur in the Second World War .
Both art museums embarked in the 1980s and1990s on a major series of exhibitions to explore
the contemporary art of the Asian region and in theprocess transformed them selves as institutions . Bothgave prominence to research in each country and topartnerships with experts from the other countries
involved, and both placed great importance on educational programs and community interaction withartists. One(Fukuoka) included in its exhibitions many
more countries in Asia, especially poorer countries,
but the other ( Brisbane)included a major emphasis
on Pacific, i.e., Melanes ian and Polynesian art, andon art from Indigenous peoples . Both included ascontemporary art works w hich normally would neverCulturalnansformatlon1lntheAalawPactflc

08
Edward Sa,d, Culture and lmperiai,sm(New York: Vintage Books.1994),
330 33109
Furuichi Yasuko, "Asia: The Possibilityof a Collaborative Space-Under
Construction ProJect," in Under
Construction. New Dimensions of Asian
Art (Tokyo: Japan Foundation Asia
Center, 2003).13.

10
Ush1rosh611Masahiro,"The As1aPac1ficTnennales [sic] and Fukuoka:
A Companson."Art/mk 20, no. 2 (July
2000): 72

066

11
Ushirosh6ji Masahiro , "Emergenceof Asian Art Gallery ," trans . Stanley
N. Anderson , in Asian Contemporary
Art ReconSldered(Tokyo : TheJapanFoundation , 1998), 156.

be seen in an international exhibition, and would beconsidered "craft" or folk art .
Both museums made a major commitment,
as well, to collecting Asian contemporary art, andboth have received new buildings (the Fukuoka AsianArt Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane,
respect ively) largely on the basis of the success ofthese Asian exhibitions. But while receiving much
positive praise, both exhibitions have been criticized-one objection put forward by some critics
being that the exhibitions are related to trade andeconomic issues and another that they are as muchabout cultural relations and diplomacy as aboutart. Both have faced the need for a refreshing of theoriginal concepts . Nevertheless, both have had amajor impact on their local audiences in developing
community knowledge about the region in which
both are situated-a region, both institutions admit,
about which audiences were ignorant in terms of
its history, cultures and especially the dynamicchanges taking place there .
The intellectual philosophies that came tounderpin both exhibitions were also similar-astated rejection of a Euro-Americentric framework
for interpreting art, and an assertion of the need todevelop new approaches for art that are groundedin the discourses of the region . This was, and indeed
is, an unusual position in both Japan and Australia .
What is very clear about the art that came out of
the Fukuoka and Brisbane exhibitions is that itpresented a fundamental challenge to the conceptof a universalizing global culture, and for thatreason, I think, there was an immediate resonance •with local audiences . In other words, by stressing
the local and the regional, these exhibitions also
connected with resistance to forces of globalization .
The Fukuoka project was more extensive in thesense that a whole museum was built around it andit has a longer history of research and commitment .
But both these exhibitions share a commitment toengendering cross-cultural understanding in theregion and both exhibitions were, in the 1980s and1990s, radical projects .

The FukuokaAsianArt Museumand
FukuokaAsianArtTriennale
I have said that the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale
had in part its roots in the Second World War andJapan's conquests in East and Southeast Asia, but
its roots are also more ancient . In 1274, and again in
1281, the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan sent great
invasion fleets to the part of Kyushu where the cityof Fukuoka is now situated . On each occasion,a typhoon wreaked devastation on the invadingarmies . Today, Fukuoka is a dynamic modern cityand still a major gateway from Japan to Asia . It is
one of the few cities in the world with a museum
devoted to contemporary Asian art . Fukuoka has
been a world pioneer in exhibiting contemporary
Asian art and in developing cultural relations with

Carotlnen,,..,.,Art Studies_03

Asia within Japan.
Officially opened in 1999, the Fukuoka AsianArt Museum is an offshoot of the Fukuoka Art
Museum , and was constructed to house the parent
museum's considerable contemporary Asian collections and be a site for the highly acclaimed AsianArt Show (now called Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale),begun in 1979/80. This was the first major exhibition
anywhere in the world to focus on contemporary
Asian art . It was held every five years until 1999,
when it transformed into the Fukuoka Asian Art
Triennale and shifted to the new location in the newmuseum. Developed over the period since 1979/80,
the collection is the finest survey collection ofcontemporary Asian art in the world . Its main rivals
would be the superb collection of mainly Southeast
Asian art assembled at the Singapore Art Museum(and now National Gallery of Singapore) and the verysignificant collection of Asian art at the Queensland
Art Gallery IGallery of Modern Art in Brisbane .
The purpose-built Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (asexplained on the museum's website , planning for themuseum began in 1992 after an announcement by themayor of Fukuoka that the city would build a designatedmuseum for Asian contemporary art) is situated on the

7th and 8th floors of the Hakata Riverain complex,a magnificent shopping center in the upmarket andcentral downtown area of Kawabata, known for its
cinemas, bars, restaurants and designer fashionboutiques. The Triennale is supported by the city
government and a number of other organizations,
including the Japan Foundation . The exhibition
encapsulates a mission to overcome Japan 's traditional isolationism from Asia (and contested history
when it did engage with Asia) in a culturally inclusive art
program of exhibitions and artist residencies.
The Fukuoka engagement predates the JapanFoundation's Asia Center in Tokyo, but has been
substantially supported by the Japan Foundation,
the Japanese government's international arts
agency . Ushirosh6ji Masahiro, for many years thecurator in charge of the exhibition, described theorigins of the Asian exhibitions in a paper presented
in 1997.n They emerged from the request to holdsuch an exhibition from an association of Japaneseartists-a request made to the Fukuoka Art Museum
because of its strong historical links to Asia . The
museum's staff eventually took over curating theexhibitions, creating a formal museum-based
exhibition out of what was in effect a festival whereartists could meet, and which originally had allowed
each participating country to select its own artists
and art (a similar process to many biennales which
are not museum based). However, the emphasis on
bringing artists together was retained to great
effect . The exhibitions gradually became a focusedcommitment of the museum, and a collection andeducational programs logically followed . This was
unusual in Japan in the 1980s, where the emphasis
in most museums in terms of international art was,and remains, on collecting and showing art from

067

Chapter1

Europe and the US. In the process, as Ushiroshoji
has argued, the museum staff developed considerable expertise in, and knowledge of, Asian art. The
museum also developed a policy of seeing andpresenting the art works in their own contexts rather
than, in his words, "in comparison to European orAmerican works," and the audience overcame their
original assumptions, again in Ushiroshoji's words,
that Asian art was "exotic" and Asia culturally"backward." _g Ushiroshoji notes that in the 1980s,
Fukuoka staff were frequently asked if there was any
contemporary Asian art.
Japanese art from the 1950s identified withinternational rather than with Asian regional art, thus
reinforcing Japan's status as a first-world power.
In this sense, by emphasizing a local and regional
context, the Fukuoka Asian Art Shows went against
the mainstream of post Second World War art inJapan. While the Fukuoka shows have not givenemphasis to the minorities within Japan, such as the
Ainu indigenous people of Hokkaido or the many
Koreans living in Japan, they have introduced theidea of indigeneity from other cultures in Asia andaddressed the contentious issue of multiculturalism.
As well, the museum has curated historical exhibitions such as "The Birth of Modern Art in Southeast
Asia," which raised issues about Japan's wartime
role in the developing modern art of countries such
as Indonesia and the Philippines. ~The work of the museum has been of profoundcultural and scholarly significance for the region andinternationally. Ushiroshoji has written of the needto move away from older definitions of art imported
from Europe. Describing Japanese history over the
20th century, he wrote in an article for an Australianpublication: "Japan aimed to build a modernizedWestern nation and carried out an imperialistic
war of aggression in this region under the slogan:'Extricate from Asia, Join in the West.' This is anegative legacy." ~ Ushiroshoji urges a different
model for art today. "The significance of an Asian art
museum," he stated in one of the publications of thefirst Triennale in 1999, "lies in the attitude of requestioning the European centralized value systemthat dominates the space and system for art.''!!!
"The Birth of Modern Art in Southeast Asia,"
the Fukuoka Asian Art Shows and the Triennales
have focused on issues of importance to Asia, not
the West. Just how radical the Fukuoka Asian Art
Shows and Triennales are in the context of Japan
has not been clearly recognized in the art world. My
contention is that the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is
without question a museum of the future, engaging
with community but also addressing issues of social
significance for that community's future, including
multiculturalism. Japan's birth rate and population
are falling l!! and the question of immigration raises
highly sensitive issues within the country. Programs
such as the ones I have described at Fukuoka help
create an understanding of other cultures which canhave a long-term impact. In art terms, the value of2004

the museum's groundbreaking research into Asianart, which is not being undertaken to the same
extent anywhere else in the world, is still not fully
appreciated in an international context.
The programs at Fukuoka are aimed at community, schools and young people. Commendableemphasis has been placed on country visits andscholarship. While the Brisbane concept of the
1990s of co-curatorship has not been an explicit
principle of the selections, there is a commitment toworking with experts in the countries and to "dialogue," to use Ushiroshoji's term. One of the primary
outcomes of the exhibitions is the residencies of the
Art Exchange Program, which allow Asian artists tocome to Japan for residencies and to engage withlocal citizenry, with the aim of giving local Japanesepeople a better understanding of their neighbors.
Over70 events were presented under this programin 1999 alone. These exchanges have provided many
opportunities for Asian artists, curators and writersfrom poorer countries .
Countries whose artists were almost neverseen in international exhibitions before recent
times, such as Myanmar, Laos, Nepal, Cambodia
and Mongolia, have had representatives in the
Fukuoka exhibitions. Some of these artists had
never before exhibited outside their home towns,
and certainly not internationally. An example is thetalented artist from Laos, Kham Tanh Saliankham( born1973),a teacher in Vientiane who participatedin the Fukuoka residential program for three months
in 2001 at Kyushu University. It is clear from hiscomments at the time how important this opportunity-the realization of a long-held dream-was tohis new understanding of contemporary art. TI'.In thethird Triennale in 2005, Kanha Sikounnavong, also
from Laos, produced with minimal local funding
a wholly charming venture in cartoon animation,as part of a project to offer Lao children the opportunity of watching Lao stor ies on Lao television,
rather than the products of a foreign culture, alien,
uncaring and unmeaning . It is interesting to notethat he developed his skills in Bulgaria, rather thansomewhere more noted for high-tech computer art
in the West, and clearly the exchange with Japan
was also of great value to his idealistic artistic objectives and to his technical expertise in animation.
The Fukuoka exhibitions have also exploredpolitical issues in different countries and internationally. In the 2002 exhibition the events of September
11,2001, and their aftermath were the subject ofseveral works. Political issues in the exhibitions haverarely been related to the legacies of the Second
World War, however, or to political issues in Japan
itself. An exception was in 2002 when Japaneseartist Yanagi Yukinori used banknotes representing
an imaginary united Asian currency folded into
origami cranes by his audience-who had their own
faces photographed and transferred by computer
to the banknotes-to create an artwork in the formof a huge, musical baby mobile. Like all his work, it

Cultural Transformations In the Asia-Pacific12Ibid., 157.
13
Ushiroshiiji Masahiro et al., The Birth ofModern Art in Southeast Asia: Artists andMovements, exh. cat. I Fukuoka: Fukuoka
Art Museum, 1997).
14
Ushiroshiiji, "The Asia-Pacific Triennales[sic) and Fukuoka," 72.
15
Ushiroshiiji, "In Search of 'Channelsof Hope': The Art Exchange Programof the 1st Fukuoka Triennale," in The
1st Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale [ The
5th Asian Art Show]: Document of Art
Exchange Program I Fukuoka: Fukuoka
Asian Art Museum, 1999), 5.

16
An article in the Straits Times of February
24, 2004, emphasized the demographic
dilemma facing Japan in the future.

17
Kong Phat Luangrath, "Kham Tanh
Saliankham," in The 2nd Fukuoka Asian
Art Triennale 2002 ( Fukuoka: Fukuoka
Asian Art Museum), 130. The artist Kham
Tanh Saliankham's works were a documentation of customs in his home country, together with social comment, as inMiss Lao Contest (2001 ), in which contestants in traditionalcostume are depictedagainst sponsors' logos, such as those of
Shell, Honda and Suzuki.

Shapingthe Historyof Art
lnSoutheastAsla

068

is ambiguous in its meaning. The idea of a "unitedAsia" connects with his previous works on theSecond World War(a theme unusualin Japaneseart)by evoking the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere;· and also refers to the domination by wealthy
countries of poorer ones. Cranes also evoke memories of the folded paper cranes that form a symbol for
Hiroshima and the effects of the US nuclear attack.
There were no works, however, on this subject in2005-the 60th anniversary of those attacks.
The third Triennale in 2005 was more focusedon contemporary political tensions, for example
those between India and Pakistan, mostly conveyed
in the form of ultra-high-tech video art. An extraordinary work in 2005 was that by Young-hae Chang
Heavy Industries from South Korea. What they presented was a confronting series of ostensible news
items, including a fictional but alleged dissertation
by Kim Jong-ii on sexual themes, which culminatedin a meticulously detailed and appalling account,with every possible visual and literary emphasis,of the effects of a (so far) imaginary United States
pre-emptive strike against North Korea, and theconsequent North Korean response in destroying
South Korea. What makes it truly appalling is thefact that it is clinically accurate in its account of theweaponry that would be deployed by both sides andthe effect of that weaponry on its targets, including
human targets.

The Asia-Pacific Triennial_o_fContemporary Art (APT).
This second part of the essay focuses on the three
Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT)exhibitions in the 1990s for which I was project
director . I left the Queensland Art Gallery in 2000 .
Located in a purpose-built building opened
in 1982 on the banks of the Brisbane River aspart of a substantial Cultural Centre complex, theQueensland Art Gallery was the result of significant
prosperity in the state of Queensland-a wealth created by the mining and agriculture industries as wellas tourism ( a significant proportion of which consistsof Asian and especiallyJapanesetourists). As a resultof the success of the first three APT exhibitions, a
new addition-a free-standing annex, the Galleryof Modern Art-was built alongside the existingbuilding to house in part the growing contemporary
Asian collections and to be a home for the APT.
It is an important fact that in the 1990s
Australia had more exhibitions of contemporary
Asian art and more cultural exchanges of contemporary art with Asia than any other Western country .
The result has been the building of a strong networkof contacts with and knowledge of contemporary
Asian cultures within Australia. The transformationin contemporary Asian literacy in Australia has operated at many levels, and not simply in contemporary
art. Now there are exhibitions and exchanges allover Australia, and the APT is certainly not isolated,

Caroline Turner

Art Studies_03

nor is Brisbane alone in this focus. For example, theNational Gallery of Australia announced in 2005
that it will also have a strong regional emphasis, andhas advertised staff positions in Asian and Pacificart. The beginning of this Asian interest within
Australia was the pioneering artist exchanges in
Perth-the Artists' Regional Exchange (ARX)in the
1980s-while the Biennale of Sydney also included
Asian artists from the 1970s, although not in great
numbers until recent times. Since the early to
mid-1990s, there have been important exhibitionsof contemporary Asian art held at the Museum ofContemporary Art, Sydney, the Art Gallery of New
South Wales, the Art Gallery of Western Australia
and the National Gallery of Australia. Over thesame period, the Melbourne-based organization
Asialink has had as its mission the development ofAustralian-Asian connections, and the Australian
Chapter of the Asia Society, also based in
Melbourne, has organized exhibitions of contemporary Asian art. Nevertheless, the Queensland Art
Gallery's 1989 exhibition of contemporary Japanese
art developed with the Saitama Museum of Modern
Art ( which I helpedto organize)was the first largescale museum-based exhibition concentrating oncontemporary Asian art held in Australia.
The APT was initiated by the Queensland Art
Gallery in the early 1990s with the stated objectivesof informing Australians about the dynamic andchanging societies of Asia and the Pacific, opening
up a dialogue among artists, art critics, academics
and writers in the region, and building bridges
to Asian and Pacific cultures, including within
Australia's own multicultural society. It was the firstexhibition in the world to focus on the contemporary
art of Asia and the Pacific, and the first major
museum-based project in Australia to focus on
the contemporary art of Asia as a whole. Nothing
could have been more logical than for Australians
in the 1990s to attempt to learn more about thesocieties and cultures of our neighbors . That was
and is a subject of concern for Australian society as
a whole, which now includes significant numbersof immigrants from Asia and the Pacific. From the
beginning the APT was conceived as more than an
art exhibition. It was equally about the education of
our audiences, creating a network of contacts withartists and art institutions, building a research basefor further exhibitions and a permanent collection,and serving as a forum for discussion about the artof the region . The project was always seen in the
1990s as a national project with a national advisorycommittee and, while it changed and evolved overthe decade, there were consistent elements to thefirst three exhibitions, for which I was the project
director in addition to also serving, from the early
1980s, as deputy director of the Queensland Art
Gallery. An important part of the APT concept was
the conferences held in 1993, 1996 and 1999. All
three-the largest art conferences held in Australia
to the time-were developed in conjunction with

Chapter1

069

university scholars as well as artists and curatorsfrom throughout the region. Another critical emphasis has been on artists coming to Brisbane andengaging not only with local audiences but travelingelsewhere in Australia in a program somewhat
similar to the Art Exchange Program in Fukuoka .
The APT project originated in the late 1980s
from a policy direction of the new chairman of trustees at the Queensland Art Gallery, Richard Austin,whose wartime experiences I have already related.
But the gallery's engagement with Asia had alreadybegun by the time Austin became chairman andDoug Hall director in 1987. Brisbane, like Fukuoka, asI have argued, is a natural gateway to Asia. Although
the city was General MacArthur's headquarters in theSecond World War, it very quickly established strong
trade-based relations with Japan from the 1950s. In
the 1980s, these extensive relationships resulted inthree major historical exhibitions from the renowned
Idemitsu collection . In 1982 I went to Japan andbegan the process of negotiating an exchange ofcontemporary art with Queensland's new sister state,
Saitama Prefecture. Homma Masayoshi, then the
director of the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, wasa magnificent mentor, and the exchange exhibitions
we set in process became the seeds of the APT, inthat they instigated the principle of co-curatorship .
The philosophy and shape of the APT was put
together by Austin, Doug Hall and myself . I wrote thebriefing paper which argued that the Queensland
Art Gallery could never catch up in historical Asianart, which was Austin's preference, and that there
was a significant gap in Australia in collecting in thearea of modern and contemporary Asian art (andHall had already signaled a greater interest by the gallery
in contemporary Australian art). I argued we could doa series of contemporary exhibitions from different
countries, as we had done with Japanese art, or we
could do a series of major survey exhibitions covering
the whole region. The arguments for the latter were
strengthened, I believed, by the fact that the Biennale
of Sydney had recently turned down a proposal thatit concentrate more on Asian art. I argued also for acommitment to three exhibitions in a decade so that
we would be taken seriously in the region. For us, that
region needed to be defined as the Asia-Pacific, notonly Asia.
I have written elsewhere that the beginningsof the APT were "a journey without maps" or a"leap in the dark:' !!! We had no idea if artists in
the region would want to be included and how ourventure would be perceived . A strong impetus to
the intellectual side of the project was provided bya conference convened by Professor John Clark at
the Humanities Research Centre ( my current institution) in 1991,1!! although the decision to undertake
the APT had already been announced. Clark had
invited many experts from the region to speak;
we formed many important contacts there andbegan to understand more clearly the issues wewould need to address. The Saitama exhibitions

2004

were our main model. I have not mentioned the
Fukuoka exhibitions as a model-although it would
have been extremely logical to view them as such .
However, we knew little of the Fukuoka experimentin the early planning stages of the APT, and what we
did know was based on the very earliest Asian Art
Shows from the 1980s. It is interesting in retrospect
to see how similar the two exhibitions were in the
1990s, but this was not because of initially close
collaborations-those would not occur until later inthe decade .
The APT curatorial teams traveled to specificcountries, where they worked with local curators indetermining the selection of the works . This modelof co-curatorship was an essential part of the APT
philosophy in the 1990s, but a different model, with
Queensland Art Gallery staff selecting the works,
was adopted after 2000. I make the point that we did
not adopt a country focus in terms of the selections
out of some obsession with national frameworks,
but rather because few curators in the region couldat that time have selected across countries. We
were surprised how little cross-country curatorial
work was being done in Asia in the early 1990s,
except by Japan and to an extent within ASEAN .
However, there was also another practical consideration. In attempting to dispel the notion in Australia
of a monolithic place called "Asia" ( or, for that matter,"the Pacific") it was necessary to seek to present
different histories and different contemporary
contexts . Context was vital. In many cases for
the APTs this meant selecting artists dealing withcritical issues of political power and human rights.
Many extraordinary works were presented in the
APTs in the 1990s related to these issues, perhaps
none more memorable than Dadang Christanto's For
Those Who Have Been Killed (1993),about the killingsin Indonesia in 1965-66 when the artist's own father
lost his life, and the same artist's Fire in May, about
events in Indonesia and EastTimor, shown in 1999.
I have said that the concept of co-curatorshipand curatorial teams based on Australians working
with experts in the region came from the Saitama
model, but we were also warned by one of the
keynote Asian speakers at the Clark conference notto go into the region as "mainly white European"curators and choose only the art that interested
us. We needed to learn from, and engage with, theissues and approaches to art thought important in
the region and in specific countries. This meant,I believed, using writers from the region to write
about the art, rather than only Australian or Western
writers. I wish to make a point, also, regarding
the large number of curators from Australia on
the selection teams. The Australia Council, theAustralian Government's arts funding body, gavea specific and large amount of funding to allow
research travel with the intention of using the APT tobuild an Asia-literate generation of young curators .
Every curatorial team of the APTs in the 1990s wascomposed of Australians and curators from the

Cultural Transformations In the Asia-Pacific18
Caroline Turner, "Journey without Maps:
The Asia-Pacific Tnennial," in Beyond the
Future: nie niird Asia-Pacific Triennial ofContemporary Art, ed. Caroline Turner,
Rhana Devenport and Jennifer Webb
(Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 1999).

19"Modernism and Postmodernism inContemporary Asian Art," Humanities
Research Centre, Australian National
University, Canberra, March 22-25, 1991.
Most of the papers were subsequently
published in John Clark, ed., Modernrty
in Asian Art (Sydney: Wild Peony, 1993).
See also John Clark, Modern Asian Art(Sydney: Craftsman House & Honolulu:
University of Hawai"i Press, 1998).

Shaping the History of Art

070

In-Asia

20
Charles Green, "Beyond the Future: The
Third Asia-Pacific Triennial," Art Journal(New York) 58, no.4 (Winter 1999): B1
For further discussion of the APT see
Jen Webb and Tony Schorato, "TheAsia-Pacific Triennial: Synthesis in the
Making," in "Synthesis," special issue ofContinuum 14/3 (November 2000): 349-58; and Pat Hoffie "A New Tide Turning·
Australia onthe Region, 199~2003," inTurner, Art and Social Change.

21
Nicholas Jose, The Bulletln, September
7, 1999.

region, and each curatorial team had a younger
Australian curator attached . The number of projects
now being initiated from Australia shows thatstrategy was successful. I count this as one of themost important successes of the APT, and I thinkthat it is unfortunate that the concept of team-based
selections is so often underutilized in an art world
where a "star"curator is seen as a necessity . Neither
the APT nor Fukuoka have used this " star " curator
approach , and I believe the team -based approach ,de-emphasizing the individual curator and eschew ing personality , has been highly important in the
success of both exhibitions . The truth is that large scale exhibitions such as biennales and triennales
are based on teams . The issue is how much theteam as a whole is given credit for the outcome .
Over three exhibitions in 1993, 1996 and 1999,
nearly 300 artists and 350,000 visitors (60,000,
120,000,and 152,000 to eachedition, respectively, but withadditionalnumbersthrough onlineactivitiesandforums)
participated in the APTs. As Charles Green has
noted , "a fiercely supportive Queensland audiencehas adopted the APT with great enthusiasm :·~ The
number of curators and writers involved from theregion has also been in the hundreds . The project
has had bipartisan political support from successive
Queensland and Australian governments (with strong
supportfrom the AustralianDepartmentof ForeignAffairs
andTradeand the AustraliaCouncilfor the Arts). The
funding for the first exhib ition was, however , largely
raised by Richard Austin from Japanese companies
with which he had worked, and it was only after
the first APT's extraordinary success that the state
government gave a regular (althoughnot extravagant)amount through the enthusiastic endorsement of
the then arts minister and premier , Wayne Goss.
The APTs were never lavishly funded , and it
was a constant struggle to keep the project going ,although we were buoyed by a tremendous spir itof enthusiasm and commitment within the gallery ,as also happened in Fukuoka . Like Fukuoka, thiswas not our only exhibition project . We kept up a
program of other exhibitions from Europe and the
US as well as Asia. For example, while directing
the 1996 APT, I was also curating an exhibitionof the works of Matisse from 50 collections (theoriginalAustraliancuratorsfor the APT, includingmyself,
were trained in Western,not Asianart). As at Fukuoka ,I and others chose to work on the APT because
we believed in the project and in the artists . The
response of local and international audiences
underscores the quality of the art. The enthusiasm
from art experts , after initial predictions by somethat the art would not be interesting or would beof poor quality, was equally exhilarating .
One of the most successful outcomes of the
APT project was undoubtedly the educational
component. The exhibition kits were included in theschool curriculum in Queensland and elsewhere.
Young children aged three to twelve became a target
audience for education programs. The "Kid 's APT"

Carolin• TUmer

Art S!1Jdie
s_03

was a personal response by many of us to the risein Australia in the 1990s of Pauline Hanson's "OneNation " party , with its anti-Asian immigration rhetoric. The enthusiasm of teachers for using the APT
to create a positive understanding of our neighbors
in Asia and the Pacific undoubtedly derived from a
motivat ion to combat racist elements in Australiansociety . More than 30,000 children participated in
the Kid's APT atthe gallery in 1999 alone, with many
more involved through online activities .
As with Fukuoka, the fact that such a large
proportion of the artists were invited to Queensland
was a critical factor in both the education programsand the audience response, as well as the gains forthe indiv idual artists who participated from countries
where the opportunities for artists were often muchpoorer . This was particularly true in Queensland'scase for the Pacific artists, especially those from
Melanesia. Here, Indigenous Protocols were impor tant, including Welcome to Country and involvementfrom local Aboriginal people . Cross-cultural engagements are never easy, but the remarkable fact is thatin both Queensland and Fukuoka, real friendships
and more productive engagements were the normative result of the exhibition.
The interdisc iplinary art forms in " Crossing
Borders" were one of the successes of the third
APT. The team of curators chose artists from a large
number of countries to include those who were not
only globally mobile in a geograph ical sense, butalso those who represented collaborations between
artists and fusions of art forms , or cross-disciplinary
work as between music and art (extendingto the
Web-based"Virtual Triennial" ), as well as art that
redefined distinctions between high art and popular
culture . This latter concept had also been an interestof Fukuoka, seen especially in the second Triennale," Imagined Workshop ," which focused on handmade art. Fukuoka had also included exhibitionsof folk art and popular culture . As Nicholas Jose
commented, the works in the APTs in the 1990s" discover[ed] a contemporary visual language thatspeaks across boundaries ... because they evoke
traditional ways of making art linked to handicraft,home and hearth ." ll
One of my intentions early on as project director was to establish a research center for Asian art
and to do other exhibitions in association with the
APT which would explore the history of modern art
in Asia , as has been done in Fukuoka (and of course
at other institutionsin the regionincludingthe Singapore
Art Museum). This was not achieved in the 1990s,
but elements of the research completed then for ahistorical exhibition on modernism were included in
the fourth APT in 2002 .
In recent t imes both exhibitions have also
reflected the changing nature of artistic production
and the rise of new media art including video andthe Internet . The first Fukuoka Triennale in 1999
focused in this direction, and it was also particularly
evident in the third Fukuoka Triennale in 2005, while

Chapter1

071

the third APT in 1999 had a "Virtual Triennial" as oneof the key elements in "Crossing Borders."
Nothing in the first 10 years of the curatorial
process was more controversial than the decisionin 1999 to open up the APT to some artists living
outside their home countries (something Fukuokahas
not done)-the objection being that artists within
the region still had too few opportunities. Yet thereality is that many artists today are global travelers.
The art in the APTs has also not been concernedso much with national art movements or artists"representing" nations, as some critics have tried
to suggest because of the country-based teams.
It has, nevertheless, had a strong emphasis on art
about local issues and regional societal change andthe personal idealism of the artists (which in turn has
greatly affected audiences)to contribute to their local
communities in building new and better futures.
That there have been and continue to be great
inequalities in the region, including in Australia, only
makes this emphasis more pertinent. This sameidealism has permeated the Fukuoka exhibitions .

Conclusion
The Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale and the AsiaPacific Triennial of Contemporary Art have crossed
many boundaries, which has enabled them torecognize the vital nature of living traditions in art in
the region as well as the dynamic changes in art andlife. Peoples and nations take their pasts with theminto the future, and museums have a central roleto play in preserving intangible heritage and living
culture and encouraging communication between
cultures. This is the hope that was expressed in thetitle of the first Fukuoka Triennale, "Communication:
Channels of Hope."
These exhibitions have also provided a lensby which to evaluate globalization and modernity.
As Webb and Schirato have argued in relation to
the APT, but which applies as well, I believe, toFukuoka, "globalization, rather than 'overpowering,'
or being accepted uncritically by, local cultures, hasproduced effects .. . which are both postmodern
and antimodern ." ~2004

Both projects have provided artists with vital
opportunities . Both projects have made a significant
difference in their communities, and both haverevealed the power of artistic exchanges to function
in aesthetic and cultural contexts to enrich thosecommunities through greater knowledge of theirneighbors and the changing nature of the region.
The chief curator of the Fukuoka Asian Art
Museum, Kuroda Raiji, conveyed the essence of his
museum's third Fukuoka Triennale in 2005 when
he declared that instead of "setting the aim of theexhibition at realizing an 'exchange based on' a
presumed 'pre-established harmony,' we should
convey the 'real' Asia that includes those relentlesssituations in Japan, Asia and other parts of theworld." And this concept may well be summed up in
the title of that exhibition, "Parallel Realities: Asian
ArtNow." ll
Similarly the APTs, in the 1990s especially,
specifically focused on the dynamic and changing
nature of art and politics in the region and on art
produced in the three years prior to each triennial. In
this sense, both exhibitions provide a mirror to theprocess of change in the region in that decade. It issurely one responsibility of artists to respond to thetragedies and tensions of the human predicament .
And both the APT and Fukuoka Triennale exhibit
artists engaged with concerns of humanity .
The future for both projects, I believe, is toextend this concept and the process of exchange
across borders and so lead the exhibitions to become
increasingly about cultural meetings, based on
mutual respect, that create more opportunities fordebate and dialogue about more pluralist, as·well as
more equal futures. As Ushirosh6ji Masahiro put it in
2002, "In an age flooded with digital images, whenterrorist acts and wars are broadcast live via satellite
around the world, we need to take another hardlook at the appeal and potential possessed by art ."He observed that the world is still permeated withhatred, violence and misunderstanding, and that,"we must work to heal those rifts through an ongoing
effort to understand each other's culture, worldview
and values (evenif it is no longerpossibleto naivelyand
simplisticallybelievethat art is ableto do so)."~CulturalTrandonnatlonalntheA&la-Pactftc

22
Jen Webb and Tony Schirato , " Synthesisin the Mak ing;· 350 .

23
Kuroda RaiJi," Diving into Parallel Realities:
Notes on the Theme for FT3;' in The3rd

FukuokaAsianM Trienna/e2005:
ParallelRealities:Asian M Now. exh .cat.
( Fukuoka : Fukuoka Asian Art Museum .
2005) . 16.

24
Ushiroshoji Masah,ro , "Hands andCollaboration: Asian Art at the Start of the
21st Century."trans . Janet Goff, in The
2nd FukuokaAsianM Triennale,140-141 .

072

Art Studies_03

Shaping the History of Art
In Southeast Asia

The Other as II LostPureSelf":
6auguinism in Soottieast
Asia0Art

UshiroshojiMasahiro

I

,

r

This essay was published in May 2010 in the academic
art journal Bijutsu Forum 21. It was written for a special
issue on "Modernism in Asian Art," which was alsoe.ditedby the author. Ushiroshoji Masahiro argues
that from the 1930s to the 1950s, when modern art
influenced by Western culture made its appearance inthe region, Southeast Asian artists explicitly referenced
Paul Gauguin in developing their practices. The South
Pacific depicted by Gauguin was similar to lie local
scenes and landscapes that Southeast Asian artists
were ' painting . Ushirosh6ji thinks that these artists
were aware that in turning ·to Gauguin as a paradigm ofWestern art, they could integrate their own paintings
into the institution of art . However, he also assertsthat their reception of Gauguin took many forms. In
the collaborative works of the "triumvirate of modern
art" in the Philippines-Victoria Edades, Galo Ocampo
and Carlos Francisco-an influence can be seen not
only in terms of style but also in symbolism, although
the group differ from Gauguin in their expression ofgratitude and admiration for the blessings of nature.
It is also possible to see Gauguin's influence in thecomposit ions and motifs of the artists Tchang Ju
Chi and Yong Mun Sen, active in Singapore andPenang, respectively. Tellingly, rather than depicting
the overseas Chinese with whom they shared their
origins, both instead painted the local Malays, who
represented a foreign culture. As with Gauguin, these
artists depicted a "savage" and "primitive" other fromthe viewpoint of their own "civilization:· In the case of
the Philippines, which had been a colony of first Spainand then the United States, there was a tendency toseek out a self-image predating the Spanish arrival in
the traditional cultures of the regions that had escaped
Spanish domination. This search for the "pure image"overlaps with the European stance, embodied by
Gauguin, of seeking out the pure, savage spirit thatwas lost to civilization, but Ushiroshoji states that the
search for a self-image on top of this was unique to thePhilippines. What is remarkable about the Bali field tripof the four big painters of Singapore-Liu Kang, Cheong
Sao Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi and Chen Chong Swee-isthat it became an attempt to discover a "homeland"in the Nanyang region, which was marginal in relation
to both the West and to China. That is, even as they
sought out the savage other, they were also searchingfor their selves, as well as a new homeland. Amid the
movements to establish new multiethnic, multicultural
nation-states in the countries of Southeast Asia, there
was a demand for the formation of national identity.
Ushiroshoji argues that the unique issues of Southeast
Asianmodern art lie in this unification of self and other,whereby the discovery of the "savage" could also
become the discovery of the "nation:·[KK]

Source: Originally published as"'Ushinawareta muktl na watashi' to
iu tasha- TemanAjia bijutsu ni okeru
Gogyanizumu" in "Ajia bijutsu teki 'kindai'"[Modernism in Asian Art], special
issue of Bijutsu Forum27 21 (2010): 50-56.
Translated from the Japanese for thispublication by Andrew Maerkle, 2016 .

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073

Introduction: The Brown Skinned Madonna

The painting depicts a mother holding an infant
in her arms fla.o, . Around the pair can be seen
tropical-looking vegetation. Both mother and childhave brown skin, and someone familiar with ethn ic
dress might be able to tell by their clothes that they
are from the Philippines . Looking closer, one sees
the halos of light above their heads, indicating thatthey are the Madonna and child . In the Madonna's
hand there is a banana leaf upon which is inscribed,
alongside signature and date, the phrase, "Binabati
Kita Maria ." This is the Tagalog for "Ave Maria,"
but in fact the artist translated the words from theTahitian, "la Orana Maria."
For anyone with knowledge of Western art,
these Tahitian words recall Gauguin's famous painting of the same name . Painted by an artist who had
tired of Western civilization and was seeking thebrilliance of "wild"vitality in the South Pacific, thepainting incited controversy in European Christiansociety for its depiction of a Tahitian mother andchild as the Madonna and child fla.o2 .fil It was Galo
Ocampo , one of the pioneers of a Philippine modern
art that was still in its nascent stages, who adapted
Gauguin's painting to depict the Madonna as a
Filipino woman.
Ocampo painted his Brown Madonna(Universityof SantoTomasArt Museum) in 1938.
Attacked by critics who believed the Madonna must
be a white woman, Ocampo is said to have retorted :"Raphael ... used [a) local maiden as his modelfor the Madonna. So why not the Filipina for theMadonna?" At the same time, he added," I am, above
all else, a Filipino painter. I express myself in theculture of which I am a part, and I am proud of it." ~One senses in Ocampo's emphasis on andpride in his own identity as a "Filipino painter" thenationalistic spirit of an artist living in an Americancolony, and it is on this point that he differs from
Gauguin even as he references him .
The Birth of Modern Art and the Different As ectsof Gauguin's Reception in Southeast Asia

Influenced by European modernism, Southeast
Asian modern art first began stirring to life in the
1930s, when almost the entire region was under
the control of the Euro-American Great Powers .
There are differences between countries andregions, but this was a time when things like rigid
academicism, simplistic naturalism and paintingsof idealized, exotic tropical landscapes were being
criticized, while inherent self-expression and theautonomy of painting started to be consciously
pursued and artist groups and art schools linked
by a common purpose were formed against the
backdrop of rising nationalism.
After a hiatus caused by World War II and
the Japanese occupation of the 1940s, followedby the chaos of postwar independence, the seeds

laid in the 1930s would tru ly bear fruit in the 1950s.
In this early period of Southeast Asian modern art
spanning from the 1930s to the 1950s, one of theWestern artists who was explicitly referenced bySoutheast Asian artists was Paul Gauguin, who hadgone to Tahiti in search of the "noble savage." Theworld of Gauguin's painting became a paradigm
for the pioneering generat ion of Southeast Asianmodern painters confronting the challenge of what
and how to paint .
This reveals not only the problems of early
Southeast Asian modern art's absorption of asingle Western artist's style and motifs, but also thecomplex issues faced by Southeast Asian paintersin the context of national identity formation . The
reception of Gauguin in Southeast Asian modern
art can be seen across the region, but first weshould consider the case of the Philippines .

Peggy Vance notes that, until 1951,
the Vatican considered this work to be
heretical in its dep1ct1onof a non-Western Madonna and child. See lwanami
sekai no kyosho: G6gyan I lwanami World
Masters: Gauguin) (Tokyo: lwanami
Shoten, 1992).106.

02"Brown Madonna," in A Portfolioof60
Ph,t,pp,ne M Masterpieces (Manila:
Department of Education Culture andSports. 19B6), 93-96.

Indigenous Madonna and the Triumvirate ofModern Art

The Philippines was ruled as a colony by Spainfor over 300 years . In contrast to the colonialadministrations of the Brit ish and Dutch East India
companies in other Southeast Asian countries, in
the Philippines the Spanish carried out colonial ruleby building churches across the land and converting the indigenous people to Christianity . For theFilipinos, Christianity had an ambivalent status asboth an object of devout faith and at the same time asymbol of colonial rule itself .
Amid rising nationalism, the Philippines briefly
established independence at the end of the 19th
century, only to undergo another half-century ofsubjugation by the United States. During the early
20th-century American era, artists like Fernando
Amorsolo and his followers reached their height in
the 1920s t1a.o3 . Employing an impressionisticp/einair aesthetic , they achieved tremendous popularity
by exoticizing and idealizing as a southern paradise
the local scenes and women of the Philippines ,along with its rural landscapes . This was just thething to meet the desires of the colonial ruling class,as well as those of tourists from the United States.
It was at the end of the 1920s that the man who
would be revered as the "father of Filipino modern
art," Victoria Edades, returned home from studyingin the United States, and held a solo exhibition in
Manila to show off his overseas achievements .
Among the works on display was The Builders (1928,
CulturalCenterof the Philippines fla.o4 ), considered a

fig.01

fig.02

fig.03

fig.01
Galo Ocampo, B,nabati Kita Mana(Brown
Madonna), 1938. Collection University ofSanto Tomas Museum, Manila.

fig.02
Paul Gauguin, la Orana Maria, 1891,
Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.

fig.03Fernando Amorosolo, Women Bathers,
1933, Collection Central Bank of thePhilippmes(fromAtTPh,/ipp,nes. Manila:
The Crucible Workshop, 1992).

fig.04
Victoria Edades, The Bwlders, 1928,
Collection Cultural Center of thePhilippines, Mani la (from The Birth ofModern Min Southeast Asia. Artists andMovements, exh. cat., Fukuoka: Fukuoka
Art Museum, 1997).

fig.042010

01

The Other as •Lost Pure Self": Gauguinismm SoutheastAsianArt

In-Shaplngtheltlotoryol Alt

03
Ibid.

04
Santiago Pilar states that Brown
Madonna, which depicts Mary andJesus standing before a local house,surrounded by native plants and wearing
Filipino dress, was chosen for the cover
because of the artist's indigenizationor, in other words, Orientalizat1on of thesubject matter. Santiago A. Pilar, "TheVisual Arts (1941-1945): Orientalism
and the Longer War," in Panahon ng
Hapon: Sining sa Digmaan, Oigmaan sa
Sining (Manila: Sentrong Pangkultura ng
P1l1pinas,1992), 152.

05

See Redza Piyadasa,'Toe Developmentof Early Modem Art in Malaysia andSingapore (1920-60)," in TheBirth ofModern Art in Southeast Asia: Artists
and Movements (Fukuoka: Fukuoka Art
Museum, 1997), 229-233.
06
From an interview by the author with
Yeo Hwee Bin, February 26, 1995.
See also Yeo Mang Thong, Xinjiapo zhan
qian huaren meishu shi lun Ji[ Essays on
the History of Prewar Chinese Painting in
Singapore I(Singapore: Xinjiapo Yazhou
Yanjiu Xuehu1,1992).

074

landmark in the development of modern art in thePhilippines . The work was modern in its pursuit ofa more autonomous form, and in terms of subject
matter, too, it depicted neither the coquettish
females nor the sedate and romantic pastorals so
often found in Amorsolo-style paintings, but rather
the labor of the workers constructing the city-acity which, in 1920s Manila, was actually starting toemerge in the form of modern buildings rising up
from the countryside.
Edades was frequently commissioned to paintmurals for such modern (mainly Art Deco) buildings.
He vigorously took up these commissions withthe assistance of two young graduates from the
University of the Philippines, Galo Ocampo andCarlos "Botong" Francisco . The three would cometo be known as the "triumvirate" of modern art, and,far from working as a master and his assistants, they
developed a collaborative practice . Gauguin was
their "lodestar," and they are said to have "admired
his bold use of color and surface ." ~ The triumvirate
painted murals in a style that complemented the Art
Deco architecture in which they primarily worked.
The source of that bold flatness and decorativenesscan certainly be found in Gauguin .
It is unfortunate that almost all the triumvirate's
murals were destroyed in the chaos of the war in the
Pacific, and can no longer be seen. But in the one
remaining work, Interaction/Mother Nature's Bounty
Harvest (1935,privatecollection fig.os ), the influence ofGauguin's masterpiece , Where Do We Come From?
What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897-98,
Museum of FineArts, Bostonfig.os ), is clearly evident .
More than a stylistic influence, one can see theeffect of Gauguin's symbolic language. However ,where Gauguin's work poses philosophical "questions" about human existence, the triumvirate's
work differs in that one finds in it more an expression of gratitude and admiration for the blessings ofthe natural cycle, rather than questions.
And so the "indigenous Madonna" painted by
Galo Ocampo was a replacement of the Amorsolostyle sweet and exotic female figure-the coquettish
woman, favored by foreigners, which had been themainstream at the start of the 20th century-with
the Philippines' own Madonna . This motif would
become the emblem of young artists seeking tocreate a new art. Within the next year, H.R.Ocampo
would paint his own variation, Madonna of theWell (1939,PaulinoQue Collectiontia.o7 ) . After thewar, another leading figure in Philippine modern
art, Vicente Manansala, used a Cubist approach toportray a mother and child from a Manila slum in
Madonna of the Slums (1950,private collection fig.os ).
Here, without any halo, the figure is not explicitly
identified as the Madonna. But picking up where
Galo Ocampo'sversion left off, an ordinary motherand child from the slums are made synonymouswith the Madonna and child in this painting .
In this way, the "indigenous Madonna,"with all its variants, became one of the defining

Ushlroah6jl Maaahlro

Art Studies_03

themes of Filipino modern art. Moreover, during theJapanese occupation , Brown Madonna would bereappraised from the pro-Asian perspective of themilitary adm inistration, and given new significanceas a symbol of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere through its placement on the cover ofthe magazineShinSeiki[NewCentury, vol.II, no.6,
December1943]fla.o9 . Q!

The Prewar Straits Settlements:
TchangJuChiand YongMun Sen
Gauguin was a paradigm for artists in prewar
Singapore and Penang, too . Since the Britishcolonial government prioritized economic gains,respected traditional culture, and clearly stipulated(in the PangkorTreatyof 1874)that there would be
no interference in local religion and customs, there
were no "art" activities taking place in the Malay
Peninsula in the modern sense of the word ~ This point differs from the Philippines, which quickly
took up the "local production" of Christian art . In
terms of art, there was only the traditional calligraphy produced by the overseas Chinese in the British
Straits Settlements ( Penang,Malaccaand Singapore).
But, entering the 1930s, art activity began toflourish with the appearance of mainland Chinese
painters seeking to escape the chaos of the SinoJapanese War, and the return of artists from study
abroad in Shanghai. Moreover, major mainland painters like Xu Beihong and Liu Haisu held exhibitions on
their frequent trips south to raise funds in support of
the anti-Japanese resistance movement . Q§ It wasat this time that the Singapore Society of Chinese
Artists was formed, and the Nanyang Academy ofFine Arts established for the purpose of educating
subsequent generations of overseas Chinese.
As the chairman of the Singapore Societyof Chinese Artists, Tchang Ju Chi was a leading
figure in the prewar Singaporean art scene. The
composition of his Return from Harvest(c . late 1930s,
location unknown !!eJ.Q ), with a pair of women in
ethnic dress dominating the foreground, recalls
works by Gauguin (for example, Two TahitianWomen,
1899, Metropolitan Museum of Art fuL.11). Although
the style is naturalistic, the composition and motif
could be said to follow Gauguin. Another work by
the same artist, Malaysian Women ( 1930s, location
unknown ~ ), evokes Gauguin's Tahitian Women(1891,Museed'Orsay ~ ),with the clothes and/or
figures in Gauguin's painting apparently transposedfrom left to right . This work also feels stylisticallyclose to Gauguin.
Having left China to study in France, Tchang
Ju Chi was unable to return home due to the SinoJapanese War, and ended up settling in Singapore .
In this British Straits Settlement, he painted the
Malays from the perspective of an overseas Chinese
person encountering a foreign culture. Although
here it could be said that he followed Gauguin in
depicting the "savage"or "primitive"-that is, theChapter1

075

Other-while positioning himself on the side of "civilization," there is no sense in his work of exoticizing
excess or sexualization. Instead of passive recipientsof the gaze, the women here appear as strong-willed
agents, with a more prominent presence than the
figures in Gauguin's work.
As in Singapore, a group promoting modern
art was also established in Penang, the Penang
Chinese Art Club . One of the core members, Yong
Mun Sen, was also a member of the Singapore
Society of Chinese Artists, and kept in contact withthe painters in Singapore . His works also makefrequent reference to Gauguin . Although the themes
are different , his Rest(1941 llil,M ) clearly references
Gauguin's Te Tamari NoAtua (The Birth of Christ)(1896, Neue Pinakothek,Munich), illustrating thepower of Gauguin's influence . Even where it is not
so obvious, there are many other works that evoke
Gauguin in motif and composition. Like Tchang
Ju Chi, Yong Mun Sen painted Malays instead of
his fellow Chinese, and, in light of the traditional
hierarchy between Chinese and barbarians, his
stance of painting people on the margins of Chinese
civilization has some overlaps with Gauguin .
It is of course no coincidence that these twoleading painters in Singapore and Penang shouldboth have an interest in Gauguin during this period .
This would be more clearly recognized as a topic
to address by the post-independence painters-by
which time Tchang Ju Chi had already died in
Changi concentration camp during the Japanesearmy's Sook Ching extermination campaign-but
this is something for later discussion .

fig.06

fig .07
fig.O9
fig.OB

fig.11

fig.12

fig.OB

fig.11

Vicente Manansala, Madonna of the
Slums. 1950, Private Collection (fromArt Philippmes, 1992).

Paul Gauguin, Two Tahitian Women ,1899, Collection Metropolitan Museumof Art , New York.

fig.O9fig.12

Ocampo's Brown Madonna on the
cover of Shin Seiki (New Century), vol.
11,no. 6 (December 1943), Collection
Lopez Museum & Library, Manila .
fig.1O

Tchang Ju Ch,, Malays,an Women,c.1930s, location unknown (fromZhonghua meishu yanj,uhui shuhua p:
Omgzhu chengli wu shi wu zhouman
Jinian { In Commemoration of the 55th
Anniversary : The Society of Chinese
Artists], Singapore The Society ofChinese Art,sts.1990)

The"Savage"asImage of the LctsJ
PureSelf
fig.1O

Although they were relatively few in number, Victorio
Edades, the center of the Philippines' triumvirate ofmodern art, also made works of his own referencing
Gauguin . In its pairing of a seated female figure withanother reclining figure, Two lgorot Women (1940,
the VargasMuseum and FilipinianaResearchCenter,theUniversity of the Philippines!illJ.§) recalls Gauguin's
Aha Oe Feii(1892, PushkinMuseum). Aside from thesurface expression of its colorfields and its simple
forms, the work also mirrors Gauguin's attitude in its
depiction of people who appear marginal in relation
to the mainstream-in this case, the lgorot minorities
living in the highlands of Luzon. But, neither looking
for sensuality in the "savage" like Amorsolo, norattempting to capture the brilliance of wild vitality
like Gauguin, this work seems to be driven more thananything by formal concerns .
In a place that had experienced over threecenturies as a Spanish colony, followed by anotherhalf-century under American rule, the root question
was, where was the "original Philippines," free of
foreign influence? In general, the borders of theSoutheast Asian countries that achieved independence after World War II were determined by theframework of the colonial rule of the Euro-American2010

fig.OS
Carlos Francisco, Galo Ocampo,
Victoria Edades, Interaction/Mother
Natures Bounty Harvest, 1935,
Private Collection (from Modernity
and Beyond, exh. cat., Singapore:
Singapore Art Museum, 1996).

fig.06
Paul Gauguin, Where Do Come From?
What Are We? IMJereAre We Going?.
1897-98, Collection Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston .

fig.O7
H.R Ocampo, Madonna of the Well,
1939, Collection Mr and Mrs . Paulino
Que, Manila (from The Birth ofModernArtinSoutheastAsia,
1997).

Tchang Ju Chi, Return from Harvest,
late 1930s, location unknown (fromNanyang 1950-65 : Passage to
Smgapore Art, exh. cat., Fukuoka:
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum , 2002).

Great Powers from the 19th century onwards . In thePhilippines, which had never been nationally unified
before Spanish colonization (the name itself comesfrom the then-Prince Philip of Spain), there was a tendency to seek an originary self-image that pre-dated
the Spanish period in the traditional cultures of theregions that had escaped Spanish domination .
Even though the "authentic Philippines" andThe Otheru •1.ost1tvr91etf": Gauguinism in Southeast Asian An

Shaping the Hlsto<yof Art
In Southeast Asia

076

Art Studies_03

Gauguin-style othering, as it were, by discovering
their own savages, along with themselves . .Q!!
Following this there were repeated attempts at
making field trips into "primitive lands" by the "fourleading artists," as well as by young artists like thosein the "Ten Men Art Group." In these instances, it
was not just that new "savages" were discovered
and turned into paintings; there was at the same timea search for Asian traditions and the origins of Asian
culture. Among the four leading painters, Liu Kang
was the most affected by Bali, but Cheong Soo Piengalso went to Sabah and Sarawak in northern Borneo(Kalimantan,now EastMalaysia)to discover a newkind of"savage." In /ban Girls(1953, ShellSingapore
Collection !lllJ§), which was painted there , andBalinese Girls (1954, Shell SingaporeCollectionful.JZ),
the theme of pairs of seated women in ethnic dress
indicates Gauguin's influence, but the residue ofnaturalism that can be found in Gauguin is no longer
apparent, resulting in decorative and formalistic
works with a strong awareness of the flatness ofpainting. In light of this experience, Cheong Soo
Pieng's attention, which had sought out the"savage" in "Nanyang,"would eventually return to
Malay themes .

fig.14the "pure Filipino untainted by outside influence"
were themselves fantasies, there was an urgent
desire to seek them out. Called "highlanders,"
the lgorot were a minority group living in theinaccessible mountain regions of northern Luzon,
and they put up continuous resistance to Spanish
rule . Edades, for his part, was an urban elite who
had studied in the United States, and he depicted
these minorities and savage others from a fairly
Westernized perspective. But at the same time theyalso represented his lost, pure self . Here we can see
the ambiguous position of the colonial elite .
This in a sense overlaps with what theEuropeans had sought in the South Pacific from the18th century onwards-the image of the pure savage
that had been lost to advanced civilization and which
represented, from the progressivist viewpoint, a stageof pre-civilization-but that it should also become asearch for one's own lost self was an issue particular
to the Philippines. Just as Edades focused on theethnic minorities of his own country, the discovery of
nearby savages-or at least the reevaluation of suchsavages-was another instance of Gauguin's reception in Southeast Asian modern art . Its significancewould change in this sense as a result of the politicaltransformations following World War II. Of particularnote on this point is the so-called "Bali field trip" of the"four leading artists" of Singapore.

Yong Mun Sen, Rest, 1941 (from Social
Responsibility in Art Criticism, Bellisa Row.
Pulau nkus: The Art Gallery, 1998).

Did~he "Four Leading Artists" Find Anything in Bali?

This visualization of the other by Southeast Asianmodern artists might appear to reproduce therepressive structures that the West employedagainst Asia, but there are specific historical andregional issues behind this phenomenon-issues
that are deeply connected to the establishment of
nation-states and the formation of national identities
by multiethnic, multicultural societies in the wake ofthe colonial system .
The context for the Bali field trip of the four
leading painters can be seen in a series of statements by Lim Hak Tai, who in 1938 establishedthe first educational institution for art in prewar
Singapore, the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts . The"Nanyang" in the school name refers specificallyto Singapore, but also more broadly to the islandand coastal areas of Southeast Asia . Historically ,the word had referred to southern China, but its
definition broadened as more Chinese emigrated toSoutheast Asia . As suggested by its literal meaning,"South Seas," Nanyang is defined as a (southern)margin in relation to the center, based on Chinese
ideology and the Chinese-barbarian hierarchy.
Seeking to reverse the doubly alienated positionof the Straits Settlement of Singapore-which aspart of Asia was marginal to the West, and as partof Nanyang was also marginal to China-and turnthe demerit of distance from the cultural center intoa merit, Lim called for the creation of a new axis ofculture, one that would provide an alternative toboth East and West.
Lim argued, "Nanyang, or specifically,

fig.13

fig.15

fig.13
Paul Gauguin, Tahman Women, 1891,
Collection Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

fig.15Victorio Edades, Two lgorot Women,
1940. Collection Vargas Museum andFilipiniana Research Center. University of
the Philippines, Manila.

07
As quoted in Rawanchaikul Toshiko,"Nanyang 1950-65: Passage to
Singaporean Art," in Modern Artists
11-Nanyang 1950-65: Passage to
Singaporean Art, exh. cat. ( Fukuoka:
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, 2002).

08
For more on this point. see Rawanchaikul
Toshiko"s "Nanyang bijutsu ko: "Tasha"saiseisan to 'jiko' no kakutoku" !Theoryof Nanyang Art: The Reproduction of the"Other" and the Acquisition of the ··sew·)
in De Arte. no.17(2001), in addition to thecitation above.

09
Um Hak Ta,. "Juan shou yu" IForeword],in Nanyang me,shu zhuanke xuexiao
huakan l Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts
Pictorial], vol.1 ( Singapore: Nanyang
Academy of Fine Arts, 1951). As cited in
the original Chinese in Rawanchaikul,"Theory of Nanyang Art." 86.

In 1952, the four Singaporean painters Liu Kang,
Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi and Chen Chong
Swee set off for the Indonesian island of Bali in searchof "Nanyang-ness." According to Liu Kang, the trip
was inspired by Gauguin. He recounted, "There were
two places we desperately wanted to visit at the time.
One was the capital of our homeland, Beijing, wherea lot of traditional culture and historic sites remained.
The other was Tahiti, where Gauguin spent his lateyears and made his tropical works . But the politicalsituation in China was no good, nor did we have any
way of traveling to Tahiti. So Bali was the replacement
for Beijing and Tahiti. The customs and old buildings
and dance and music of Bali were very charming, andfull of Nanyang atmosphere . We were also able topaint female nudes:' l1Z
Even as they went there in search of refined
traditions, they were also looking for savage power,
and vigorously applied themselves to making
works. A number of works that would go on todefine Singaporean modern art were producedin Bali, among them Liu Kang's Mask(1953, private
collection) and Chen Chong Swee's Balinese Women(1952, SingaporeArt Museum). This was exactly thesame thing Gauguin did as a "civilized" person
seeking primitive, savage vitality in the South
Pacific. Replicating the structure by which China
or Asia was the savage as viewed from Europe, the"four leading artists" positioned themselves within
the center of Chinese civilization and reproduced aUshlrosh6jlMasahlro

Behind the Reception of Gauguin:
The Birth of a Nation