ASIAN CONNECTIONS (Chairperson’s introductory address for session I of the public forum on November 18, 2001)

IN THE PAST TWO DECADES a common set of concerns about definitions and about relationality have emerged in art literature and cultural studies. I will speak from these, not from a specialized knowledge of art practice.

Geography of Definition

Most existing terms that bind cultural practices into regional clusters are beset with difficulties of definition, uncomfortable usage, or a selective provenance. Every region and culture related category functions as an interpretative grid, and those that refer to Asia are no exception. The term ‘South Asia’ can most probably be traced to area studies in American Universities; it straddles an uneasy ground between a Political academic classification, and Diaspora related identity marker for important groups. The term ‘colonial’ recalls a common history, but is an inconvenient umbrella: it can either construct colonialism as unidirectional and monolithic, or become a cover all for the discursive and visual practices of both the colonizers and the once colonized. The ‘common wealth’ of literature and art emerged directly from decolonisation but carried a somewhat artificial sense of ‘bonding’ a sibling unity of now   independent countries, which could trace their political parentage and cultural inheritance to the British Empire. Hierarchies of colour and race, of settlers and natives continued inside the ‘common wealth’. The countries included in it did not relate to each other directly, but only through their connection to Britain.

 A term with very different connotations also emerged from decolonisation: the ‘neo-colonial’. This signified the economic, and to a lesser extent, the Political, continuation of colonial domination and inequality, and posited a possible unity of ex colonial coun­tries on that basis. The ‘third world,’ a cum­bersome term which levelled the economic and social differences, rivalries, conflicts and inequalities among the countries that com­posed it, also carried and can still carry a sim­ilar anti imperialist edge. The Political charge of neo-colonialism and the third world has of course been diluted or neutralized by a bureaucratic language of development (also used for South Asia). UN type definitions of ‘regions’ of underdevelopment in the ‘south’ emerged primarily in relation to levels of lit­eracy, health, development, ‘conflict’ and violence, and moved from there via ethnicity and religious identities into ‘culture’.

In the past decade three other terms have gained currency, the ‘postcolonial’, the Diasporic’, and the ‘multicultural’ or ‘intercultural’. Each of them responds to the massive migrations of the twentieth century, and is in different ways untethered from geographical regions. The postcolonial includes ex colonized countries and those who have emigrated from them, it indicates a state of being and a type of interpretation more than a region. The Diasporic, privileges conditions of exile, nomadism, liminal states of un-belonging poised between countries of origin and countries of residence, and seems to be favoured by expatriate elites. A more challenging usage of Diasporic has also emerged in relation to the transitional solidarity of people of African descent. Terms like colonial, neo-colonial and third world implied restricted mobility, except for the privileged few, and in the more politically radical usage of the terms, explained these restrictions in terms of governing inequalities between and within the countries. Postcolonial and Diasporic are mobile terms, in many senses of the word: they build more on the ‘promise’ of globalisation since actual mobility contin­ues to be limited in a number of ways. Multiculturalism and inter culturalism are not region specific terms but names for forces (both governmental and non governmental) directed towards liberal accommodation of ‘others’ in Europe and America, or (usually structured and funded) interchange inside and between ‘southern’ countries; they posit second order ‘identities’ or function as man­agerial techniques.

What could an alternative definition of ‘Asia’ be drawn from? It would perhaps be premature to formulate one without much more research of the region. However, a provisional way of turning ‘Asia’ into a gen­erous and generative term could be through a focus on interrelated histories, comparativism, and common contemporary concerns.

Connections: Old and New

The history of exchange is very old. There have been many cosmopolitan cultures in Asia in the past twenty-five centuries. There were several historical constellations within Asia linking Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. Some of these took in southern Europe and North Africa as well. The mobility of Sanskrit, Buddhist and Persian configurations in Asia, the history of interaction and mutual reception (as opposed to the inertia of ‘influence’) deserves much more attention than it has received. Especially since the older connective history, and the formation of new Asian constellations, straggled into nineteenth century.

New connected histories took shape with European colonisation. The first was from ‘below’ and involved new types of voluntary or enforced labour related migration. The second was of the colonial typologies that came from ‘above’ and generated similar histories of enumeration, ethnology and anthropology, racial and national stereotypes. And the third   a history from the ‘middle’   involved the creation of colonial elites who collaborated in orientalism, indigenism, the production of tradition, the mediation and the trans nationalization of culture across and beyond Asia.

Colonialism and capitalism also produced other connectives related to broad economic and political imperatives. In the economic sphere came palimpsests of capitalism on earlier modes of production, along with peculiarly hybrid forms of urbanization. Politically there were commonalities first in nationalist and anti imperialist struggles, and later in the floundering, inclusive yet sincere struggle of new nations to collect and connect with Bandung, Non Alignment and SAARC.

At present the spread of neo-liberalism in the guise of ‘globalisation’ and the attendant technologies of representation, have turned the media into a new connective, while the older connectives have intensified or acquired new shapes   for example, labour markets for sex work domestic work, or tourism. New forms of racialization are emerging in consumer maps sketched by the beauty and fashion industry, in which physi­cal/ facial ethnicities are re-described but used to signpost an ‘international’ body., An increasing number of Asian countries feel impelled to celebrate shallow national particularities, which is in fact a part of the culture specific integration of national economies with the world economic system, and one of the ways in which commodities are repackaged to increase consumption. These new connectivity’s are producing new common questions and renewing old questions. How much of cultural exchange is still filtered through the metropolis? How much indigenist assertion takes place at points of ‘decolonisation’ and ‘globalisation’? What is the relation of new transitional forms of the media and the market to cultural institutions?

There have been attempts at forging new international solidarities of which the most notable is that by Asian feminists in the last two decades. Feminism has looked for common ground both in its theory and its practice. Shedding Eurocentric and racist hierarchies, as well as sterile contrasts of tradition and modernity by critiquing the valorisation of both terms, feminism has turned into a contested rather than a static terrain. Working through histories of earlier left internationalism to build new networks, feminists have tried to make connections independently of metropolitan centres, and tried to bypass national chauvinisms. This has facilitated a greater exchange for Asian Literature, cinema theatre and art. And it has led to the investigation of trans-national movements of labour and bodies in female migration and sex work. Feminist efforts also carry the possibility enabling internation­alisms in an era of crippling Tran nationalisms.

Mapping Asia

Certain kind of historical maps will help to build interregional relationships in the arts and to sustain a differential yet related understanding of our respective insertion into colonialism and capitalism. These could turn into a comparative atlas of cultural interchange, of narrative and visual forms, of the everyday and the urban popular. There would be of course also be more interrogation: interrogation of canons whether Eurocentric or’ alternative’, interrogations of what counts as art or as aesthetic and who makes the interpretative languages, especially in the trans-national market.

The question of relationships cannot of course be restricted to those between Asian countries. Art and literary practice in Asian countries, in common with what is known as the ‘third world’ have repeatedly been defined in relation to, or in opposition to, the so called ‘west’ and its modernity. This them and us language needs to be replaced by a related history of the pre colonial and the ‘modem’. After all, pre-colonial Europe as Jack Goody, R.I. Moore, and Martin Bernal have demonstrated was also a Euro-Asian and Euro African phenomenon. Here, three questions seem to me to be central. What were our respective agencies in generating or creating the ‘west’ as an ideological configuration, in forming this ‘alien’ field against which to measure and map our own cultural production? This concerns all Asian countries in which allegations of derivation and imitation of “Western” models have dogged cultural practice. Were Asian Modernism’s adulterated by colonisation in the first place? The history of the adjective ‘western’ as a definition of cultural practice, as a term of social castigation (especially of women), and as an objective of desire in Asia?

This leads into other theoretical issues that Asian countries have in common such as hybridity. Hybrid formation has been both theoretically and historically more articulated for the Latin American, Caribbean, and North African regions by Paul Glory and others, explicitly sets out to transcend racialised politics based on an originary nationalism. No comparable articulation has been made for Asia, even though hybridity is now privileged by postmodernism and, increasingly, by the market it is also grounded in our historical experience and carries a historical density or historical residues that still linger in structures of feeling. These two forms of hybridity market centered and historical have to be held apart and examined. One common concern would be how to deal with the accelerating speed of ‘change’ in novelty driven art and literary markets and how to retrieve the historical density of the Asian past in a way that resists the simplifications of the market.

Connections have to be made and explored through common concerns rather than through Eurocentric theories and paradigms. A shift in paradigms can only come about through the exploration of similarities and differences. National chauvinisms and some received ideas of ‘national’ characteristics may turn out to be trans Asian in formation.

Several common concerns are visible in the art practice from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka that is being displayed and discussed here today: The formation of symbols from state repression and the partition of 1947, the centrality of violence in political and economic conjectures at present, the themes of marriage, the body, reproduction and the excavation of patriarchal images of femininity. They point towards and internationalisation of cultural practice even as the nation   State remains the site of political assertion and an object of critique. They also suggest a shared belief in the social agency of representational forms, and how this agency is both neutralized and aggravated by the ubiquitous market. ‘Asia’ then can be a term that relearns a shared pasts and aspires to a shared future, that struggles against the violence of states and civil societies, that understands the De politicisation of cultural production by the market, and invents new ways of politicising art and cultural practices.

 

KUMKUM SANGARI

Kumkum Sangari is a professorial Fellow, literary/feminist/cultural theory at the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum, India.

BANGLADESH ART IN RETROSPECT - A Socio - Political Overview

Though a comparitively  young country on the world map, Bangladesh shares the inheritances of great Indian civilization with other countries of the subcontinent.

However, its distinctive features are also evident: it is situated at the north eastern corner of the subcontinent, somewhat secluded from the mainstream activities of the civilization, inhabited by the large majority of the Muslim population which is unlike its surroundings areas and henceforth its political history has taken a course which is evidently different form the neighbours of the region. The political fate of the people of Bangladesh had experienced dramatic changes, including an armed struggle for independence, during the course of last fifty years or so, and the evolution of social and cultural identity of the people of this region is very closely related to its political developments. As a result, the development of visuals arts in Bangladesh could not be accessed without taking into consideration its historical and sociological factors as well as contemporary Political history, which had to negotiate, issues conspicuously, different from that of the other countries of the subcontinent.

East Bengal, as it was called in earlier days, was inhabited by a vast majority of Muslim population who were mostly peasants and largely illiterate. Though Kolkata (Calcutta) which was nearby, was leading the political, intellectual and cultural resurgence of the Indian people in the colonial period, the Muslims of the East Bengal had little or no participation in it. There was almost no impact of the so called ‘Bengal Renaissance’. Neither the emergence of a class of enlightened intelligentsia among the educated Bengalis, nor the establishment of an art school and the emergence of a nationalistic art movement in Kolkata in the early years of the twentieth century could provide any influences on the cultural atmosphere of this region. Contrary to this, people of this region opted in favour of Pakistan and in 1947 it became the eastern wing of the newly created nation:

Pakistan was founded on the basis of a communal identity and the rulers of the country propagated an Islamic heritage and tried to disown all traditions of Buddhist and Hindu culture in Pakistan. Urdu was declared to be the national language and Bengali, which was the mother tongue of the majority, was looked down as the language of the Hindus. Arts and culture of the Bengalis and the secular heritage of the region came under continuous harassment. In this adverse situation, the modern art movement of a new nation began. The initiators in the eastern part of Pakistan were a handful of Muslim artists who were trained in Kolkata and were living there until partition of India forced them to migrate to East Pakistan.

Thus, from the beginning of the Pakistan period there was a crisis among the people here  the argument whether we were Muslims first or Bengali’s first. Fortunately, most of our artists did not opt for the communal identity; instead they tried to uphold the secular heritage of our history. In fact the realization of the people of East Pakistan that they were subjected to political and cultural discrimination came as early as 1952 when a number of people laid down their lives to uphold the dignity of their mother tongue, routed the Muslim League in the 1954 election and opted for a democratic and secular society. The pioneers of the art movement must have taken note of these and were inspired by them. Those artists of the 1940’s had a good training in naturalistic art in Kolkata and they might have absorbed some influences of the Bengal School and Jamini Roy as well. They tried to depict the rural life and nature of Bangladesh in different figurative idioms and attempted to make comments upon human conditions in natural and political distress. But the crisis was yet to be overcome. When the contemporary artist looked for inspiration within his/her heritage he/she found that most of the lofty idols of our civilization were situated beyond the geographical boundary of East Pakistan/ Bangladesh. Only ‘Pala’ could be called truly ours, but its formulated format was inadequate to inspire a modern artist. The only impetus could come from the very rich folk tradition of this region. But very few artists of Pakistan paid attention to it.

On the contrary, the creation of a new country offered a lot of opportunities for our artists in the 1950’s, who were among the first to graduate from the art institute in Dhaka, to go abroad and experience contemporary events in the art world of the west. It was the 1960’s and the overwhelming trend in mainstream western art at that time was abstraction of various sorts. In the mean time, military dictatorship had put a firm grip on the country, and this gave our artists a suitable opportunity to escape the controversy of identity, of heritage and to become 'international’ by using an ‘universal’ artistic language like abstraction. Also abstraction was in conformity with the basic concepts of non-configuration in Islam and did not annoy the military rulers in Pakistan. Thus the artists of the 1950’s and 1960’s of the Pakistan period initiated a major shift of attitude in our art which saw the introduction and appreciation of abstraction as a major trend in the visual arts which has remained so to this day and is considered by many to be the ‘ultimate’ and most progressive form of art. The non configuration practiced in our country is a sort of free abstraction inspired by the abstract expressionists of the 1950’s but, more often than not it lacked the philosophical basis and social context, and thus ended somewhere very close to decorativeness. Gradually, it became confined to a selective group of elite connoisseurs and consumers and thus lost contact with the ethos of the more crucial contemporary issues. Nevertheless, it is not to be forgotten that a few of them were markedly gifted and did works, which displayed sensitivity and craftsmanship.

The people’s upsurge of 1968-69 against the military dictatorship changed the situation and artists came forward to depict the people’s aspirations in banners, posters, festoons, caricatures and murals and many of them looked for inspirations to our her­itage of indigenous folk art and culture. There was a return to the figurative and an urge to make comments on political and social situations. Artists played a vital role in the liberation war of 1971 by glorifying our national heritage and identity through propaganda and promotional art.

The post liberation art scene saw a renewed pledge to depict the aspirations of a new nation in multifarious manifestations. There was a great enthusiasm in the art arena and the younger generation started working in diverse materials and idioms. Students went for higher training not only to the western capitals, but also to eastern centres such as India, Japan and China. This brought in variations in style, technique and material. But the situation took a reverse turn shortly and the country came again under long tenures of autocratic rules in various guises. The question of the identity came to the fore again and religious acquaintances were being highlighted. Though a sort of democracy is prevailing at the moment and elections are being held, the communal feeling held and communal sentiments are gaining momentum. As a result, there exists a feeling of a dejection and despair among the artists and many of them, as before, have reverted to abstraction as an escape from the dilemma.

But in the meantime, the unprecedented process made in the field of technology has brought the international art activities of the present times to our doorsteps. Artists are being introduced to the activities of multifar­ious dimensions through exhibitions, films, and printed material, Internet and satellite TV. It is therefore not unusual that the generations of artists of the 1980s and 90s are looking at such matters as tradition, identity and modernity with a more objective and dispassionate viewpoint and are more concerned with matters like language, articulation and expression. They are borrowing from a variety of global sources for inspiration from and are trying to give expression to their ideas through such diverse modes as instal­lation, light, sound and performances. One distinctive feature of the 80s and 90s is that many women have emerged as serious artists and many of them are addressing issues like persecution of women and children, environment, communalism, social discrimination etc. in far more effective idioms than their male counterparts.

However, the choices for a committed artist remain difficult, the restoration of democracy has not succeeded in restraining violence, corruption and terrorism. These affect society as a whole and the individual is increasingly becoming helpless and resigned. The art market however small it is, is being swallowed by the increasingly dominant art dealers and galleries and the saleable artists, who produce mostly abstract, semi abstract and the so called ‘folk’ decorative works, are dominating the consumer market. Newspapers and journals and mainstream critics are also promoting the same. A non-conformist artist has to confront all these and remain practicing in an environment not very congenial for him/her. Nevertheless, a number of young artists are working and are displaying a keen sense of contemporariness and are negotiating issues like identity and tradition with a more objective understanding and are attempting to address more relevant national and international issues like globalisation, consumerism, communalism, feminism, environment and economic and social discrimination.

Our art of the recent times reflect a society in a formative turmoil, its unstable and hesitant characteristics are reflections of a country’s growth through a continuous process of trial and error. A Bangladeshi artist confronts problems and distractions as any other artist of a third world country where his/her identity and relevance of his/her creations is threatened by the burden of western cultural conditioning. In this regard, a close rapport and interaction between the artists and art activists of third world countries could help him/her explore alternative ideas and concepts free from those burdens and preconceptions.

ABUL MONSUR

Abul Monsur is a professor at the Fine Arts Department, Chittagong University, Bangladesh

BETWEEN A POLITICAL SOCIETY AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY (The Intentions and Attitudes of Chinese Artists)

The history of contemporary Chinese art over the last decade reflects the great complexity and vibrancy of a changing society. Especially after the 1990’s this complexity has been visible in the breakthrough being made within traditional art methodology and theory. It is also visible in the broader and more holistic conceptualisation of Chinese artists. The increased contact with both traditional Chinese culture, history and the many different perspectives of western art, exhibitions held by Chinese artists abroad and the general background of a global exchange of art and criticism, has greatly Strengthened the capacity of Chinese artists to criticize and comment realistically on society.

During the seventies and through to China’s Economic reforms and opening to the West Chinese artists focused chiefly on realism. Simultaneously they took Western culture and art as a systematic point of reference. However, during the eighties, this western influence was largely confined to textual creations such as literature and criticism. In the nineties, Chinese artists started exhibiting in the west. This initial contact bought out some of the opinions and prejudices through which the west views Chinese art. Differences between cultural communities and personal identities emerged as-questions for discussion.

Several new directions are visible in Chinese art today. Some works take as their point of departure ideology, Chinese history and culture. Political irony and cynicism were the hallmarks of this style. Some important artists, such as Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun, Liu Wei, Zhang Xianggang commented on reality by mocking it and the self. From the early nineties, China became a consumer society. The changes were sharp and sudden. A mad growth of consumerist attitudes gripped the country as a whole. Artists too were affected.

Other young artists came to Beijing with their dreams of living off their art and settled into a sort of artists’ commune in the outskirts of Yuan Mingyuan or the Old Palace. They were the first to make an attempt to sell their art commercially and live by their art alone. (Before this those who ‘qualified’ as artists were small in number, attached to the artists association and received a regular wage from the government). This group inspired more artists and similar groups starting springing up in all major cities. New and modem artists emerged from amongst these groups. The most spectacular amongst these were ‘action artists’ (live art). They tried to express their understanding of reality by living their concept. Wu Liming, for example, dressed up and acted like a girl, and Zhang Heng used his body as a metaphor, hurting himself to create a work of art.

Apart from this group, several others, especially abroad, took to experimenting with paint, installation art, multi-media and other ideas. In this they tried to rectify some of the curious prejudices regarding Chinese art held by western audiences. The constant appearance of Chinese artists at international forums, haphazard and unstable though it was, soon became a way for intergovernmental bureaucratic exchange and communication on art.

During this period, Chinese art, especially from the mainland, also exhibited a schizophrenic tendency. This meant criticizing and at the same time attempting to appease the powers that be. Some have especially taken the critical stance to extremes.

Using their bodies as art material, injuring themselves, cannibalism, creative pursuits built around the lives of animals. One young artist even committed suicide as an artistic expression. Ai the conceptual level, however, the issues relate to questions of morality, cultural identity, daily life and art, cynicism, knowledge power and ultimately, self identity. And these are questions that affect society as a whole. In the final analysis, Chinese art today exhibits a great vibrancy and capacity to experiment with form and style.

YE YONG QING

Ye Yong Qing is professor at the Sichuan Fine Art Academy, Sichuan. He is an artist and founder member of the UpRiver Loft Artist’s studios in China.

Co - existing Cultural Management

The role of the art institution in society at large dates back to the 1950s when modern art was introduced to the Thai academic system by the Italian sculpture, Corrado Ferroci. Artistic practice developed slowly without an infrastructure since neither the government nor the private sectors helped set it up. There were few art schools, museums or arts’ organizations to serve as a body to support and promote the art awareness in society. Due to the lack of infrastructure set up by the public sector to endorse and promote contemporary art practice in Thailand, it will explore the strategy which artists approach in order to survive in such circumstances. In comparison to our time, the situation remains the same, but the way the younger generation serves their problems are quite different from their seniors. To create a new paradigm to work around the ‘no   and   or - low’ budget situation, here we talk about public organizations with its mission to provide financial support to the arts and culture, as well as the spaces to accommodate major contemporary arts’ exhibitions such as museums, per se. The role of arts organizations in association with the market during the economic growth will be investigated. The rise and fall of commercial galleries during the bubble economy (early 1990s   mid 1990s) and the emergence of alternative paradigms such as the initiation of non profit art spaces and artists’ initiative projects will also be addressed in the following.

If we talk about the modem art in Thai history compared with that of your country, India, it’s quite short. But if we speak about the history of contemporary art, it’s even shorter. Compared to a human life span, we are just teenagers. It started in the late 1980s when the first generation of conceptual artists in Thailand returned home from abroad. Chumpon Apisuk was part of that generation as well as Apinan Poshayananda from Scotland, Kamol Phaosavasdi from USA, Araya Rasjamroensook from Germany and the late Montien Boonma from Paris. They were the first group of artists who worked off the wall and started to raise the questions for traditional ways of art appreciation in Thai modern art history,

The most important institution that helped stimulate such movement was Bhirasri institute of Modem Art (BIMA). Founded in 1973   1988, BIMA had a strong mission to establish an art gallery for the display of Thai art, to support the art and artists from Thailand, to promote the interchange of art between Thailand and other countries, to established a centre where art lovers can meet and exchange ideas, to preserve and protect works of art in Thailand and to support other non political art related projects. Previously the notion of the art in Thailand was quite isolated from society at large. From the mission statement of BIMA, we can see that they did not want to deal with politically related art, even though they were relatively open in the midst of the angst and the strong wind of student uprising movement against the military government in Thailand, the anti Japanese product and the American base in Thailand during Vietnam War in the mid 1970s. During these decades, few art organizations existed, as they were neither public nor private funds for the same. However, some artists’ groups didn’t really work with art institutions because their agenda was beyond the white cube, therefore, they joined the political movement and created politically oriented works, working closely with the students unions. They united with the movement by working in a manner of performance and poster arts. Some artists groups such as UGGABAT led by a profound painter, Vasant Sittikate and Concrete House, led by Chumpon Apisuk still work in this manner.

It seemed that since the 1970s, there were two poles in the art realm, between the mainstream, white cube art oriented, and the politically oriented works which focused more on communicating socio political messages to the general public and to society at large.

During the 1980s, people started to gain better access to the arts given the new economic status created by the newly found status of Thailand as an NICS, (Newly Industrialized Countries). It was the rise of the ‘bubble’ economy and the consequent rise of middle class.

The early 1990s was a golden age for the painters and object-oriented artists. The new patrons of the arts were now the new ‘yuppies’, a shift from the royal family, aristocracy and the bureaucrats. But the good times did not last long. In late 1996, the country encountered a very difficult economical situation, resulting from the excessive borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

I found this period as the most important one for Thai contemporary art history, as it resulted in a huge change creating new paradigms in terms of art and cultural counteractive operation between the mainstream and the alternative, and the establishment versus fledging independent organizations.

Artists galleries and institutions enabled the facilitation of interesting exhibitions, which also attracted great attention from international market. When the art market went down the hill, alternative paradigms emerged. In 1996, a younger generation of artists and administrators returned to Thailand with their degrees and practices in MFA, MA in Arts Administration from Europe, America and Australia, with a totally different and new perspective and approach in terms of curating and organization from the previous generation. The starting point of non-profit spaces like Project 304, About Cafe, About Studio and Tadu Contemporary Art Space made a strong impact on Bangkok contemporary art scene. With their firm mission to create public access to contemporary art they started to break the traditional ways of working by collaborating with other institutions, networking with each other, as well as similar minded institutions abroad. These were the major factors that empowered such organizations to be another gateway for Thai contemporary arts within the international arena.

How to maintain the “I” among ‘them’

According to the friendly and ‘Sabai’ (easy going) nature of the Thais, the country has been quite open to foreigners since 500 hundred years ago. The Thais are good at blending and assimilating other cultures with their own. But when the influx of information and the wave of globalisation swept throughout the world, we were challenged by questions such as ‘who are we?’ ‘Where are we from?’ Are we originally from this region or not? Such issues need answers from artists and curators alike, who had a chance to ‘represent’ their own countries in the international art context. It’s the question of how we will represent ourselves to the ‘others’. Artists from our region encountered complicated problems as we have one foot attached to the past while simultaneously the other foot tries to walk forward. In Thailand, artists do not deny or ignore such distinctions; they are still trying to figure out how to overcome such dilemmas. This is quite a major issue that constantly defies us both artists and art administration alike   to deal with the co existence of cultures: the old and the new.

Exotica Problem

It seems like the public sectors have had an answer to this question already. In order to deal with globalisation, as a nation, the government responded to such issues defensively: by returning directly to the tradition, as if it was an absolute antibiotic, which can instantly protect the nation from the contemporary germ. There are several reasons for the public sector’s ‘use of such notion/ images to grasp the attention of the international media and audience. It was an easy way out for them to play with the preconceived notion of such audience. Among the intellectuals, leading social critics and thinkers responded to such issues by returning to our origins and acclaiming indigenous knowledge. For the arts community, conceptual artists worked with the Buddhist theory, used local material and created installations based on original contexts. Some of them took ‘excerpts’ of our everyday life, and represented them in aesthetic contexts in foreign countries. No matter how hard they tied to avoid a notion of exoticism, Thai artists continue to struggle in the transcendence of this idea.

I would like to discuss our current situation of Thai contemporary art in association with the international and local context. How has Thailand had an especially active exchange with western art paradigms? How have Thai artists manage the co-existence of their traditional and contemporary culture both conceptually and practically?

Viewing the works of Late Montien Boonma and his contemporaries, with reference to the original context and foundation of their works, one can examine though these examples how they incorporated traditional and local elements into their contemporary art practice.

The most interesting questions for both artists and curators alike today is how to deal with different audiences from different contexts. How are we going to create spaces fro various kinds of audiences from different backgrounds to access and experience our works? Are the works that we are going to present, and/or represent universal enough to share such kind of ‘universal language’ to audiences? If you were working in a very individualistic manner, how would it be accessible to the other people? This is the questing that I always asked Montien, when he flew around the globe. It seemed like he was able to go beyond that kind of stupid remark that I made because his works were spiritual that they touched all audiences alike. Even though his works are based on his own personal experience that we, as human beings can share.

Some artists work with the reinterpretation of the local ideas. eg. proverbs and sayings, contextualising them in contemporary ways of living. An example of such kind of work would be, for example Kamol Phaoavasdi. Working with the concept of dilemma, ‘Nee Sua Pa jorake’, or ‘escaping the tiger and facing the crocodile’ is a Thai saying which Kamol translated quite straight- forwardly in his installation at Project 304. He collaborated with a fortune-teller and let the audience visit her, in case they needed an emotional consultant. His works dealt with how Asian people in general deal with their problems and frustrations in their lives.

Many young artists in Thailand work with this approach. Instead of creating the objects, they provide the process, or fragment of everyday experience in their own life or surroundings for an International audience. For example, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Navin Rawanchaikul, and Surasi Kusolwong. The work by all three of them blurs art with the  context of everyday living, exploring this concept in their unique ways.

Rirkrit is interested in sharing the Thai culture and offered food (Phad Thai) at the American and European museums to the audience. A performance in itself, he left the ‘scene’ as an ‘installation’. Navin Rawanchaikul works with the Tuk Tuk and Taxi projects on the streets of Bangkok, Vienna, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Sydney, and New York to name a few. His interest is in bring­ing the art into the public space, creating interventions with the audience, whether they will realize its art or not.

Surasi Kusolwong explores various kinds of traditional cultural experiences: he works with masseuses, creating a market and so on. He started his ‘free for all’ project with the group of UGGABAT, who have worked with a deserted area in Bangkok to do a one-night guerilla art event The project was developed further in the exhibition ‘cities on the move’ and travelled around the world.

Two younger generations of Thai artists who work mainly with media, video and film are Michael Shaowanasai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Both of them have played with the idea of representation of Thai culture in the International mainstream contexts. Michael works with gay issues in rela­tionship to the tourist industry in Thailand. It was portrayed in his video project, Iron pussy which he directed and a played a double lead role in the work. Michael’s satirical works questioned the commodity of exoticism, which was imposed by the Tourism national agency in attempting to survive the economic crisis of the 90s.

To invent an alternative approach to mainstream film industry, Apichatpong Weerasethakul found his personal cinematic language to present his works to the national and international audience. Starting from the architectural and experimental film making, he investigated the influence of the media in everyday life in the rural area of Thailand. In contrast, his ‘anti-star’ oriented works led him to use ordinary people as lead actors in these films. This also served as a counterpoint for rural people to have a chance to play in his film, which was for the more urban and international audiences. This process could be a good illustration of how local artists had been quite actively involved in the international art world. It’s a game: part of a role-play.

GRIDTHIYA GAWEEWONG

Gridthiya Gaweewong is a freelance curator based in Chiangmai and Bangkok ,Thailand

SITES OF ART: OTHER SITES, OTHER LOCATIONS

Scores of women draw auspicious alpanas, rangolis or kolams on their doorsteps or courtyards with wet or dry pigments on festive occasions. A Tamilian housewife may draw it every morning throughout the year, often with rice powder trickled through gaps of her fist in dual or triple lines whether she is in a village or an apartment in a city. The magical motifs get effaced during the day, the bits of rice carried home by an army of ants to make room for a new pattern to emerge the next day. White motifs on earth red cow dung clay ground: the bold mandanas and okalis in Rajasthan and Gujarat respectively cover floors and walls, often flowing over village centres. The massive floral forms as in the case of the okali are often accompanied by images of parrots and peacocks, fantasy tigers, Radha and Krishna punctuated by bicycles, aeroplanes and alarm clocks in calligraphic strokes made by full hand or elbow movements. Elsewhere, on the border regions of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, a sacred enclosure of equestrian lord Pithoro in procession painted with rudimentary brushes and stencils collectively by men is a tribal cosmograph that transforms the drab tribal hut into a shimmering site. Till recently, a newlywed couple would consummate marriage in a painted kohbar (bridal chamber) in Mithila. Images are made to accompany the living from birth to death. Making marks or scribbling notations on every available surface is a sub continental pleasure and pastime. A bride entering her new home may print her hands on the entrance.

Door jambs of many a middle class home carry calligraphic invocations- labh/shubh, aum 786 and ‘welcome’. Graffiti alongside posters figure on every conceivable surface- public toilets or city walls. Empty space is inauspicious: scribbles, marks or images secure the invisible presence of spirits once erased and are invoked over and over again. Ephemeral like toys designed to be broken in play fro a remaking, the inscribed images last anywhere between a few hours to a year to be re-inscribed as per a seasonal cycle or ritual calendar. The physicality of the object is secondary to the process of making: the image remains alive in a regenerative continuum, in an improvisatory renewal. Like the idols of Durga and Ganesh or floats of Taziya are immersed in lakes or rivers or effigies of Ravana and his companions consigned to flames at the end of the festival of Dussera, the painted scrolls of Pabuji and Devnarayan are ritually submerged in water once worn out. Repainting of murals and restoration of shrines (jimmoddhar) is a traditional practice and continues at some of the pilgrimage sites on a regular basis.

As the sacred savours the worldly, the worldly appropriates the sacred in its own schemes with élan. Seething with unbridled, often carnal sensuality the sites of the bazaar infect the unguarded viewer-voyeur with contagious fantasies. Think of the brazen erotica of the plaster and plastic effigies: the sumptuously modelled and draped fetishes of desire on the pavements and in vending stalls. Consider the boon-granting deities and saints printed in blazing hues erupting from street corner sites, or the repeated coats of garish enamel paint on medieval monuments. The going tenor of the image and the surrounding construct of these sites is highly pitched, rhythm pulsating and effect usually volatile- where all powers of visual [play are brought into action. In this theatre of the street there is a constant commerce between the sacred and the profane, especially during festivals. Theatrical devices, often high-tech tricks, acrobatics of a circus, enactments of gory violence and tear-jerking sentiments of current potboilers may shock and entertain simultaneously. Cloned visages of forts and palaces and ‘foreign’ tourist spots with son et lumiere and music to match, the most incongruous and absurd may be made palatable to its audience at gala receptions and parties. During the days of the famed blockbuster ‘Sholay’, arch-villain Gabbar’s blood-curdling monologue was enjoyed at wedding feasts! The most extraordinary of these are the Durga Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi pandals, which include massive audio-visual installations of currently sensational items complete with models of the Skylab, the Titanic or the depictions of the Kargil war. It is more than likely that the next set of pandals will include the WTC towers and Osama Bin Laden.

The question that arises out of this brief survey is: who are the –makers and users of these images? Pupul Jayakar spoke of the artisan community of the subcontinent being larger than the population of Australia. This estimate was restricted mainly to the rural-tribal sectors: the urban sector being too complex fro a demographic estimate. She also talked about the domestic craft embellishments solely conducted by women in a mother-daughter tradition. The mandanas, okalis, embroideries and appliqués, with their varieties and versions prevalent in most parts of the subcontinent are basically self consumptive- the makers and users being the same or within the same group. These could be euphemistically described as scripts of unlettered women. Traditionally, the artisan community, generally male dominated was drawn from the working class fold of the shudra vama. Being outside the circuit of dominant social groups, women in that sense belong to the same common space. Self trained or trained through guilds and workshops as apprentices or through family and caste trade traditions, the artisans and crafts persons comprising of professionals and apprentices make an enormous army of workers that may run into millions. They remain generally anonymous and invisible except to those who commission them. They are viewed hardly differently from other workers: in the village, their work is regarded as part of the upkeep of the environment they belong to like carpentry, smithy or tailoring. This may apply to the maker of a Taziya, a plaster Ganesh or a mega hoarding or else to a painter of a signboard on a shanty shop, name of the owner on an umbrella or the number plate of an auto rickshaw. These professions are peopled by trade communities who specialize in particular techniques but often work across regional and religious divides. The makers of dussera effigies and kites are known to be Muslim crafts persons from Uttar Pradesh.

The kite makers go to Gujarat prior to Makar Sankranti where there is a huge demand for their skills.

Compared to the un-organised sectors, the urban modem site of art functions in a different cultural territory. With an organized system of communication, commerce and values, it has assumed the decisive role of defining roles of other sites   within its own paradigms. Each within their own space, the sites operate at different frequencies. In the absence of a channel of translation, their respective concerns often remain unintelligible or unimportant to the other. Working within a radius of twenty kilometres, an artist working in the Garhi studios, (established by the national academy of art), a hoarding painter in Chandni Chowk and a women making sanjhi on the outskirts of Delhi may seem to function on different planets, so to say.

The self designated site of modern art is primarily a product of an organized system of formal education with a self conscious cultivation of ethics and aesthetics, basically geared to creating lasting forms to be conserved and displayed in private and public collections. Born of comparable circumstances, the conflict of cultures triggered by the consolidation of colonial power during the middle of the nineteenth century, it shared with the emergent culture of the English language (which eventually formed it basic vocabulary and core audience), legacies of a liberal, rational, ‘secular’/non sectarian outlook and ‘westernised’ orientation. The early art schools were established to introduce an institutionalised form of education to replace the region or community base system of individualized apprenticeship in guild or a workshop. This system rooted in language constructs remained prevalent in a slightly different way in music and dance in the form of guru-shisyha parampara. Considering art as an aspect of technology (i.e. as the development of replicable skills) brought in a standardized form of education, like textbooks in liberal arts, designed to be reproduced on a pan-Indian scale.

The territorial boundaries of the various sites of visual culture remained somewhat intact from nineteenth century through the years of independence. The art school continued to carry the old agenda of an a-political, non-sectarian orientation and outlook; albeit reconfiguring as per the changing moulds of cultural policies during the Nehru and Indira Gandhi eras. Whereas life outside its precincts was getting intensely politicised, and consumerism and the communal divide were gathering momentum especially during the seventies and eighties. Under modernist compulsions language of art remained a supreme criterion. Little of what was going on outside influenced the categories and criteria of painting or sculpture. The trauma of partition passed by without much response. Modernism would deem themes of religious nature retrogressive. There was little accommodation of the regional in the scheme. The community of art school artists lived a life of split orientation. Life and art often remained somewhat isolated: an art student, or artist learnt constantly if somewhat imperceptibly and perhaps unconsciously, to shift cultural gears all the time, transacting but rarely translating the meaning of one to make sense of it in the other. For him or her, religious practice in the family, of politics on the street (as also the visual cultures of the village or town he or she belonged to) remained territories to be closed on entering the art school citadel. Even if inspirational, the visual culture of the village or town an artist came from had to be worked into modernist conventions. Linguistic divides thus kept this site of art further isolated from other sites of visual culture. In the middle class perception ‘modem art’ remained an amusing aberration with an incomprehensible visual (and verbal) language. Carrying associations of the culture of English language it is still often resented.

Till the eighties, for the urban modem artist however, this has mattered little. Issues, if any that caused concern were of moral rather than of religious or political nature. But for the expulsion of F. N. Souza from the art school for painting a nude self-portrait or litigation about obscenity in the case of a painting by Akbar Padamsee in the late fifties, controversies and conflicts if any, hardly affected public psyche. In fact, the existence of this site of art mattered little to the general populace or media. The community of artists as a tiny minority had little or no impact in the larger public spheres. Far more explicit portrayals of transgressive erotica than Souza and Padamsee’s came to be displayed in private and public galleries and failed to arouse moral indignation or public protest until the beginning of the eighties. But the situation has changed rapidly in the subsequent decades. The policy of economic liberalization initiated by the Government of India in the eighties has brought about an unusual buoyancy of the domestic market for modern art followed by the entry of international auction houses. These aroused media interest and a middle class curiosity about ‘modern art’ and the new phenomenon of a higher price structure. The period also witnessed the rise of fundamentalist forces and majoritarianism in the political arena.

For the emergent fundamentalist forces, the perception of the sacrilege has served to be an effective weapon for political mileage. While the sense of the sacred may arouse concern, what is seen as its opposite may invite curse, wrath and even doom. Until recently, communities seemed to guard the invisible boundaries between their respective religious practices with an undefined yet clear sense of the sacred; or what could otherwise be understood as sacrilege. The political scenario of the eighties seemed to have unleashed its destructive potential, which culminated in the demolition of the sixteenth century Babri Masjid in 1992. Until then, to conduct oneself in front of the sacred, no matter to which community or culture it belonged was part of civic behaviour. One knew that a book was scripture, a sculpture a deity, a site a shrine, from textbooks and street ethics. The potential for violation discovered in the notion of sacrilege affected popular psyche and bred invisible fears. The community of artists grown up on the symbolic secularism of the Nehru era was rudely shaken by the turn of events in the last two decades.

It would not be exaggeration to say that no other Indian artist has invited and risked a direct dialogue with the majority middle class culture as has M F Husain: from portrayals of Indira Gandhi as goddess Durga during the years of Emergency and besotted paeans celebrating film star Madhuri Dixit. He has also drawn from religious themes from various traditions, chiefly from the Hindu pantheon. His upfront media hyped image has given him the status of a star. It is practically through him that the middle class recognises the presence of modem art. Husain’s example shows the perils of carrying the freedom of transgressive exercises of modem art into the tricky terrain of the majoritarian sites of culture. His public performance of painting and effacing images of goddesses – invoking the ritual immersion of effigies mentioned earlier invited criticism even from amongst his fellow artists. They seemed to question whether he would repeat the performance using scared images of the religion to which he belonged. The broadly ‘secular’ community of artists was shocked to witness the artist being identified by his religion for the first time. Later, assaults came in the form of an allegation of his having painted goddess Saraswati in the nude (albeit in a drawing made twenty years ago) and subsequent burning of his pictures in an exhibition in Ahmedabad, litigations of blasphemy and worse, for inciting communal violence. There was a general outcry against licentious use of the freedom of expression. Two more events have marked the new code of moral censorship in modern urban art. The closing down of rooms containing erotic paintings by Bhupen Khakhar from an exhibition of Dutch and Indian artists and removal of an allegedly controversial depiction of a ‘national emblem’ (Asokan column) in the painting of Surendran Nair. These instances bring to the fore an urgency to inquiry about the interpretations of the traditions and cultures of collective heritage being considered a proprietary right of a community or the state.

This points not only to the polarization of the sites of art and of culture of the bazaar but also to the politics of the nationalism, and the interface of the ‘secular’ and ‘communal’. It also focuses upon issues of the limits of transgression. More importantly and dangerously it also seems to hold a trigger to clash between minority and majority cultures arising from a majoritarian rhetoric. That trangressions are a staple ingestion of these can turn a benign Ganesha or a benevolent Rama into fiery warriors a la Rambo or Braveheart. Articulated in the language of the majority, these transgressions acquire a legitimacy: the rest must learn to conform or quit. Never has the urban modern site of art encountered a more challenging adversary to its concerns than it faces today. The challenges hold portents and promises of unpredictable nature.

(Abridged)

GULAMMOHAMED SHEIKH, INDIA

South Asian Dialogue -Chairperson’s address for session II of the public forum on November 18, 2001

Chairperson’s address for session II of the public forum on November 18, 2001

In this session two of India’s closest neighbours, China and Bangladesh are represented. I am delighted to welcome Ye Yong King, anskrit g artist who also teaches at the Szezuan Fine Art Institute, He is accompanied by Prof. Sun Min a scholar of contemporary art based in Canton. Our other distinguished speakers are Prof. Abul Mansur of the Fine Arts Department, Chittagong University and Professor Gulammohammed Sheikh, who was Professor of Painting at MS University Baroda, and is an eminent anskrit g artist.

This is a significant conclave. The speakers here represent more than a third of humanity and are meeting possibly for the first time under the shared commitment to contemporary art.

I want to examine three aspects of the relationship quite briefly, the ancient, which is the bedrock of our relationship, the relations of the colonial Orientalist period and the modern.

Ancient Indian and Chinese contacts as we know were motivated by politics religion and trade. Early contacts were rich. The Kushanas sent an embassy to the Chinese court in AD 230. There is the well-documented life of the Buddhist scholar Kumarajiva who went to China in 383 AD. And lived there for 30 years till 412 AD, interpreted Mahayana philosophy and translated more than 100 Sanskrit texts. It is believed that Kumarajiva achieved this feat because he had the support of the largest ever known team of state sponsored translators. Chinese emperors for the next 5 or 6 hundred years would set up boards of translators of Sanskrit texts which included all aspects of religion, science and medicine. Between India and China there was a free flow of Buddhist monks who went back and forth just as there was an exchange of embassies and monks between China and Ceylon. Fa Hien left extensive accounts of the travels, which include drawings of images he saw at Tamralipti   perhaps among the first recorded artistic exchanges between China and India. There was also of course the massive commissioning of Buddhist monastries sculptures and translated scriptures. Chinese penetration in the subcontinent was quite deep. During the Chola period, an embassy was sent to the court of the Song dynasty. The Pallava king Parameswara II who built the Kailashnatha temple at Kanchi and the shore temple at Mahabalipuram dedicated a temple to the Chinese emperor in the 8th century. From roughly the 4th century onwards this relationship of intimate contact between India and China flourished, until it abruptly terminated in the 11t h century.

Perhaps references to the past are relevant only because they presage the expectations of the 20th century. Such exchanges influenced the ethics and philosophies and the visual culture and aesthetics of our countries. But if the first view of India as a spiritual fount had been exhausted by the 11th century, a second more contentious relationship grew under the colonial period and the full flowering of Orientalism. Asian views of each other’s cultures now came with western filters. Edward Said has said that the four elements of 18th century Orientalism were expansion, historical confrontation, sympathy and classification, If we look at one or two instances of this sympathy and classification, and how they reflected on intra Asian relations. He writes of how the west viewed itself as upholding ideals of democracy justice fair play in contrast to the Orient which was perceived as exotic, lying, hierarchical, treacherous and so on, prejudices which were passed on through the Macaulayan system of education.

Said writes that 19th century orientalists made the distinction between the good Orient and the bad Orient. I quote “the good Orient was invariably a classical period somewhere in a long gone India, whereas the bad Orient lingered in present day Asia, parts of North Africa, and Islam everywhere.” The Orientalist saw himself as saving the Orient from the obscurantism of the past and restoring him to the present. It was this present of course which by the beginning of the 20th century becomes highly contentious. India of the Shakuntala and the Upanishads was acceptable, but not its assertions for modernity.

Asian contact meanwhile grew a little, Chinese brocade in Gujarat and Chinese glass paintings of Indian themes were imported and hugely popular in the 18th century. Then Swami Vivekananda and in the area of the arts Abanindranath Tagore committed themselves to an Asian ideal. Abanindranath had worked closely with the Japanese artist Okakura who believed that Japanese culture was the outcome of Indian spirituality and Chinese learning. Abanindranath who looked to the east for materials and sources wrote in the publication Bharati “we need to discuss Asiatic art. In other words, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive study of the traditions stretching from Turkey to Japan, from the Northern Tartar kingdoms of China at one end to the southern ocean on the other.”

These elements enter Indian art with the Bengal school and then are taken nearly 40 years later by Zainul Abedin to Bangladesh where Abedin founds the Government Institute of Art. It is now known as the Institute of fine art, and becomes the foun­tain head of the contemporary art movement in Bangladesh.
But in the present context it is true that the contentious period of the last fifty years have made artistic contact a casualty. Artists from our countries are more likely to meet in the Asia Pacific Triennale, in New York or Fukuoka than in each others countries. Official contact has been very thin.

As you know, art exchange in India is mediated through the Dept of Culture and its nodal agency the National Gallery of Modem Art. Of all the exhibitions sent abroad by the NGMA from 1995 to 2001, one went to Dhaka for the Festival of India in Bangladesh and one went to Beijing and three more to other Asian countries. If we consider the incoming exhibitions from 1989, of the 76 incoming exhibitions, again only one each from Bangladesh and China, and 5 from Korea and Japan   again fuelled by the active interest of the Japan Foundation. So in a 12-year period, art received at the official level from Asian countries is less than 10%. If we look at the larger picture of SAARC, according to a source in the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, due to the political instability in the region 80% is postponed and 50% is cancelled.

Of course question arise. If we are neighbours do we automatically engage in artistic and cultural exchange? Because of a history of regional strife, are we witnessing cultural resistance? In seeking western markets for art practice area we are laying to rest the contestations of 18th & 19th century colonization, but delaying engaging with the hegemonies of 20th century conflict in our neighbourhood? In short are we an old new world given to resting on, the links of the past and looking to the west as the positive ‘other’.

I think it is important now to emphasize points of commonality, which are several. The artists of our countries bring together many kinds of art practice of the traditional and the contemporary. Artists work with new media as easily as Chinese fine brush painting as Kalighat pats. We have developed our own kinds of modernisms, like the Political Pop and Cynical Realism of China, as well as the abstraction and analytical realism of Bangladesh, which may have parallels with other in the Asian region.

As developing countries our artists have com­mon areas of interest reflect on the destruction and the building of Beijing as much as Bombay or Dacca.They also seek recognition and support from their governments who may support Kathakali and Chinese opera, but will not create pavilions for Chinese or Indian or Bangladeshi art at the Venice biennale. With a large community of Diaspora artists and galleries, they also face the question of authentic aft practice, like the question of banana Chinese artist who showed at Venice in 1999. The question being asked was that as Diaspora artists are they Chinese on the outside but white inside, or else not sufficiently authentic for the western world.

Finally even in the post modern the mass media has a broadly orientalist point of view and given us innumerable, images of Indian cult leaders and taxi drivers, Chinese kung fu fighters and Bangladeshi cooks which only serve to affirm the stereotype.

These are issues we share and perhaps contest.

GAYATRI SINHA

(Gayatri Sinha is an independent art critic and curator based in New Delhi.)

Reference:
Said Edward  Orientalism, New York, Pantheon Books, 1978.
The World of Budd m ed. by Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich Thames and Hudson, 1984

THE MOMENTS OF IMPACT: The art of ‘90’s trend’ in Sri Lanka

The last decade of the 20th century saw the emergence of a diverse and multi­faceted sophistication in the Colombo centred visual art culture in Sri Lanka. A whole generation of artists equipped with a range of new ideas and concepts on art, themes for artistic investigation, and especially with an understanding of the idea of the artist as a political individual has come to dominate the art scene in Colombo. What is most interesting to note here is that a majority of the younger animators of this movement are a group of young men and women who were forced to spend their teenage years in a highly chaotic social and political environment in their rural villages and home towns. This paper intends to explore the social and political meanings, at a somewhat general level, of this new sophistication in art that gathered momentum in the mid 1990’s in Sri Lanka, which is referred to here as ‘90’s trend’.

The ‘90’s Trend’: a Definition

The aspect that would recognizably describe the 90’s trend is its conscious efforts to define art as an expression of ‘now’ and ‘right here’; art and art making process as an expression of being contemporary. In other words, a majority of the contemporary artists show a common conviction in their artistic efforts by necessarily placing themselves and their creative energies within the ‘current cultural moment’ and in its immediate, and less frequently, in distant antecedents. This necessity to be in the ‘current cultural moment’ states a common idea, consciously or unconsciously held by most of the contemporary artists; that is the refusal of a metaphysical narrative that couches a wish to be universal in a theological and trans cultural sense. This, however, suggests neither a resistance to internationalist modes nor a cultivation of a parochial sense of identity. What it marks is the formation of a collective identity of circumvallation and valorisation in a malevolent social context.

This conceptual change in approach to art has developed in a background that has been disquieted and punctured by political violence on the one hand and by rapid and mostly undisciplined economic increases gone amuck on the other. The art that has developed in this background records, reflects and recounts the sentiments and sensations of the violence and frustrations of the ‘democratic politics’ of a post colonial society and the tensions and passion of an under developed consumer society. In the hands of most of the contemporary Sri Lankan artists, art forms a conscious intervention into the very moment of living; to the dialectics of living in a society that perpetuates violence in every possible form at every possible level, as if it is the ‘logic of democratic politics’. Said in other words, the art of the 90’s is an issue driven art and an engagement with issues that are directly concerned with ‘living reality’. In general the art of the 90’s has become the visual manifestations of the social and political milieu of the urban and rural middle class of Sri Lanka.

Investigation of the ‘Self’

Contemporary artists and their works can be categorized in terms of their subject matter. It is within these categories that one can see the broad diversity that speaks for a range of complex and subtle psychological dispositions at work. Currently the most prevalent subject matter among the contemporary Sri Lankan artists is the investigation of ‘self’ and the frustration of the individual in the face of organized political crimes. This investigation of ‘self’ is also carried out in other spheres, such as in relation to certain traditional and Victorian ideas held by the society at large on ‘sex’, ‘being youth’, and ‘women’. One of the interesting things that happen here is the alignment of personal pains with those of the society, and thus the artist portrays himself/ herself as the suffering individual on behalf of others or the society implying a self inflicted vicarious punishment. Consequently, this is an art that shows subtle, but strong signs of autobiographical narratives. These autobiographical narratives usually hold or tell us of a character that is desolate and dismal, yet sanguine or of a character that is struggling with some sort of bondage; captivity and a perplexity whose location and position is not yet defined, but being defined. This broad generalization of the works of contemporary artists in relation to their subject matter can embrace most artists who had exhibitions during the past decade and a half in Colombo.

The works of Pradeep Chandrasiri, Pushpakumara Koralegedara, Sujith Rathnayake, Sarath Kumarasiri, Anoli Perera, T.P.G. Amarajeewa, and my own work shows this trait of constructing biographies as an artistic expression in its most evident form. According to Pradeep, Pushpakumara, and also Sujith, Sarath and several others, making a work of art is the surest and most immediate way of registering the sentiments and sensations of an individual who is made frustrated and dismal in the face of political or personal adversities. The painting or the sculpture is the vehicle for this activity of registering or recording the pain and ‘history’, before it gets normalized and de radicalised­. Perhaps, because of this, their works carry signs of immediacy and indeterminacy. One can propose that their works present them­selves as visual representations of a carefully ordered chaos and perplexity. While the work of Pradeep, Pushpakurnara, and Anoli are clear examples for chaos set into ‘Order, some of Sujith Rathnayake’s works are excellent examples for perplexity presented as a rational consciousness.

We can also suggest that most of the works of this category are indicative of indi­viduals living with memories of violence, dis­possession and despair. However, as men­tioned above it is not merely remembering violence but a struggle to live above that. A struggle that allows them to surmount despair and gain subsistence in the very society that undesired their likes so much. It is probably by way of this mechanism that a need for an autobiographical approach to art has emerged amongst them. The important subtext of this observation is that they, most of the contemporary young artists, portray themselves as if they were engaged in a Narcissistic injury, a process of self-formation. While the works of Chandragupta Thenuwara, and Mohanned Carder can also be placed within this category, they also stand apart from the rest, as their works don’t betray autobiographical moods as much as the others do. Thenuwara’s ‘Barrelism’ and Carder’s ‘Night Landscapes’ are among the most poignant visual statements of frustration and despair that the contemporary visual arts have made in the recent past.

The City as Artistic Expression

The other most investigated area is the urban environment or the city, and the consumer culture. Up until the emergence of the 90’s trend, the city and city life and behaviours related to urbanism were not valued as points of departure for artistic explorations. Urbanism had been equated with the ‘a aesthetical’. The city was seen as a barren land with no ‘beauty’ or ‘real life’ where an artificial hodgepodge of humans and buildings had occurred. This, I would suggest was a continuation of the early modernist discourse in art, which had positioned the ideas of ‘beauty’ out side of the ‘present’, but within the bucolic and the pastoral pasts; amongst the ‘primitives’. Towards the end of the 1990’s, a very obvious shift in attitude towards the city began to appear in Sri Lankan visual arts.

A few artists can be seen working with the theme of the city, and urban life. Some have been attracted to the residues of the urban and consumer culture, making art works that focus both on the strange beauty and the evasive nature of urban culture. Works of Anuradha Henakaarachchi, Bandu Manamperi Upul Chamila Bandara, and a few others can be considered in this category.

Conclusion

These two broad general categories are not discrete and distinct from each other; their borders seem to merge strangely in the works of many artists. This merging can be seen in Chandragupta Tenuwara’s ‘Barrelism’, or in Sarath Kumarasiri’s terracotta ‘Trousers’. There are also other thematic trends as can be seen in the works of Chandana Wasanta, Manjula Priyadarshana, Chaminda Garnage, Pala Potupitiya, and Anura Baragamaarachchi. However, in general what is very clearly visible in the works of the 90’s trend is that hey show an artistic personality that has been evolved and matured with a commitment to the understanding of the social and the political meanings of the works produced and the relationship and the responsibility of the artist to those meanings. In short, the 90’s trend marks the ’loss of innocence’ in art making in Sri Lanka. The 90’s trend has made it difficult to be reflecting in the practice of art making.

JAGATH WEERASINGHE

Jagath Weerasinghe is an artist and an associate professor of Archaeology based in Sri Lanka

i.Jagath Weerasinghe, No Glory, Sarath kumarasiri Recent Works at Heritage Gallery, Exhibition leaflet essay, 1998

ii.Jagath Weerasinghe, made in IAS – Contribution of the Institute of Aesthetic Studies to the art of the 1990’s Exhibition catalogue, 2000

iii.There are several younger artists, such as Yamuna Kumari Munasinghe, Kusal Nanadana Gunasekara, T. Pushpakumara and a few others who can be placed within this category

iv.Even though I am grouping Anoli Peerera along with artists like Pradeep, Pushpakumara, Sarath Kumarasiri or Sujith, she comes from a social background that is totally different from the others. Her background is that of the urban middle or upper middle class, whose world was not much affected by the political calamities of late 1980’s. On the contrary the other are coming from a social background that was severely devastated by the brutal politics of the late 80s and early 90s. In fact most of the artists who are making their presence felt in the contemporary art scene have at some point in their lives been subjected to severe violent situation of human right abuse and threat. Some of them have spent pro longed periods in detention camps, which were almost equivalent to ‘death camps’ during that period. She also differs from them in terms of composing a painting. As was the case with her paintings of the ‘my narratives’ exhibition, the pictorial logic was constructed in an exceedingly modernist grammar that idealised the solemnity and the carefully considered structure of high modernism, though she handled a very ‘post-modern’ issue.

v.Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of The Self, International Universities Press, New York, p. 551, 1971.

vi.I have shamelessly borrowed this frame from the archaeologist David Clark. See D.L. Clarke, ‘Archaeology: the loss of innocence’ in antiquity 47, 6-18, 1973

‘WE SINFUL WOMEN’ - The Story of Pakistani Women Artists

Surveying the last fifty years of Women’s activity in the visual arts in Pakistan, one becomes aware of two distinct places. The first two and a half decades constitute a period in which women pioneered and widened the discipline of art education. In the newly founded state of Pakistan, art was hardly distinguished from craft at the official level, and the status of painting in the public domain was yet to be determined. Being a peripheral activity at that stage, it could safely be left to women.

The vice chancellor of the Punjab University was only articulating the pervasive assumption on the objective of fine art teaching   that the aim was to train women to be ‘artistic’, not ‘artists’ when the department was reserved exclusively for women in 1940. Art education would ‘enhance the natural proclivities of women’, making them better ‘home decorators’, and nature the finer sensibilities expected of mothers, wives, and daughters.

Women could be indulged in their pursuit of art as a harmless bit of freedom, which was to be an ornamental, non-competitive, non-threatening occupation. The setting up of a university department solely for women implied a covert discrimination against both women and art, which becomes clear only in hindsight.

It was with the passage of time that what had begun as a safe educational pastime for middle class women became a vehicle for communication and expression in the public domain, and paved the way of personal and cultural insurrections. In this phase after partition, women art educators laid the foundations for the teaching of art all over the Pakistan, in schools, colleges, and universities. It is therefore surprising that apart from well-known exceptions, they were noticeably absent as practitioners. The discourse art therefore lay with male artists, either traditionalists and romantics like Chughtai, Allah Bukhsh and Zainul Abedin, or the emerging modernists like Shakir Ali.

As art educationists, women did not question the content of what they required teach. The’ Indian’ art school curriculum tem had been established all over the continent by the British in the 19th Century and has continued to be followed with minor changes.

The curriculum at the Punjab University Fine Arts Department adhered to the dominant colonial academic tradition, and replicated elsewhere as well. Influences from the Calcutta school and Shantiniketan had filtered into Lahore classrooms via Chughtai’s popularity and Anna Molka Ahmed’s well-meaning ambitions to make the teaching art more ‘Pakistani’. These endeavours remained mainly at a theoretical level; involving lecture courses in art history, with occasional demonstrations of the Bengali’s wash painting techniques. The main business the teaching of painting reiterated the established western genres of landscapes, still life, and portraiture, in the prescribed manner.

Outside the classrooms artistic concerns were being expressed somewhat differently. Artists of the Lahore Art circle   A.J. Shemza, Moyene Najmi, and Ahmed Pervaiz hotly debated formalist issues, their painting echoing cubist models of the ‘International Style’.

Not surprisingly, women were excluded from this discourse, which was restricted to the  ‘practitioners’ of art, rather than the ‘teachers’. Teaching came to be viewed as a lesser function, reinforcing the notion of artists as male trailblazers. The word ‘artist” therefore was hardly gender neutral.

An artist of those times, Zubaida Agha resisted the label ‘women artist’, aware of the dangers of being relegated to the ‘reservation’ that the label implied. She remembered the time when her achievements were ‘contained’ in the cultural ghetto marked out for women. In the fifties for her to be recognized as an artist implied a transgression of the defined female role to be seen as the ‘male’ women. She believed the term ‘woman artist’ to be patronizing epithet.

The better-known artist of the fifties and sixties   Shezma, Ahmed Pervaiz, Murtaza Bashir, and Sadeqain   were unconventional in their lifestyles, strengthening the popular belief which linked artistic creation with bohemian behaviour. For serious female aspi­rants to the title ‘artist’, access was also blocked by the apparent necessity for defy­ing norms and conventions, a problematic proposition for the most.

The context in which art making was presented in Pakistan, as everywhere else, was inevitably tied up with its creators. It is not surprising that women involved in the teaching of art became cautious, almost apologetic, when it came to art practice and presentation. The pluralistic realities of the social order- ­husbands, children, in laws, domestic servants left little room for creative manoeuvres. Women could be indulgent to themselves as academicians of the art world, but as creators they would have to redefine the Production framework. A decade later, the Political and social imperatives drove women to do just that.

The deaths of both Shakir Ali and A.R. Hightail in 1975 closed the early chapters in the traditionalist /modernist debate. The social upheavals of the Bhutto years rephrased populist views on art Official patronage for the Regional Park and folk music, art, literature and other forms of cultural expressions, became an alternative potent source of inspiration. Women, having the primary reservoirs and transmitters of folklore and folk art historically, emerged on the national scene as important participants in the cultural landscape. Women artists were poised to move into the second phase of their development.

By the time the military coup of 1977 took place, women were responsible for almost the entire activity of art education in Pakistan. The teaching of art had given them a niche in the art world; it had allowed them to be ‘artistic’, and to promote art as a valid, commendable activity.

In order to comprehend the impact of General Zia ul Haq’s government on art in general, and women artists in particular, one has to look at the cultural climate that preceded it.

During the People’s Party government of Z.A. Bhutto, the extent of private and public art patronage ensured the social acceptability of art and artists as respected and worthy members of the society. Artists could be counted upon to reinforce the State’s image of itself and the identity of the people that resided within it. For the post 1977 military regime, to take on the role of the patron meant a modification of that image and a restructuring of that identity. Literature, being by far the most influential and widely identified vehicle for cultural communication, was the first to be carefully monitored by the regime, as was the mass media. The electronic media was censored strictly, and acceptable codes of dress, behaviour and language were quickly imposed. Dance was eliminated entirely from public view. As attention turned to the fine arts, as certain problems presented themselves.

Figurative painting and sculpture, although not forbidden, were frowned upon except where they employed images of acceptable political power, as of the ‘Father of the Nation’ or the President. As part of the new cultural construct, it became necessary to encourage fresh pictorial content in art, since the regime presented itself as a progressive conduit to the free world engaged in the Afghan war.

Calligraphy and the genre of landscape painting were swiftly appropriated as being suitable for several reasons. Both genres evoked a sense national pride, and a wider ‘Islamic’ identity. The celebration of ‘land’   rural, fertile, and undisturbed posed no challenge to the carefully maintained facade of political equilibrium. Paintings, which could not be ‘read’ either literally or in terms of convert symbolism, could not harbour hidden uncomfortable, suspect, or degenerate meanings. Calligraphy loaded with historical, traditional and religious overtones could also be manipulated into a ‘modem’ idiom. State patronage was available for the painter who adopted these or other ‘amenable’ genres.

Not a single woman artist took up calligraphy or changed her mode of working to bring herself in line with official State policy. The national Exhibitions in Islamabad and Lahore were important signifiers of the State policy on art. The ones held in 1977, ’81, ’82 and ’85 were noteworthy for the number of awards won by women artists.

Ironically, while women artists were winning national awards, recognition and acceptance of their achievements, discriminatory laws were being enacted against their gender in the legal arena. The 1981 National Exhibition was significant for the removal of works by Jamil Naqsh, Jamila Masood and Salima Hashmi, shortly before the inauguration. Naqsh’s female nudes were unacceptable for reasons of ‘social morality’, and the works of the two women artists were deemed to have unacceptable political content.

The number of women artists increased significantly after 1977. What women were painting was even more significant. Unlike many of their better-known males colleagues, women artists chose not to modify their creative vision, or to realign their focus.

Probably unaware of the feminist maxim of seventies ‘the personal is the political’, women artists intuitively disengaged themselves from the prevalent ideology of the time. Ideological dominance had to be challenged at a number of levels: in the retrieval of meaning, the construction of alternative imagery, the exploration of medium and scale, and in sensitising the audience.

By ignoring officially sanctioned art, women artists were challenging the assumptions being floated regarding the ‘national’, the ‘traditional’ and ‘identity’ in the arts. The substandard ‘official’ calligraphic work, based on a misreading of tradition, contrasted with the energy emanating from the works of Meher Afroze, Nahid Raza, and Qudsia Nisar. It was, perhaps not so coincidental that all three artists chose to work on paper. This was a trend, which linked many women painters, then and later.

Moving on from the pomposity of oil on canvas, a medium introduced and sustained by the British intervention in the subcontinent, women artists took up water based mediums as well as print making techniques. The medium and appearance of these works by women created problems of acceptance in the art world. Provoked by the reduction in scale dictated by these works, their seriousness was questioned by critics and audiences. The provincial and national exhibitions routinely herded these work a into the category ‘Drawings and, Watercolours’, entitled to prizes and awards of lesser amounts and presumably less worthy of recognition. The hierarchical superiority of works in oils continued to be maintained for a decade.

The retrieval of the tradition of Miniature also took place in Eighties, which helped to give credence to the diminutive scale in painting. Though not consciously questioning colonial mores, the rejection of the supremacy of oil painting opened up other issues for all artists, male and female. For women artists, the convenience and mobility of the smaller scale meant that the work could be produced in the comers of the home and kitchen.

The women artists of late seventies and eighties juggled marriage, careers and art production in an increasingly hostile political and social climate. Achieving quality for their medium and scale was not the only problem. Moving away form the obviously representational imagery, women were crossbreeding ideas from a variety of sources. Across the world, feminists were debating what Pakistani artists, driven by circumstances, were practicing.

In an economy bolstered by the war in Afghanistan, with money siphoned off from drugs and armaments, consumer appetites were flourishing and the art market grew apace. While the demand for the ‘superstars’ of Pakistani painting Jamil Naqsh, Gulgee and Sadeqain continued, a ‘hidden stream’ of the works of women artists grew and established its own demand.

An undeclared and tacit bonding among women artists was reaffirmed at the National Exhibition of 1983 at the Alhamara Art Centre in Lahore. Fifteen women artists signed a women artists manifesto drafted by Salima Hashmi, Lala Rukh and I.A. Rehman. Their experience of these discussions and putting their signature to this document gave an impetus to the work of many of the artists present.  The artists looked to their own lives, personal narrative, psychological states and mystical predilections, for inspiration and direction. The diversity of experiences was reflected in the diversity of their imagery, medium, scale and idiom.

Literal references emerged from the social and political landscapes, such as the chaddar or veil, taken up by the artists such as printmaker Naazish Ataullah and sculptor Rabia Zuberi. Touted as an official symbol of protection of women artists, poets and writers focused on this symbol as a signifier of disenfranchisement and constraint. Exploiting its spiritual, physical, religious and mystical aspects stimulated a range of visual and literary responses. From camouflage and claustrophobia to ambiguity and rebellion, artists explored the masking and unmasking of the female form. Fuelled by political rage and satirical good humour, women used the chaddar as a symbol of their experience. The formal image became loaded with intensely felt emotions and statements about physical denial. Other schematic metaphors culled from a variety of historical and socio-cultural sources found their way into women’s painting.

The female nude, a constant and favoured subject of male Pakistani painters, as of painters everywhere else fulfilled the accepted function of the female as an object. The sexual positioning of the female in these works betrays the artist intention. Retrieving the woman from this universally accepted context was one aspect of the woman artist looking at the female body. In a social framework where women’s visibility is undesirable, the depiction of the female nude assumes potent meaning, especially when enunciated by a woman.

By uncovering the female form, women artists were taking charge the form. They were uncovering the duplicity and hypocrisy of the dominant fundamentalist order. They challenged the male gaze in a way that the male painter’s female nude could not. It became instead a celebration of self, an ode to her rights of ownership, an act of rebellion. Man and large has always been the context of the female nude, artists like Sumayya Durrani added both irony and humour to their exploration of this theme. Naheed Raza assumed the power of sensuality and acknowledged woman as both the victim and the slayer.

The evolution and the development of the visual vocabulary has matured radically in the Nineties and beyond and has widened the context of how art is to be comprehended and enjoyed.

The work of women artists who step into the new millennium is stronger and more confident than of those who preceded them. Unhampered by many of the conflicts that sapped the energies and emotions of the earlier generations, these women emerged with a clarity of vision and a sense of purpose. Entering the art world, the very process of  art making which is generally supportive, and benefiting from a more accepting social climate, women artists are articulate about their right of self expression and of leading a productive professional life. Role models in teaching and art practice are accessible and well known. The making of art is recognized as a legitimate activity in cultural life, albeit not always an economically viable one. However, the idea that women have played and are continuing to play a crucial and pivotal role in the arena is now taken for granted.

SALIMA HASHMI

Salima Hashmi was the former director of the National College of Fine Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. She is an independent curator and artist.

Programme Report

Chaos or Congruence - Public Forum conceptualised and coordinated by Pooja Sood and Sheba Chhachhi

The open forum attracted a large and committed audience of artists, writers, photographers, architects and others of the cultural community in Delhi, as well as including the specially invited participants from the region. Despite a rather long and tightly packed programme starting at 10am on a Sunday, it was most encouraging to see the hall still full and alive with interest when the seminar ended at 7pm.

We began with a short invocatory performance by Navtej Johar, a dance/performance artist trained in both classical Indian and Contemporary Dance who choreographed a series of movements in response to musical excerpts drawn from across the region. Beginning with an artist's response to the notion of Asia/South Asia rather than the usual speech/inauguration did contribute towards setting the tone for a more flexible and open-ended atmosphere.

The day's deliberations were opened by a presentation by Sheba Chhachhi ; a Delhi based artist and co-coordinator of the forum, which outlined the main issues before the house. Within the broader context of the need to develop a basis for intraregional comparisons, she argued for an examination of the commonalties and differences in the wide range of art practices and attendant dilemmas facing the contemporary cultural practitioner in Asia/South Asia today. This dialogue was located within a rich history of cultural connections on one hand and contemporary questions of cultural authenticity, identity and hybridity/globalization on the other. The current use of 'civillizational ' discourse to justify war, as in Afghanistan, made the articulation of a non- dualistic cultural perspective even more urgent.

Dr. Kumkum Sangari, Professorial Fellow in Contemporary Cultural Studies, who chaired the morning session, further developed the conceptual frame for an Asian/South Asian dialogue, reminding us of the large movements of people/labour across the region through history. Locating this dialogue in relation to the destruction of ancient cultural centres such as Kandahar and Kabul, and the role of memory in the creation of culture, she welcomed the opportunity for cross- border, cross- discipline dialogue. Speaking from a cross- disciplinary framework, she spoke of similar situations in other disciplines such as literature and the social sciences as she welcomed the speakers of the first session.

The first country speaker, Salima Hashmi, artist, curator and previous director of the National College of Art, Lahore, made a powerful, richly illustrated slide presentation of women artists in Pakistan, locating the emergence of feminist art practice within the country's social and political history. This elicited a lively discussion, in which the need for vigorous and sustained independent cultural exchange between nations like India and Pakistan, who have difficult and hostile political relations ,became specially emphasised. Many of us were struck by the courage and struggle of artists who have had to negotiate repressive regimes (as during the period under Zia-ul-Haq) when cultural expression is explicitly or implicitly policed. Also significant was the role of the institution in nurturing and supporting the emergence of dissident voices.

After a brief coffee break, Jagat Weerasinghe, artist and professor of Archaeology, SriLanka, presented his analysis of the emergence of a politicised contemporary art practice in SriLanka. With the help of slides, he described the political context which led to a significant number of artists breaking away from an established Western visual arts paradigm.

Influenced by a radicalisation of conventional art teaching these artists seek to engage with political and personal issues arising out of the 20 years of war. Violence, machismo, the cult of the soldier-hero and the militarization of daily life are some of the dominant themes. In the discussion that followed, questions about community responses, relation with Tamil artists and the violence of the works themselves arose. The relationship between art practice and the larger socio-political context, already raised by the first presentation got further underlined as was the fact that many of us, specially within South Asia are confronting an increase in violence and conflict. However, this is has not always found direct expression as reflected Sri Lankan contemporary art.

The next presentation by Gridhtiya Gaweewong, independent curator and Director of Project 304, brought in a new note. She traced the evolution of Thai contemporary art practice through the prism of art institutions, their absence and the creation of alternative spaces. She showed a wide range of performance, installation and video work where Thai artists are dealing with issues of exoticism, patronage, and sexuality within an increasingly commercialised cultural context. A critique of religion/religious institutions, social attitudes and a desire to take art out onto the streets, creating more a more alive relationship with audiences and ordinary people were also significant concerns. Chumpon Apisuk, a performance artist and founder of Concrete House spoke of the continuing struggle of the art community against the absence of museums/art institutions. This presentation showcased art practices, which seemed new and even outrageous, yet were rooted in a cultural context bearing much affinity with the rest of the region.
The lunch break saw many small informal discussions continuing on the IIC lawns, and we were able to herd people back into the auditorium to start the afternoon session by 2.30 PM.

Ms. Gayatri Sinha, art critic and curator, chairperson of the afternoon session, opened the second half of the forum with a historical overview of cultural relations, especially between India and China. She argued that the fertile exchanges of the past had faced a major rupture in the post colonial era, symbolised by a statistical analysis of intra-regional exchanges organised by the Indian Government, where a greater emphasis was laid on exchanges with the West rather than with neighbors in the region. Questioning the validity of an affinity based on geographic proximity, she raised several provocative points challenging any complacency in thinking of Asian/ South Asian linkages as self-evident.

Ye Yong Qing, artist and teacher from China, although handicapped by having to rely on a translator, presented a large number of slides showing the shifts in Chinese contemporary art practice upto the present day. Towards the end of his presentation, he showed images representing a recent trend named' self-hurting' art. These artists physically cut, inscribe, pierce or surgically operate upon their own bodies as a form of performance art- arising as much out of a lack of resources (where the only 'material' an artist has is her/his own body) as out of social conditions. The most extreme example was of an artist who actually killed himself as a performative act. Going even further were artists who enacted a kind of cannibalism, eating dead babies as part of an art action. Naturally, these images caused a furore! A number of those present were disturbed and even horrified by this work, and questions of morality, ethics and audience reactions were heatedly raised. That the good reception of this work in the West may feed into the Orientalist view of 'barbaric others' was debated along with a host of other issues. The process of translation, necessarily slow, had already led to the presentation taking double the allotted time, so the discussion was brought to a close with difficulty.

Passionate reactions continued over a hurried tea break, after which Prof.Abul Mansur shared a historical overview of the development of contemporary art in Bangladesh. His presentation focussed on painting and sculpture, tracing the relationship between changing, unstable political situations, nationalism and the search for identity within art practice.

Unfortunately, as time was very short, there was no discussion and we went directly to the last country speaker of the day.
Prof. Gulammohammed Sheikh, artist, writer, Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, India, presented a radical inversion of the way contemporary art practice is generally viewed. The presentation used a vast number of slides, projected simultaneously on two screens and dwelt at length on craft, artisanal and urban popular image making practices before linking these with the work of a few contemporary painters. This analysis of contemporary Indian art reversed the normal hierarchy which locates art school/gallery based art practice as 'contemporary', relegating expressions emerging in other sites, such as the home, bazaar, shrine to the realm of craft or popular art. A dense and brilliantly argued presentation which had the complete attention of the audience, this paper unpacked one of the key questions facing contemporary art practice in South Asia today.

(Responses to this paper were taken up in the panel discussion.)
As the panel was being constituted, Ms. Pooja Sood, coordinator Khoj took a few moments to describe Khoj activities and vision, the building of links within the region through artists workshops and the communication network workshop which had just preceded the open forum. She also took the opportunity to give thanks to the sponsors and collaborators.

Suddenly, the sound of a bicycle bell rang out from a corner of the auditorium. Chumpon Apisuk, performance artist from Thailand moved around the hall distributing bells and horns commonly used on Delhi bicycles to various members of the audience, instructing them to keep playing. Soon a sort of musical collage emerged which he described as a 'sketch' or impression of the city. Introducing himself, Apisuk then went into a reenactment of a participatory performance he had previously done in New York in the wake of Sept 11. Getting half the audience to shout 'War!'(in Hindi) and the rest to shout 'Peace", he built up a tempo into which he then began to fling bread (roti), a comment on the situation in Afghanistan.

All the speakers of the day then assembled on stage for a final panel discussion. A number of questions came up -some pertaining to the points raised by Prof. Sheikh's presentation, with participants from other countries drawing links to their contexts, some on more general issues. The speakers commented on the similarities in the issues raised by different presentations. A few critical questions were raised about the danger of seeking a 'pan-Asian' identity, the relationship with the West and the reasons for a dialogue such as this, beyond 'filling in gaps' in our knowledge of each other within the region.
The panelists affirmed the urgency, need and value of an Asian/South Asian perspective and solidarity, particularly in the light of the current political situation. The session ended with Salima Hashmi and Gulam Sheikh who made strong and passionate statements about the value of building an intra-regional dialogue and their appreciation of this effort by Khoj.

The forum provided a special opportunity to learn about and understand contemporary art practice within the region as well as provide a platform for diverse views.

Although there was not enough time to develop intra- regional comparisions beyond marking commonalities, perhaps such a detailed analysis can only happen after an initial exposure such as this. While every effort had been made to interact individually with the speakers on a precise set of issues, many of the presentations tended to be rather general 'overviews'. On the other hand, for a large number of artists present, this viewing of work from six countries from the region was what held their interest. In the final analysis the presentations and discussions did provide a necessary backdrop for a more issue -based discussion which could emerge as a next step.
As often happens, time ran short and the possibility of vigorous discussion with an engaged and active audience remained only partially used. Perhaps a two-day session would have allowed greater time for discussion as well as the inclusion of other members of the region such as Nepal and Bhutan.

Also the link between the closed door communication network workshop would have been better made if the open forum had preceded the workshop.

Speakers:

Mr. Abul Monsur, Bangladesh
Ms Salima Hashmi, Pakistan
Mr Jagath Weerasinghe, Sri Lanka
Ms Gridhtiya Gaweewong, Thailand
Prof. Ye Yong Qing, China
Prof. Gulammohammad Sheikh, India

Chairpersons:

Ms Kumkum Sangari, India
Ms Gayatri Sinha, India

Performances by: Navtej Johar, India and Chumpon Apisuk, Thailand
Film Screening: 'Amir', 'An Afghan Musician's Life in Peshawar, Pakistan'. Dir. John Bailey.

Sheba Chhachhi
Dec 2001