Science and art: More closely related than you might think

 
Posted by QAGOMA   ●   16 Mar 2019

Now in its 4th year – the World Science Festival in Brisbane explores and celebrates the relationship between science and art. Science and art are more closely related than you might think as both attempt to understand and explain the world around us. Both scientists and artists strive to see the world in new ways, explore and then communicate their insights.

The World Science Festival Brisbane takes place between 20 and 24 March 2019 with the Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) presenting ‘Far From Home: Cinema’s Fascination with Space’ from 21 to 23 March.

Cinema screenings at GOMA

In the 50 years following the first moon landing by the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, humans have sent crafts to other moons and planets, filled Earth’s orbits with satellites and probed the universe to search for our very beginnings. Since the beginning of cinema we have been fascinated by the vast unknown, and the films selected for ‘Far From Home: Cinema’s Fascination with Space’ are bold and fantastical imaginings of journeys to the moon, life on Mars and the psychological impact of travelling through space. Browse the film program to see a range of science fiction films, from one of the first ever made, A Trip to the Moon, created in 1902 by French illusionist and film director George Méliès to a selection of the winners of NASA’s 2018 Project Mars short film competition.

Sunshine 2007 M / 3.30PM SAT 23 MAR / Ticketed

In Sunshine 2007 the sun is dying, and humankind is dying with it. The last hope is a spaceship and crew carrying a device that will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, the crew’s mission starts to unravel.

There’s a reason why many directors only make one science-fiction film. It’s because you exhaust yourself… spiritually.  The interesting thing is that the more commercial sci-fi films tend to go for Hell in space. But maybe it’s more ambitious to aim for Heaven… Danny Boyle (Director)

Screening from 35mm film print

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie 2001 M / 8.00PM THU 21 MAR / Ticketed

Spike Spiegel and the crew of his spaceship, Bebop, an intrepid band of bounty hunters, land on Mars in the year 2071 chasing an enormous cash reward.

Screening from 35mm film print / English Subtitles

Discover more at GOMA

Exclusive to QAGOMA, the latest chapter in the Gallery’s flagship exhibition series ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) includes new and recent work by more than 80 emerging and established artists and collectives from more than 30 countries. APT presents a wonderful opportunity for visual artists from across Australia and the Asia Pacific to collaborate and share works that are a powerful expression of their cultures and experiences.

Many of these artists share their concerns with the topics of the 2019 World Science Festival. Besides the themes such as life on earth and beyond, and the story of space that the Australian Cinémathèque are presenting in ‘Far From Home: Cinema’s Fascination with Space’; explore the challenges confronting humankind in the face of over-population and escalating climate change, and how we maintain a delicate balance between nature and humanity’s progress through the art on display in APT9.

4 artists exploring technology and science in APT9

1. Cao Fei
Asia One

Cao Fei’s Asia One depicts a near-future scenario that offers a perspective on the impact of automation, artificial intelligence and advances in logistics on human relationships.

Cao works in video, installation and digital media and explores daily life in a rapidly changing world. Cao’s latest project focuses on the futuristic logistics hub of online retail giant Jingdong, or JD.com, one of the most technologically advanced manufacturing and distribution facilities in China. What role does these present-day glimpses of sophisticated automated logistics with mass consumption, globalisation and technological acceleration play in the evolution of industry. The company’s operations suggest myriad possibilities, but also significant changes for the daily experience of its workers.

Logistics — the link that binds contemporary industries in a global marketplace — might also connect the present and the future.

Installation view of Cao Fei’s Asia One 2018 at APT9, GOMA
Cao Fei, China b.1978 / Asia One (still) 2018 / HD video installation, 63:20 minutes, colour, sound, ed. 1/8 / Purchased with funds from Tim Fairfax AC through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2018 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Cao Fei

2. Jonathan Jones
(untitled) giran

In collaboration with Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM Jonathan Jones’s untitled (giran) 2018 is reminiscent of a map of intersecting wind currents, evoking birds in flight, and draws on the culture, language and philosophy of the Wiradjuri people of New South Wales.

Understanding wind is an important part of understanding country. Winds bring change, knowledge and new ideas to those prepared to listen. Jonathan Jones

Giran describes the winds, change, as well as feelings of fear and apprehension. Traditional tools are at the heart of the artwork, made of roughly 2,000 sculptures and a soundscape. Bound to each tool with handmade string is a small bundle of feathers – found treasures – carefully gathered and sent to Jones by people from across the country.

The circling murmuration of flying ‘birds’ is composed of six tool types. Like the winds, Wiradjuri philosophy divides them into male and female groups: bagaay – an emu eggshell spoon, bindu gaany – a freshwater mussel scraper, waybarra – a weaving start, bingal – a bone awl, dhala-ny – a wooden spear point, and galigal – a stone knife. Each tool has limitless potential.

Jones worked with family, Wiradjuri community members and long-time artistic collaborators to make the tools and to craft the feathers into tiny ‘wings’. The process of making – gathering and transforming the raw materials – brings people together, enhances connections to land, culture and language, and strengthens ties to generations who have passed on.

Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube / Jonathan Jones, Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi peoples, Australia b.1978, with Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM, Wiradjuri people, Australia b.1940 / (untitled) giran (and detail) 2018 / Bindu-gaany (freshwater mussel shell), gabudha (rush), gawurra (feathers), marrung dinawan (emu egg), walung (stone), wambuwung dhabal (kangaroo bone), wayu (string), wiiny (wood), 48-channel soundscape / Sound design: Luke Mynott, Sonar Sound / © The artists / Photograh: Natasha Harth © QAGOMA / This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the NSW Government through Create NSW; and the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. This project has also been supported by Carriageworks through the Solid Ground program.

3. Anne Noble
Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder

Contemporary photographer Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder is not only created by the artist after collaborations with scientists, it also encourages appreciation of how art and science, when bought together, are productive in generating knowledge on our world from different perspectives.

Noble has created a multi-part project at the heart of which is Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder, a functioning beehive or ‘living photograph’. Bees can be observed entering the Gallery, before disappearing inside the cabinet and going about their normal activities; they are also visible when the cabinet is opened. Noble’s works form a visual ode to an insect symbolic of our world’s wellbeing – their complex ecosystem is at severe risk of collapse as a direct result of human intervention in the environment.

Having previously engaged with scientists and explored how photography intersects with other disciplines, for this project, Noble collaborated with scientists from the Queensland Brain Institute to design the hive and its transparent passageway, which allows the bees to navigate from the outside world to their hive inside the Gallery.

Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists comprises portraits of bees that recall dust covered artefacts from another time, together with a 3-D printed insect, resembling the ghost from the portraits. In addition, the Bruissement photograms are enlargements of images capturing the light around the wings of dead bees – bees that died from pesticide poisoning.

An insect revered historically in myth, religion and literature, as well as in present-day science and industrial research, Noble’s project stimulates awareness of this species whose essential global existence is threatened by pests, chemicals and disease.

Although humankind has compromised this species of pollinators with chemicals and pesticides in the interests of agriculture, bees are, more than ever, the subject of research that is advancing fields such as flight, navigation and communication. Anne Noble’s work engages with this complexity and our multifaceted relationship with the natural world.

Free talk: The hive mind and driverless technology

Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b.1954 / Installation view of Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists, APT9, GOMA / © Anne Noble / Courtesy: The artist and Two Rooms, Auckland

Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube / Anne Noble introduces Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder

4. Qiu Zhijie
Map of Technological Ethics

Qiu Zhijie’s Map of Technological Ethics depicts a dizzying array of challenges and moral questions facing humanity, as they pertain to scientific and technological development.

Painted directly on to the gallery wall, 18 metres in height and 38 metres long, the map depicts an archipelago of moral quandaries in applied science. Islands and landmarks are named for activists and political lobbies, contentious issues in medicine and biology, and looming fears of technocracy and anthropogenic climate change.

Qiu Zhijie touches on the implications of artificial intelligence and computer technologies, from the impact of automation on labour to the use of facial recognition software in drone warfare. Assigning imagined geographies to a range of expressions of ethical anxiety throughout history and across cultures, Qiu suggests expanded possibilities for established categories of knowledge.

In the sheer scale and breadth of his map, he offers a graphical account of the potential for technology and its conundrums to pervade every aspect of human life.

Watch our time-lapse, recorded over a period of five days

Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube / Qiu Zhijie, China b.1969 / Map of Technological Ethics 2018 / Synthetic polymer paint / Site-specific wall painting, Gallery of Modern Art / Commissioned for APT9 / © Qiu Zhijie

Read about APT9 artists / Watch APT9 videos / Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube to keep up-to-date with our latest artist videos

Buy the APT9 publication

APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Anne Noble has been supported by Creative New Zealand

Feature image detail: Production still from Sunshine 2007 / Director: Danny Boyle / Image courtesy: Fox Searchlight Pictures

#QAGOMA #APT9

Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey: Stories of this Land

 
Posted by QAGOMA   ●   11 Mar 2019

‘Stories of this Land’ recognises the artistic and social contributions of Lardil man Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey (1920–1985), a revered elder, artistic pioneer and legend of Queensland Aboriginal art. The exhibition features more than 70 of the artists works, including early barks, paintings, ceremonial and historical objects, original illustrations from his picture books and three story book films.

Roughsey was well-known for his landscape paintings featuring North Queensland ancestral narratives and scenes depicting life on Mornington Island both before and after European contact. He is probably best known for his illustrated children’s books, notably The Rainbow Serpent – first published in 1975 and still in print today. Roughsey truly understood the power of storytelling, for thousands of children The Rainbow Serpent remains an important first encounter with Indigenous Australian culture and an introduction to some of the key Indigenous narratives of this land.

Born in 1920 at Gara Gara (Karrakarra), a remote site on the coast of Mornington Island, his extraordinary life over sixty five years had taken him on journeys throughout Cape York and Far North Queensland, to major cities in Australia and internationally.

Dick Roughsey sitting beside the tent in artist Percy Trezise’s camp, Cape York 1971 / Photograph courtesy: Jennifer Isaacs

As a young boy Roughsey was removed from his family and taken to the newly established Presbyterian Mission dormitory on Mornington Island. Growing up he worked on cattle stations, as a deckhand and then as a yardman on the coast of the south-eastern Gulf. It was here that a chance meeting with the pilot and artist Percy Trezise would develop into a lifelong friendship, with Trezise encouraging him to further explore art-making practices.

RELATED: Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey

Soon after, together with his brother Burrud Lindsay Roughsey, he began to develop a unique style of Lardil bark painting which is now well-known for its stark white background over which traditional Lardil stories are painted in a unique silhouetted figurative style. In 1971 Roughsey was among the first Aboriginal people to publish an autobiography and in 1974 he became the first chairperson of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council.

Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey ‘Tribe on the move in the past, Cape York’

Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey, Lardil people, Australia 1924-1985 / Tribe on the move in the past, Cape York 1983 / Oil on board / 30 x 40cm / Gift of Simon, Maggie and Pearl Wright through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2015. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Estate of Dick Roughsey. Licensed by Copyright Agency

The Rainbow Serpent

‘Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey: Stories of this Land’ / Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane / 30 March until 18 August 2019 / The first major retrospective celebrating the work and life of Roughsey (1920-1985). 

‘Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey: Stories of this Land’ is a collaboration between Cairns Art Gallery and QAGOMA.

Acknowledgment of Country
The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the Gallery stands in Brisbane. We pay respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders past and present and, in the spirit of reconciliation, acknowledge the immense creative contribution Indigenous people make to the art and culture of this country.

It is customary in many Indigenous communities not to mention the name of the deceased. All such mentions and photographs on the QAGOMA Blog are with permission, however, care and discretion should be exercised.

Feature image detail: Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey’s Tribe on the move in the past, Cape York 1983

#QAGOMA

For a time when the bee no longer exists

 
Posted by QAGOMA   ●   8 Mar 2019

In 2018 for ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9), New Zealand photographer Anne Noble created a multi-part project at the heart of which is Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018 (illustrated), a functioning beehive or ‘living photograph’. Bees can be observed entering the Gallery, before disappearing inside the cabinet and going about their normal activities; they are also visible when the cabinet was opened daily for 20 minutes.

Watch: Anne Noble introduces ‘Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder’

Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, installed at ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9), GOMA

Watch: Anne Noble discusses the origins of ‘Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder’

Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, installed at ‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9), GOMA

Anne Noble ‘Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists’

Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists comprises portraits of bees that recall dust-covered artefacts from another time, together with a 3-D printed insect, resembling the ghost from the portraits. In addition, the luscious Bruissement photograms from the ‘UMBRA’ series of 2015–17 are enlargements of images capturing the light around the wings of dead bees — bees that died from pesticide poisoning — as the artist held them in her hands.

Noble’s works serve as a catalyst for discussion regarding our complex relationship with the bee. An insect revered historically in myth, religion and literature, as well as in present-day science and industrial research, her project stimulates awareness of this species whose essential global existence is threatened by pests, chemicals and disease.

Anne Noble ‘Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists‘

Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b.1954 / Installation view of Museum: For a time when the bee no longer exists, GOMA 2018 / © Anne Noble / Courtesy: The artist and Two Rooms, Auckland

Anne Noble ‘Dead Bee Portrait #2’ 2015-16

Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b. 1954 / Dead Bee Portrait #2 2015-16 / Pigment on paper / 115 x 91.5cm / The Taylor Family Collection. Purchased 2019 with funds from Paul, Sue and Kate Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Anne Noble

Anne Noble ‘Dead Bee Portrait #14’ 2015-16

Anne Noble, Aotearoa New Zealand b. 1954 / Dead Bee Portrait #14 2015-16 / Pigment on paper / 115 x 91.5cm / The Taylor Family Collection. Purchased 2019 with funds from Paul, Sue and Kate Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Anne Noble

APT9 has been assisted by our Founding Supporter Queensland Government and Principal Partner the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

Anne Noble has been supported by Creative New Zealand.

Featured image: Anne Noble’s Conversatio: A cabinet of wonder 2018, installed at APT9, GOMA / Photographs, wooden cabinet, metal, glass, sound, scent, patterned perspex, colony of bees / 190 x 70 x 170cm / © Anne Noble / Courtesy: Anne Noble and Two Rooms, Auckland: Bartley + Company Art, Wellington and Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch / Supported by: Bee One Third, JackStone, Brisbane and Creative New Zealand.

#QAGOMA

Of Women: Visions of femininity

 
Posted by QAGOMA   ●   6 Mar 2019

For centuries, artists have been captivated by the female form. From the exaggerated bodies of Neolithic fertility figurines to Renaissance heroines, the female body is a constant thread in the history of art. In daily life, people select clothing and accessories to act out a particular role or version of themselves. The women in these portraits are no different: to those who observe, their costumes are chosen to signify their wealth and status, national identity, or even their mythical alter egos.

With this in mind, we are prompted to ask: who is being looked at, and by whom? In 1972, art historian John Berger wrote on the subject: ‘One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’1 Elegant and finely rendered, women are nonetheless objects of our gaze. Two artists — Angelica Kauffmann and George Romney — present a theatrical vision of femininity. Adopting costume and props of the stage, these images offer heightened, yet distinct, views of women.

Angelica Kauffmann ‘The deserted Costanza’ c.1783-84

Angelica Kauffmann, Italy/England/Switzerland/Austria 1741-1807 / The deserted Costanza c.1783-84 / Oil on canvas / 83.2 x 65cm / Gift of The Hon. (Sir) James R. Dickson MLA 1900 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Of the paintings highlighted, only one was created by a woman — The deserted Costanza c.1783–84 (illustrated) by Swiss artist Angelica Kauffmann. Kauffmann is among the few female masters whose name and works have made their mark in European art history. Trained by her father from an early age, she was one of two female founding members of the Royal Academy London in 1768. She lived in a number of major European art centres, including Milan, Florence, Rome, Venice and finally London, where she was admired for her great talent, particularly in portraiture.

The deserted Costanza illustrates the opening scene from Pietro Metastasio’s eighteenth century libretto for Joseph Haydn’s operetta, L’isola disabitata. In the painting we see the soprano, Costanza, overcome with grief after discovering her husband has abandoned her. Indeed, Kauffmann’s painting adopts the operatic drama of its source text. Constanza’s body appears limp and heavy; her eyes roll back dramatically, looking far beyond the frame. Arms outstretched, she carves her testimony on a rock with a broken sword.

Kauffman’s image is undeniably theatrical, and perhaps borders on the rhetoric of female ‘hysteria’. However, rather than a realistic portrait of womanhood, the painting is an exercise in performance. Through props, costume and gesture, the female figure performs her role as grieving wife. In this light, we can see the scene as a knowing act: the soprano plays out her sorrow and her gender to heightened extremes.

George Romney ‘Mrs Yates as the Tragic Muse, Melpomene’ 1771

George Romney, England 1734-1802 / Mrs Yates as the Tragic Muse, Melpomene 1771 / Oil on canvas / 238 x 151.5cm / Gift of Lady Trout 1988 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

George Romney wields theatricality to a different effect in his neoclassical rendering Mrs Yates as the Tragic Muse, Melpomene 1771 (illustrated). This portrait, commissioned by the leading tragedienne of the day, Mary Ann Yates (1728–87), eschews the high drama of Kauffmann’s Costanza for a pale, austere depiction of a mythological muse. Mrs Yates was a successful figure in Georgian theatre who was nearly 20 years into her acting career at the time of this portrait. She was well known for her roles as Shakespearian heroines, but here she adopts the guise of the Greek Muse of Tragedy, Melpomene. Shown in three-quarter profile, Mrs Yates’s gaze is fixed beyond her audience as she clasps a small dagger (one of Melpomene’s attributes) in her right hand. She is both resplendent and calm in her neoclassical garb, apparently in control of her role as she adopts the contrapposto pose of a classical sculpture rather than the fluid, emotional gesture one might expect from an actress.

Romney was one of the most successful portraitists of the late eighteenth-century, and his work is found in significant collections across the globe. His sitters, who were predominantly female, were often leading social figures including several actresses. While both Kauffmann’s evocation of Costanza and Romney’s portrait of Mrs Yates depict dramatisations of a fanciful character, the latter contains a second layer. Mrs Yates not only plays the role of mythic muse but also performs herself. In Romney’s portrait, she enacts a stately, almost ethereal, version of herself, far removed from the frivolous reputation of actresses in the eighteenth century.

Pippa Milne is former Associate Curator, International Art, QAGOMA and now Senior Curator, Monash Gallery of Art.
Sophie Rose is former Assistant Curator, International Art, QAGOMA.

Endnote
1 John Berger and Michael Dibb, Ways of Seeing, Penguin, London, 1972, p.47.

Featured image: Angelica Kauffmann’s The deserted Costanza c.1783-84

#QAGOMA

Vale: Lee Wen

 
Posted by QAGOMA   ●   4 Mar 2019

We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing on 3 March of the much-loved artist, organiser and mentor to many, Lee Wen (1957-2019). A central figure in Singaporean contemporary art for three decades, Lee contributed the performance Journey of a yellow man no. 13: Fragmented bodies/shifting ground 1999 to ‘The 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art‘ (APT3), and in doing so created one of the abiding images of the exhibition series.

Born in Singapore in 1957, Lee Wen turned his back on a banking career to pursue studies in art at La Salle-SIA College of the Arts and City of London Polytechnic. Alongside Amanda Heng, Koh Nguang How, Zai Kuning, Vincent Leow and others, Lee Wen became one of the earliest members of The Artist Village (TAV). Founded by the performance and installation artist Tang Da Wu in 1988, TAV functioned as an open studio promoting interdisciplinary experimental practice, highly engaged with the world around it. With the closure of the original village in 1990, TAV became an itinerant entity no less committed to creative interventions into the fabric of Singaporean social life.

Watch ‘Journey of a yellow man no. 13’, Brisbane 1999

Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube / Lee Wen, Singapore b.1957 / Journey of a yellow man no. 13: Fragmented bodies/shifting ground 1999 / Videotape: 10:30 minutes, colour, stereo / Purchased 2000. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Estate of Lee Wen

It was during this period that Lee Wen developed the Yellow Man, his best-known performance persona. Stripping to his trunks, Lee Wen would coat himself entirely in yellow paint, exaggerating his Chinese-Malay ethnicity, and undertaking actions in a variety of spaces, from conventional galleries to city streets. For his participation in APT3, Lee Wen’s Yellow Man carried an animal heart from a suburban home through the Brisbane CBD to South Bank. Splitting the heart on the steps of the Gallery, he uttered with simple sincerity the words ‘Open heart’. An unceasing interrogator of social and cultural norms, Lee Wen offered the following reflection:

The sun was rising over the riverside where we waited with last night’s revellers by the anchored ferry. The sky was turning brighter as birds began to greet the morning with their songs, I rejected all manner of intoxications and watched the performance of lovers communicating their inner desires through pure and simple actions, faded meanings and re-solidified aspirations. I bid unemotional goodbyes to all beneath the shower of love and left, to experience unexpected rebirths again yet again. Closing the door, did I not leave those nightmares behind? Those mistaken glories, re-invented into memory, imagined as histories. How many times? How many times more?

During an effective ban on performance art in Singapore that lasted the best part of a decade from 1994, Lee Wen staged the Yellow Man’s journeys in a range of international locations, ever broadening interpretations of his colouring as he moved between cultural contexts. He travelled widely, participating in activities of the transnational performance collective Black Market International as well as the Command N group in Tokyo, where he also taught at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In December 2003, the Future of Imagination festival, which Lee Wen organised with fellow artist Jason Lim for the Substation arts centre amid shifting cultural attitudes, effectively marked the return of performance art to Singapore, and was staged regularly until 2011.

Lee Wen accumulated an immense history of exhibitions, performances, workshops and teaching projects, participating in the Singapore Biennale (2014), Busan Biennale (2004), the Havana Bienal, (1997), Gwangju Bienniale (1995) and the 4th Asian Art Show, Fukuoka (1994), among many, many other events. In 2005, he received Singapore’s highest cultural award, the Cultural Medallion, for his services to contemporary art. His particular combination wit, humility, generosity, philosophical complexity and artistic vision will be greatly missed.

Lee Wen discusses ‘Journey of a yellow man no. 13’

Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube / Lee Wen speaks at the opening weekend of ‘The 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT3) in 1999, Queensland Art Gallery

Read about APT artists / Watch APT videos / Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube to keep up-to-date with our exclusive videos

Feature image detail: Lee Wen’s Journey of a yellow man no. 13: Fragmented bodies/shifting ground (still) 1999. The work has become central to QAGOMA’s collection of performance documentation.

#LeeWen #QAGOMA 

Multiple Asias: Understanding art and culture

 
Posted by QAGOMA   ●  

‘The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT9) Opening Weekend culminated in a symposium with visiting artists, curators and academics from Australia, the Asia Pacific and further afield. Zara Stanhope, with Tarun Nagesh and Ruth McDougall, outlines some of the pressing ideas that arose in the development of the current exhibition and formed the platform for discussion, and reflects on the questions that will continue to inform our understanding of art and culture throughout this diverse region.

The Asia Pacific region today looks very different to how it did in 1993, at the time of the first Asia Pacific Triennial. In the current climate, in which countries across the region are navigating competing ideologies of nationalism and globalism, the Gallery continues to consider how best to host and present the work of artists who raise their voices against complex geopolitical, economic and environmental forces. ‘The right response’, said QAGOMA Director Chris Saines, in his welcome to APT9 symposium delegates ‘is to continue to provide an open and safe platform for art and artists to flourish by widening the audience for this discourse’.1

Symposium welcome

Chis Saines, QAGOMA Director and Zara Stanhope, Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art welcome researchers, artists and and curators to the all-day APT9 symposium and introduce some of the key areas of thought about contemporary art in the region, and its histories, conditions and voices.

The symposium was structured around three core topics that arose during the planning stage of APT9 and informed the current exhibition: transregionalism and connections between art and artists across Asia, Australia and the Pacific; the question of ‘Who speaks?’, including self-determination and cultural resilience; and the shaping of contemporary art histories in the Asia Pacific. Each session opened with an introductory speaker and was followed by a panel discussion representing a diversity of voices.

Connectivities: Conditions for contemporary art in spaces of trans-regionality

The first session focused on questions of how contemporary art is framed around regional definitions, boundaries and transnational relationships.2 The discussion highlighted the artistic opportunities and limitations affecting the creation and mobility of art in the Asia Pacific region today, how funding sources develop transnational possibilities, and how Australia, and APT9 in particular, has been able to nurture unique inter-regional relationships and dialogues. The significance of shifting borders — especially with regard to traditions, definitions and language — the movement of people, and privileging collaborative and local knowledge were all pertinent to the discussion.

One idea that directed the panel’s thinking was the notion of not one but multiple Asias. Greg Dvorak, an academic who grew up between the Marshall Islands, United States and Japan and now lives in Japan, commented that the idea of region, when imposed from the outside — from the Pacific rim looking inward — makes it easy to identify ‘at least ten different Pacifics’. Therefore, he maintains, scholars, curators and artists need to respond by looking to the past and at these roots of indigeneity. ‘It’s been very moving’, he continued, ‘to be part of the opening of APT and to see the Welcome to Country . . . to see how these connections that have always been there are being revitalised, revisited and re-understood’. Through the migration and movement of people, and these translocal connections, ‘the knowledge is already there; [it’s a matter of] reactivating it, and art has a space to do that’.3

Who speaks: Self-determination and cultural resilience on a global stage

Following a screening of Karrabing Film Collective’s documentary film Riot 2018, the second session highlighted the conditions that either enable or constrict the participation of individuals and communities within global contemporary art discourses and platforms. Kabi Kabi and Wiradjuri artist and producer Alethea Beetson framed the topic with her presentation on the ongoing politics of representation and white privilege within institutions as it applies to those not in the room — elders, ancestors and youth — and she raised the question, ‘Whom do we serve when working within institutions?’ A panel, chaired by Australian South Sea Islander curator Imelda Miller, reflected on the different contexts in which artists are creating, and the ways in which creative practice can be used to assert indigenous perspectives and ways of knowing.4

Numerous structures and conditions challenge the participation of artists and arts professionals within the contemporary art world. The questions of language, visibility and who listens — as well as who speaks — are ongoing concerns in countries that were colonised by the English-speaking world; English has become the lingua franca of contemporary art, a fact that hides a multiplicity of languages spoken in small but defined parts of the globe. In the later plenary session, Katina Davidson, the Gallery’s Assistant Curator of Indigenous Art, stressed the imperative of recognising the many nations and languages within our own land: in fact, our continent itself is transnational, and more than 200 Indigenous countries comprise the land mass that we call Australia.5

Making histories: Institutions, initiatives and artistic ecologies

The third session examined how art histories are being interpreted, questioned and rediscovered from a range of institutional and organisational perspectives within the Asia Pacific region. A paper given by Beijing curator Carol Yinghua Lu explored Socialist Realism in China in the final years of the Cultural Revolution and into the early 1980s as an example of how art history can be politicised and recontextualised. Lu emphasised the need to question how histories are written, and the paramount importance of context, which became the launching point for the panel discussion that followed.6 In the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, for instance, Māori time is complex and does not conform to Western concepts of linear history. ‘There’s no sense of a past, present or future’, explained Deirdre Brown from the University of Auckland. ‘Everything’s just moving around and everything can be interpreted according to any of those paradigms.’7

The unique focus of APT across Asia, Australia and the Pacific highlights the distinctive dynamics of the region and generates questions that a one-day event can only begin to address. However, the symposium nonetheless articulated some of the important and urgent concerns that underline the work of artists, curators and their communities, including sovereignty, visibility, self-determination and agency. These have implications for art and art-making across the region, and remind us that art is part of life. Thinking more deeply about such connections drives the curatorial approach to APT, and these discussions will be a provocative starting point for the next and future iterations of the Asia Pacific Triennial.

Dr Zara Stanhope is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art. Tarun Nagesh is Curator, Asian Art, and Ruth McDougall is Curator, Pacific Art, QAGOMA.

The authors thank all the symposium presenters and plenary speakers, the QAGOMA Public Programs team, especially Fiona Neill, Sophie Dixon and Tamsin Cull, and curators Ellie Buttrose, Katina Davidson, Reuben Keehan, co-curator Sana Balai and APT9 Interlocutor Vera Mey.

Endnotes
1 Chris Saines, ‘APT9 symposium – Director’s Welcome’, 26 November 2018.
2 This session began with a paper presented by Nav Haq (Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium) and was followed by a panel discussion with Chair and APT9 Interlocutor Diana Campbell Betancourt (Artistic Director, Dhaka Art Summit), APT9 artist Monira Al Qadiri (Kuwait), Greg Dvorak (Associate Professor, Waseda University, Japan and APT9 Interlocutor), Siddharta Perez (curator, Singapore) and Léuli Eshrāghi (artist and
curator, Australia).
3 Greg Dvorak, speaking at the APT9 symposium, 26 November 2018.
4 The second session, chaired by Imelda Miller, comprised a panel of APT9 artists, including spoken-word poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner (Marshall Islands/USA), Jerome Manjat from art collective Pangrok Sulap (Sabah, Malaysia), Latai Taumoepeau (Tonga/Australia) and
Mao Ishikawa (Okinawa).
5 Katina Davidson, speaking at the APT9 symposium, 26 November 2018.
6 Following Lu’s presentation, the panel for the third session included Australian academic Dr Olivier Krischer (APT9 Interlocutor), Indigenous curator Matt Poll, Yogyakarta arts manager Ratna Mufida, Auckland-based academic Deirdre Brown and Reem Shadid (Deputy Director, Sharjah Art Foundation).
7 Deirdre Brown, speaking at the APT9 symposium, 26 November 2018.

Delve deeper into APT9 with Latai Taumoepeau

Latai Taumoepeau, Australia/Tonga b.1972 / Dark Continent 2018 (Performance documentation) / Digital print on paper ed. 1/3/ 118.9 x 84.1cm (sheet) / Purchased 2018 with funds from the bequest of Jennifer Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Latai Taumoepeau / Image courtesy: The artist / Photograph: Zan Wimberley

In Tongan culture, ‘Punake’ is a term used to describe artists who compose poetry and songs and choreograph them for performance. The word comes from puna (to fly) and hake (on high). Latai Taumoepeau is a contemporary Punake — a body-centred performance artist whose powerful artistic practice tells the stories of her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga, and her birthplace of the Eora Nation, Sydney. Working in durational performance and documenting it through photographs, she addresses issues of race, class and the female body.

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Feature image detail: Latai Taumoepeau Dark Continent 2018 (Performance documentation) / Taumoepeau was part the APT9 symposium: Session 2 Panel Discussion ‘Who speaks: Self-determination and cultural resilience on a global stage’.

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