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Abstract
This essay positions the rapidly changing field of contemporary art in Southeast Asia, and the shifting structure, dynamics and influence of the region's contemporary ‘art worlds' and ‘art publics’. It seeks to open up new horizons and frameworks for understanding the particular character of art worlds and art publics in Southeast Asia by being especially attuned to the local contexts and histories of contemporary art in the region and their particular ecologies. We contend that while contemporary art worlds and art publics in Southeast Asia might bear similar structures and dynamics to contemporary art worlds and publics elsewhere, they are nevertheless indicative of culturally specific and localised developments. Indeed, the various past and present practices and mediation of art and its publics in the region are suggestive of the ways in which art worlds take on nuanced character and meaning in Southeast Asia, are diversely configured and imagined, and are multiply located and complexly interconnected. The worldliness of these practices are, moreover, indicative of the ways in which Southeast Asian artists continue to respond to the exigencies of the everyday and the political economy of survival in an increasingly challenging world.
Acknowledgements
We wish to express our sincere thanks and deepest gratitude to all the authors included in this volume for their commitment to developing their individual contributions and their support of the special volume as a whole. We also wish to acknowledge the peer-reviewers for their critically insightful and constructive comments. We are immensely grateful to George Lau and staff at World Art for their unflinching support and sterling assistance throughout the development of the special volume. Finally, we would like to acknowledge each other for the patience and generous exchanges of ideas as we created a space to co-author this essay and co-edit this special themed volume across time zones and amid the pressures and turbulence of these uncertain and ever-shifting pandemic times.
Notes on contributors
Dr Michelle Antoinette is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Art History and Theory at Monash University, Melbourne. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Asian art histories, especially contemporary art histories of Southeast Asia on which she has published widely. She previously held research and teaching positions at the Australian National University, Canberra. She has held two prestigious Australian Research Council Fellowships researching developments in contemporary Asian art and museums, with her recent ARC DECRA Fellowship exploring ‘Asian Art Publics’ (2017–20 grant no DE170100455). Her significant publications include Reworlding Art History: Encounters with Contemporary Southeast Asian Art after 1990 (Brill | Rodopi, 2015) and with Caroline Turner, Contemporary Asian Art and Exhibitions: Connectivities and World-making (ANU Press, 2014). She co-curated (with Wulan Dirgantoro) the exhibition Shaping Geographies: Art, Woman, Southeast Asia, held in Singapore in 2019–20.
Dr Francis Maravillas is Assistant Professor in the Critical and Curatorial Studies of Contemporary Art (CCSCA) programme at the National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan. His research interests focus on contemporary art and visual culture in Asia and Australia, curatorial and exhibition histories, and socially engaged and performative practices in art. He is currently writing a book on the aesthetics and politics of food in contemporary Asian art. He has published journal articles, book chapters and exhibition catalogue essays on the Asia-Pacific Triennial exhibition series, Asian artists in the diaspora in Australia, and food and hospitality in contemporary Asian art. He co-curated (with Marnie Badham) the exhibition Bruised Food: A Living Laboratory at RMIT University Gallery, Melbourne in 2019. He is area editor (Asia-Pacific) of the Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas journal. He was previously a board member of the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, Australia.
Notes
1 ‘ILHAM Contemporary Forum: Malaysia 2009–2017’, Ilham Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, exhibition dates 21 May – 8 October 2017. See http://www.ilhamgallery.com/exhibitions/ilham-contemporary-forum/.
2 Five Arts Centre is an artist collective with a focus on performance, based in Kuala Lumpur and established in 1984 by theatre directors Chin San Sooi and Krishen Jit, and dancer-choreographer Marion D’Cruz. See http://www.fiveartscentre.org/about.
4 According to the artist, subsequent iterations of the work will feature an irrigation dripper to direct water into the cassava plant each time a tweet featuring a story or memory about cassava is received, thereby creating a feedback loop so as to enable the cassava plant to visualise and ‘curate’ its own memory and history as part of a networked Internet of Things. Lim Kok Yoong in correspondence with Francis Maravillas (19 September 2017).
5 At the time of writing, NTU CCA announced the closure of its gallery space at Gillman Barracks, but its research and administrative offices will continue to retain a presence at the art precinct. See https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/positioning-art-centre-for-longer-term-sustainability.
6 The term ruangrupa loosely translates into English as ‘space for art' (from the Indonesian words ruang (room) and rupa (from the term seni rupa, meaning fine art).
7 Pangrok Sulap loosely translates into English as ‘punk rock hut' (from the terms pangrok (punk rock) and sulap (a hut that serves as a resting place for farmers in Sabah, Malaysia).
8 The scholarship of Pierre Bourdieu has been influential to developing the sociological understanding of ‘art worlds' as a field of legitimation and accumulation of symbolic and social capital (see Bourdieu Citation1984; Citation1996).
9 Since the mid-1990s, vectors of dialogue and collaboration along the ‘South-South' axis have been viewed by scholars and curators as both indicative of the complex trajectories of influence and exchange, and as a means of bypassing Euro-American mediation of art (see Mosquera Citation1994; Papastergiadis Citation2010; Gardner and Green Citation2013). This also recalls the South-South geopolitical cooperation of the Non-Aligned Movement, whose first meeting took place in Bandung in 1955.
10 For a classical account of the notion of the ‘art world' see Arthur Danto's essay “The Artworld” (Citation1964).
11 Established in 1967, ASEAN comprises the ten member countries of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
12 On the related topic of the reception and audiences of modern Asian art in Asian contexts, see contributions in Clark, Peleggi and Sabapathy eds (Citation2006).
13 Contributors to the Third Text 2011 special issue are: Joan Kee, Patrick Flores, Thomas Berghuis, Ahmad Mashadi, Pandit Chanochanakit, Isabel Ching, Lee Weng Choy, Wang Zineng, Kevin Chua and Nora Taylor.
14 ‘Contemporary Asian Art Worlds’ conference panels, co-convened by Michelle Antoinette and Greg Doyle for the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) biennial conference at the University of Sydney in 2018, in conjunction with the project ‘Asian Art Publics’ (Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship project, Grant DE170100455). Panel speakers were Michelle Antoinette, Katherine Bruhn, Wulan Dirgantoro, Greg Doyle, Francis Maravillas, Seng Yu Jin.
15 Artist-led and independent pedagogical practice has been a vital thread in the network of art education in the region, such as the public programs of the Indonesia-based Gudskul, KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, Common Room, and the Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA).
16 See, for instance, the special issue of Southeast of Now on the theme of ‘Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories’ (Low, Nelson, and Veal Citation2019); Dirgantoro's study of feminisms and contemporary art in Indonesia (Dirgantoro Citation2017); and the exhibition Shaping Geographies: Art, Woman, Southeast Asia, curated by Michelle Antoinette and Wulan Dirgantoro, held in Singapore 23 November 2019 – 12 January 2020.
18 Since 2011, Biennale Jogja's Equator series has sought to foster artistic connections between Indonesia and countries and regions in the equatorial zone: India (Equator #1, 2011), the Arab region (Equator #2, 2013), Nigeria (Equator #3, 2015), Brazil (Equator #4, 2017) and Southeast Asia (Equator #5, 2019).