Art gathering attempts to redifine 'international art'

Art gathering attempts to redifine 'international art'

Margaret Agusta, Contributor, Jakarta

Terrorism mounts worldwide. Iraq continues to smolder while Iran,
North Korea and Cancun heat up.

As we are caught in the midst of the rapidly shifting
perceptions of global boundaries and power centers, the deepening
concerns and urgent agendas of the artists, curators and other
intellectuals gathering for the ongoing CP Open Biennale and its
scholarly symposium held recently at the National Gallery in
Jakarta may not seem very momentous.

The issues these art world people are heatedly discussing,
however, mirror the overall concerns of marginalization,
domination, equivalent access, and an equal voice in the destiny
of mankind that human beings all around the world are struggling
with.

These concerns are currently shaping the world of arts,
remarked Jim Supangkat, a noted Indonesian art critic and curator
for the CP Open Biennale 2003, in his keynote speech to open the
symposium, Interpellation: Simultaneous Translation in
Understanding Contemporary Art.

The arts exhibition is continuing until Oct. 3.

Jim pointed out that the growing critical attitude in the art
world toward internationalism, marginalization, and the perceived
domination of western thought has given rise to a phobia against
the concept of "international art" and brought into question the
function, purpose and validity of the exhibitions being presented
periodically worldwide.

"It is not difficult to see that art in the Western sense is
the art which has become international art. The agreement to
retain the context of 'international' in the presentation of
international exhibitions was based on the ingrained sense of the
appropriate that was difficult to change.

"The identification of international art in today's
international exhibitions is an effort to comprehend the idea of
appropriateness," he told a group of several hundred attending
the symposium on Sept. 4.

According to this internationally respected curator there are
two main realities now facing any discussion of international art
and what is appropriate within that context.

The first is the fact that the concept of art in the western
sense that forms the basis for the idea of international artist
is not identical to western art.

The second factor is that the formulation of a concept of
international art does not end with art in the western sense.

Jim further explained, "The most important part of this
process of formation, the element that has been most blatantly
overlooked, is what I identify as 'art with an accent'."

Art with an accent can be most readily defined as works of art
that originate from traditions outside of the mainstream
frameworks of thinking about art that have roots in Europe and
America.

It is this cultural issue of "art with an accent", discussed
at the symposium along with the existing curatorial and gallery
structures that artists view as limiting their access to public
exposure, which calls into question the prevailing definitions of
art in general and international art in particular.

In the interpretation of art in the western sense within the
global context of the cultures of individual nations, there is
inherent the possibility of art-to-art encounters.

When the art created by artists from differing cultural
backgrounds and national origins converges in an international
exhibition, such as the CP Open, which is the first of its kind
to be held in Indonesia, the sheer variety of the art presented
is bound to prompt attempts to find some common ground or
similarity.

In the past, one of these attempts was the development of the
framework of universalism, which assumed that all art could be
measured and evaluated by a single yardstick of theory.

Unfortunately, this led to a limited perception of what art is
and what it is not, and any type of art not fitting into the
guidelines set out, including ethnic art and art emerging from
traditions other than the Euro-American realm, was denied
adequate consideration.

It is the residual effect of this kind of thinking that has
motivated the accusations that the international art scene is
dominated by the theories, structures and systems of Europe and
America, and which has caused artists from areas outside of the
West to view "international" art shows with skepticism because
their works are often overlooked within such contexts.

As Jim Supangkat commented, art-to-art encounters have "the
potential to result in developments that give the impression of
being parallel with the developments in art in Europe and
America.

"However, as an element of cultural translation, art with an
accent cannot be removed from the framework of its culture and
seen only through the framework of art.

"When the development of art with an accent is returned to the
framework of culture, the developments that give the impression
of being parallel begin to exhibit a variety of basic differences
-- the difference is "localness" which not only indicates the
presence of indigenousness and ethnicity, but also indicates the
presence of the translation of art in the western sense."

This is why the idea of "art with an accent", the
interpretation of a variety of artistic expressions in relation
to their specific cultural contexts as well as to the more
general concepts of art, should be perceived as an important
breakthrough in approaching the wide variety of artistic
creations that is so apparent in international shows, the current
CP Open being no exception.

The interpretation of the similarities and differences in
works of art from various places around the world is more readily
possible if the art works are viewed within the spectrum of
cultural contexts, which is the case in the "art with an accent"
framework of thought.

With an approach such as "art with an accent" that takes the
various cultural traditions into consideration in international
art forums, artists worldwide can achieve more open and
constructive discussions among themselves, leading to a greater
understanding across cultural and national divides.