Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions (review)

Chatchai Puipia, Siamese SmiLe, 1995, oil on canvas. Photo: Manit Sriwanichpoom. CONTEMPORARY ART IN ASIA: TRAOmONSjTENSIONS TH E ASIA SOOETY THE GREY ART GALLERY THE QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART The territory covered by the exhibition, "Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/ Tensions," is expansive and multifarious in its concerns represented by the works of artists from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. Shown simultaneously at three sites in New York City which included the Asia Society, the Grey Art Gallery and Study Center of New York University, and the Queens Museum of Art from October 1996 to January 1997, the exhibition brought to the west an opportunity to investigate the grandeur and complexity of contemporary Asian art. A serious problem that plagued the curation at the Asia Society is the common tendency to have exhibitions like these look something akin to a natural history extravaganza. The main themes reflected in the works were religion and sexuality, two themes that made this uptown showing "exotic." These themes are what one can expect when viewing Asian art in the west; it is unfortunate that the Asia Society could not escape these common taboos in their focus. While sex and God resided on 5th Avenue, the more overt sociopolitical artworks were kept far away at the Queens Museum. The curation of the pieces in this museum allowed for a graceful walk through its galleries where each artwork was able to freely convey its full content. Many kinds of artforms were on display throughout the entire exhibition. The genres ranged in style from the highly skilled and expertly rendered as exemplified by Kim Ho-Suk's ink on paper paintings, SiLent Demonstration, 1992, and the ambitious "History of Resistance" series of 1990-91, to the animated glaringly colorful blow-up pop of Choi Jeong-Hwa's Seeds, 1995-96, PLastic Happiness, 1995, and About Being Irritated - The Death of a Robot, 1995. For these two Korean artists, the socio-cultural situations of the abuse and the misuse of power became focal points within their aesthetic discourses. This critique rang clear in the powerfully subversive paintings of Chatchai Puipia. Puipia expressed in his insightful and thought provoking series the paranoia, malaise and outrage of citizenry in a volatile Thai landscape . In Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook 's Buang (Trap), 1995, the artist mercilessly speaks ofthe general condition of women in Thailand. The female body becomes a hacked coffin holding detritus while only a head and a pair of legs stick out in useless rigor-mortis li ke stiffness. Soo-Ja Kim also used the effects of stillness along with video and its varied notions of time in her gorgeous, darklylit room/installation, Sewing into WaLking, 1994. Used clothes with color so loaded as to wake the dead laid scattered about the room ~ke abandoned ~ves waiting to be taken to their proper rest home. A video monitor showed a stranger who walks into a small courtyard with a large bundle of clothes only to drop it in the center of this square and then leave. In another video monitor underneath, we see the artist walk through a tranquil woodecjlandscape picking up with precious care the same abandoned cloth strewn about in the room/installation. The clothes become a metaphor for people and the color of their lives, like the color of blood and skin and the soul inside. Voice Without a Voice/Sign, 1993-94, by FX Harsono of Indonesia most poignantly epitomized the underlying theme of "Traditions/ Tensions." It speeks of democracy as a sign without representation, and as an image that is only illusion. Nine large canvases stood against the wall, each printed with one hand image/sign which together spelled out the word "D-E-M-O-KR -A-S-I," Indonesian for Democracy. In front of each of these canvases were small tables holding paper, ink pads and wooden stampers with a letter that corresponded with each marked hand image/sign. When I made my own stamped sample of the word "Demokrasi," I could not fit the complete word into one line on the paper. The frame/size of the paper broke the word, although, I had planned ahead so this would not...