Editorial

What is "movement"? A change of position from one point to another. A transmission. A flow. A term in art history that describes groups of artists with common ideologies, sets of goals and artistic styles. The facets of meaning of the word "movement" multiply as the list goes on.

The previous issue of Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia (Volume 2, Number 1), explored possibilities of reading and considering the theme "Movement" in relation to modern and contemporary art in the region. In this issue, we continue to think of Southeast Asia as zones of encounter. Within and beyond the geographical location, artistic styles and movements, artists, discourses, terms and concepts in art and art history, ideas and debates arose with interaction with others. Some of these intercultural inventions have faded away into recent history. Some remain contemporary. Our contributors bring us to reconsider the formation of various phases and forms of artistic production in Southeast Asia. Yet, here is not only a destination where Euro-American art discourses and practices arrived and were locally adapted, the presence of art and artists from Southeast Asia in the global arena points to the region as one of the places where fascinating creations have taken place for decades throughout history. Movement here signifies more than a linear flow of transfer and exchange. Mobility in the modern and globalizing world makes possible the faster circulation of ideas and people. A decentralisation?

We hope that this issue offers rigorous discussions of the complexities of the histories of the arts in and from Southeast Asia. In "Pictorialism and Modernity in Singapore, 1950–60", Charmaine Toh counters a modernist art discourse that has traditionally positioned pictorialism in opposition to modern photography. Toh proposes that pictorial photography marks the start of a modern practice of photography in Singapore. The author refers to John Clark's explanation of a transfer of artistic style and practice from one culture to another as a process of selection and assimilation (1998). Recognising pictorialism as an international style and artistic movement that originated in Europe, this article investigates how Singapore's social and political situation shaped pictorialism in the country in the 1950s–60s.

In the opposite direction, Joleen Loh's article titled "Relocating Kim Lim: A Cosmopolitan Perspective" centres on Kim Lim, a Singaporean-British sculptor and printmaker of Chinese descent who moved to London in the mid-1950s. Southeast Asia is not a destination here but a point of departure. Loh remarks that the absence of Lim in the institutionalised histories of post-war art in both Britain and Singapore poses a challenge for a re-evaluation of her works. The article presents a historiographical attempt on relocating Kim Lim's modernist art practices within the context of the international art community in cosmopolitan London, opening questions on diaspora subjectivities and their place in art histories.

The research report in this volume emphasises that a result of cultural transfer is an intercultural kind of invention. A joint effort by Thanavi Chotpradit, J Pilapil Jacobo, Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, Roger Nelson, Nguyen Nhu Huy, Chairat Polmuk, San Lin Tun, Phoebe Scott, Simon Soon and Jim Supangkat, this inaugural report provides introductory accounts of the terminologies of "modern" and "contemporary" "art" in nine Southeast Asian languages. Translation implies transformation in communication. At the same time, the act of translating connotes struggle in movement. Transferring and transforming of terminologies to Southeast Asian vernacular languages lead to unavoidable changes and discrepancies. Just as with other artistic enterprises, terminologies in each language bear subtle differences or shades of meanings and connotations from the original.

In the archival section, this issue presents direct reproductions of clippings from a series first published in 1936 and then again in 1948 in the Philippines. With contributions by primarily artists Guillermo Tolentino and Victorio Edades—both of whom also wrote criticism as part of their practices—these clippings from the catalogue Edades and the 13 Moderns reveal the rigorous back and forth between various thinkers in the translation of the modern within a Philippine context. The movement of these terms is never without careful and rigorous inspection as well as adaptation into the local vernacular. These raw reproductions serve as source material that readers might pursue for their own research; they serve as a tool of measure that demonstrate a historical precedent for this kind of textual mining within a Southeast Asian context.

This notion of slippages in translation with terminologies is echoed in a review by Yvonne Low of Wulan Dirgantoro's recently published book, Feminisms and Contemporary Art in Indonesia: Defining Experiences. Low draws attention to the author's argument citing the resistance against the term "feminist" as something that might run counter to existing discourses in Indonesia. The review draws attention to the etymology of this term as exogenous and discusses its application by Dirgantoro in facilitating a discourse on art by Indonesian women artists. Here, Dirgantoro tests the applicability of established feminist theory in her recovery of the art and subjectivities of women artists.

Finally, in this issue, a photo essay on a mural, Getting Into the Out (1995) at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney by an "ad hoc group of painters" called Sanggawâ is revisited in a conversation between curator Matt Cox and two artists that were part of the group, Joy Mallari and Mark Justiniani. This short response draws attention not only to how the mural was collectively made, but also to a period of extended exchange between the artists and cultural practitioners of Southeast Asia and Australia beginning in the early 1990s. Such exchanges resonate with larger-scale events such as regional collaborations and biennial culture and prompt us to rethink how politically charged objects might speak over time beyond the temporary nature of exhibitions.