Defining modern SE Asian art is not an easy task

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The audience visiting a recent lecture expected to return with an understanding of what "ASEAN Modern Art" was all about, judging from the title in the agenda.

They were first shown a slide show of paintings nominated in the Third Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards in Bangkok, 1996, which they thought would be used as a case study by the speaker in the lecture.

Instead, the audience was to be disappointed. The speaker at the July 1 presentation at the ASEAN Secretariat here, art critic Jim Supangkat, avoided defining Southeast Asian art.

He said the attempt to art of the region through the empirical approach, by trying to find similarities in art practices in each Southeast Asian country and subsequently speculating about them, "is merely a simplification since it does not connect to any discourse".

Perhaps speaking from experience, he said, "many times the result is too hypothetical and thus raises endless debate".

Jim pointed out the problems of the domination of the notion of modern art, and also the problems of Southeast Asian artists in entering the world art scene.

He seems to have much hope in contemporary art.

However, he added the emergence of contemporary art discourse in the 1970s gave birth to criticism "that heavily accuses the modernist vision".

The criticism stressing dissimilarity of world art, he said, "sees modernist universalism as considering only Euro-American paradigms and is not aware that modern art develops differently outside Europe and America.

"Considering contemporary art discourse, it is possible to identify regional art that can be seen as art, or modern art, that grew outside Europe and America."

He reiterated his concept of multimodernism, which he has raised in many local and international discussions and seminars.

His view of multimodernism seems to be merely a multiculturalist approach to modernism, and shares similarities with what is known as Post-Modernism. In addition to modernism that emerged and fostered in the West, he said there were other modernisms that emerged in other parts of the world which were yet to be identified.

Contradiction

"Societies outside the West still have to chart their modernism that will clarify not only their interpretations of being modern, but also their thoughts within the process of modernization since the 18th century," he added.

He said many societies outside the West entered the modern era after experiencing contact with Western culture for centuries in colonial times.

In any event, it seems clear that Jim's reluctance in identifying Southeast Asian art through an empirical approach contradicts his own concepts of multimodernism. In fact, his ideas about multimodernism could only have been deduced from a kind of empirical study of the developments of modernism outside the West.

However, he also stressed the need to shy away from emphasizing differences, particularly in contemporary art.

"In the pluralist approach, the difference is not the goal in criticizing modernist principles".

In contemporary art, he continued, the difference is used "to explore only the manyness" and he referred to the belief that modernist art has ended.

"Contemporary art is then believed to have freed any art that has been marginalized in modern art development and thus has opened up a condition where anything goes. This stance overviews the facts that the emergence of contemporary art is not perceived clearly outside Europe and America."

Jim warned of the possibility of another domination of contemporary art, if perceived similarly anywhere in the world.

He mentions the concept of simulacrum, which he defines as "copies that show alteration" -- the result of copying continued with transformation followed by transfer of knowledge.

He said the change, to some extent, was a "mutation."

It seems he is trying to offer a new term to the notion of local genius.

His attempt at implementing concepts which seem to have been borrowed from genetics or physics into the field of culture will undoubtedly receive strong reaction from experts on Indonesian art and culture. Artists will surely reject the idea that their work is a result of a process of copying, even though the created "copy" is said to have undergone whatever mutation.

Perhaps it is rather irrelevant to use such fancy scientific jargon when talking about creativity or artistic and cultural discourses. However, Jim is known for his avant-garde, esoteric (or weird) approach to art criticism and theory.

On a final note, perhaps Jim is actually right in saying that the attempt to identify Southeast Asian art through a empirical approach is a mere simplification. That Southeast Asian art does not connect to any discourse is debatable.

Perhaps, Southeast Asian art actually relates to too many discourses. Yet, Jim's current approach certainly seems to be even more speculative, and has resulted in confusion.

A conventional empirical method would still be better to understand Southeast Asian art.

This could be done, for example, through research on the trends of Southeast Asian art, and how it relates to other fields of art and culture particularly in literature, popular culture, philosophy and other issues in contemporary society.