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Reworlding Art History
C
ROSS
ULTURES
178
Readings in Post / Colonial
Literatures and Cultures in English
SERIES EDITORS
Gordon Collier Bénédicte Ledent Geoffrey Davis
(Giessen) (Liège) (Aachen)
CO-FOUNDING EDITOR
Hena Maes–Jelinek
Reworlding Art History
Encounters with Contemporary
Southeast Asian Art after 1990
Michelle Antoinette
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for
documents - Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3914-8
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-1196-3
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2014
Printed in The Netherlands
For Gran, Luke & Keir
Acknowledgements xi
List of Illustrations xv
Preface: Departures xxxi
PART I
PRELIMINARY ENCOUNTERS
1 Contemporary ‘Southeast Asian’ Art:
Regional Interventions 3
Why ‘Southeast Asian’ Contemporary Art? 3
The Shifting Art-Historical Field for Southeast Asia:
Tradition, Modernity, and ‘the Contemporary’ 8
Reworlding ‘Contemporary Art’ 34
Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: Between
‘the Cultural’ and ‘the Aesthetic’ 46
Encounters with Contemporary Southeast Asian Art:
Oscillating Currents 58
Fluid Encounters I: Lani Maestro’s a book thick of ocean 58
Fluid Encounters I I : Yee I-Lann’s Sulu Stories 67
P A R T II
LOCATING SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIFFERENCE
2 Mapping Regional Difference: Institutionalized
Cartographies of Southeast Asian Art 81
A Southeast Asian Regional Agency 84
Defining Southeast Asia:
Contending with Maps of Colonial Inheritance 89
Towards an Art History of Contemporary Southeast Asian Art 94
Institutional Perspectives: Locating Contemporary Southeast
Asian Art through Regional Exhibitions and Collections 105
Alternative Art Spaces in Southeast Asia:
From the Margins to the Centres of Contemporary Art 127
‘Territorializing’ and ‘Deterritorializing’ Regional
Difference in the Art of Wong Hoy Cheong 136
Bibliography 507
Index 561
Acknowledgements
pore Art Museum; and, in Australia, the National Gallery of Australia and the
Queensland Art Gallery|Gallery of Modern Art. I am also grateful to Quentin
Bertoux and Brent Hallard for permission to reproduce their photography as
well as Stanley Schab, Managing Editor at the Center for Biographical Re-
search, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, for his kind assistance in recovering
reproductions.
This book has its genesis in my doctoral research and ensuing thesis –
“Images That Quiver: The In/visible Geographies of ‘Southeast Asian’ Con-
temporary Art” – which I undertook at the Humanities Research Centre at the
Australian National University, Canberra. I am grateful to the H R C for their
generous support of my initial research and writing; in particular, I extend my
sincere thanks to Dr Caroline Turner, who, as Deputy Director of the H R C ,
served as chair supervisor of my research and continues to be a generous
collaborator in shared projects on Asian art; I am also tremendously thankful
to Caroline for so kindly taking the time to read the manuscript for this book
and providing such thoughtful and astute advice for its development from
dissertation to book. Alongside Caroline, I am also especially grateful to Pro-
fessor Jacqueline Lo for her intellectual guidance as a PhD supervisor and for
her continuing support and collaboration thereafter. Professor Mandy Thomas,
Professor Paul Pickering, and Dr Ashley Carruthers also gave generously of
their time and advice as research supervisors and advisors, and my warm
gratitude to Professor Margaret Jolly for her support and encouragement of
my book proposal and postdoctoral research, as well as for continued support
and friendship.
My profound thanks to my long-time friend and colleague Dr Francis
Maravillas, who, besides offering terrific camaraderie over the years, also
very generously read the manuscript for this book, providing invaluable and
sage advice for its development.
My thanks to the Australian Research Council, which funded the three-year
Discovery Project ‘The Rise of New Cultural Networks in Asia in the
Twenty-First Century’ (D P 1096041), which allowed me to undertake further
research and writing so as to update, revise, and complete this book in tandem
with new research. I also acknowledge the support of the A N U ’s College of
Arts and Social Sciences, which was host to my A R C research.
This book has been generously supported by publication subsidies from the
Australian National University and the Australian Academy of the Human-
ities. These have made possible the inclusion of the many reproductions fea-
tured throughout this book, so integral to a study of art and the affective en-
½¾ Acknowledgements xiii
counter with it. Indeed, I could not have responsibly published the text of this
book without the very images it speaks to, so am thankful for this financial
support and its crucial contribution to realizing this book in its entirety of
word and image.
Parts of the material in this book now also appears in extracted and/or
altered form in individual publications, where they are also foregrounded in
different intellectual purposes and contexts, namely as: a journal article for
the special issue on “Autographics” in Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quar-
terly by the Biographical Research Center, in which I focus on the art of José
Legaspi – see 33.1 (Winter 2008): 133–60; a book chapter in Race and Multi-
culturalism in Malaysia and Singapore, ed. Daniel P.S. Goh et al. (Routledge,
2009), in which I focus on the art of Wong Hoy Cheong in the Malaysian
context; a book chapter on Indonesian artists in Cosmopatriots: On Distant
Belongings and Close Encounters, ed. Jurriëns & de Kloet (Rodopi, 2007);
and as a chapter in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence,
The Proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the History of Art
(Melbourne University Publishing, 2009), in which I focus on the making of
Southeast Asian art history. I am grateful to the respective publishers for their
permission to include material for republication in the current book.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to Rodopi’s Cross /Cultures series edi-
tor, Gordon Collier, who has been an incredible source of support and guid-
ance. I am tremendously thankful for his encouragement of the book, his
enthusiasm for the topic and art generally, and his energetic and sustained
commitment to seeing the manuscript to completion (yes, finally!). I have
been so privileged to work with such an expert, patient, genial, and good-
humoured editor, someone so understanding of the personal lives we all
juggle alongside academia, and am delighted to have made another friend
through the journey of this book.
This book could not have been realized without the continued love and
support of my family and friends. I thank my late grandmother Giséle, always
with me in spirit, sister Sabrina, mother Brigitte, father Gerard, Aliette, Nic,
Mike, Roselyne, Priscilla, and all my other aunties, uncles, and cousins who
have been there for me as I have developed this book. So, too, my gratitude to
the Hamblys, especially Anne and Kevin, for giving generously to me of their
kindness and love. My heartfelt thanks to all who make up my ‘second’
Antoinette family in France, for their unconditional love over the years. And,
of course, my thanks to all my friends and other colleagues who in their
various ways have helped me arrive at this point – in particular: Kim, Sonia,
xiv REWORLDING ART HISTORY ½¾
½¾
List of Illustrations
COVER ILLUSTRATION
Lee Wen. Splash! (Series #1 and #2), 2003. Digital print on archival
paper (edition: 3/5 +1 artist proof), 60.96 cm x 76.2 cm (24 inches x
30 inches). Reproduced by courtesy of the artist.
FIGURES
P R E L I M I N A R Y N O T E : In a sequent listing of Figures from the
same artwork, descriptive details are provided for the first only.
60: Heri Dono. Badman, 1991. Fibreglass, electronic circuit, coin, etc.,
58 x 64 x 8 cm each. Collection: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.
Photograph: Fujimoto Kenpachi. © Heri Dono. Image courtesy of
the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. 259
61: Heri Dono. Political Clowns (Badut-Badut Politik), 1999. Fibreglass,
bulb, bottle of jar, metal, cable, tape-recorder, tin-can, acrylic, plastic
pipe, vegetable oil, 15 pieces, 120 x 50 x 50 cm each (approx.). Re-
produced by courtesy of the artist. 259
62: Heri Dono. A Magician Who Never Killed (Tukang Sulap yang Tidak
Pernah Bisa Dibunuh), 2000. Acrylic, collage on canvas, 154 x 207
cm. Reproduced by courtesy of the artist. 260
63: Heri Dono. Superman Still Learning How to Wear Underwear (Super-
man Baru Belajar Memakai Celana Dalam), 2000. Acrylic, collage
on canvas, 148 x 98 cm. Reproduced by courtesy of the artist. 260
64: Heri Dono. Fermentation of Mind (Peragian Pikiran), 1994. 9 pieces
of wooden desks, 18 pieces of nodding heads with mechanical sys-
tem, 9 pieces of loop tape-recorder, cable, adaptor, 500 x 500 cm
(approx.). Reproduced by courtesy of the artist. 262
65: Heri Dono. Ceremony of the Soul, 1995. Stone, fibreglass, plastic,
radio and tape player, lamps, fans, wood (9 figures), 70 x 60 x 50
cm each. Collection: The artist. Image courtesy of the artist. 262
66: Heri Dono. Glass Vehicles, 1995 (detail). Glass, fibreglass, cloth,
lamps, cable, iron, toy carriages. 15 units: 125 x 40 x 40 cm each.
Purchased 2002. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern
Art Acquisitions Fund. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. © Heri
Dono. Image courtesy of the artist and Queensland Art Gallery |
Gallery of Modern Art. 263
67: Heri Dono. Animal Journey (Perjalanan Binatang) (performance,
Harima Science Garden City, Japan, 1997). 25 bicycles with electro-
nic radio / tape-machines, 1 becak/cycle, 5 traffic-lights, 30 players,
sound system, etc. Reproduced by courtesy of the artist. 267
68: tsunamii.net. alpha 3.8: translocation, 2003. ‘Visual traceroute.’
© The artists. Reproduced by courtesy of the artists. 272
69: tsunamii.net. alpha 3.4, 2002 (installation view). © The artists.
Reproduced by courtesy of the artists. 273
70: tsunamii.net. alpha 3.4, 2002 (performance view). © The artists. 273
71: Judy Freya Sibayan. Scapular Gallery Nomad, 1997–2002 (S G N in
the streets of Paris, 1999). Photograph: Marian Pastor Roces. Image
courtesy of the artist. 280
½¾ List of Illustrations xxi
83: Simryn Gill. A small town at the turn of the century, #2, 1999–2000. 300
84: Simryn Gill. A small town at the turn of the century, #28, 1999–
2000. 301
85: Simryn Gill. Dalam, 2001. Type-C photographs, from a series of
260, 23.5 x 23.5 cm each (image). Image courtesy of the artist. 302
86: Simryn Gill. Dalam, 2001. 302
87: Simryn Gill. Dalam, 2001. 303
88: Simryn Gill. Dalam, 2001. 304
89: Wong Hoy Cheong. In Search of Faraway Places (from “Migrants”
series), 1996. Charcoal, photocopy transfer and collage on paper
scroll. Three panels: 204.5 x 151 cm (each); 204.5 x 453 cm
(overall). Purchased 1996 with funds from Michael Sidney Myer
through and with the assistance of the Queensland Art Gallery. Col-
lection: Queensland Art Gallery. The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer
Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. © The artist. Image courtesy
of the artist. 309
90: Wong Hoy Cheong. In Search of Faraway Places, 1996 (detail).
Image courtesy of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern
Art. 310
91: Alfredo J.D. Aquilizan. Presences and Absences, 1999. Tooth-
brushes. Collection: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. Photograph:
Shinomiya Yuji. © The artist. Image courtesy of the Fukuoka Asian
Art Museum. 317
92: Alfredo J.D. Aquilizan. Presences and Absences, 1999. 317
93: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan. Wings, 2009. Used rubber slippers (col-
lected from Singapore prisons), fibreglass, stainless steel; variable
dimensions. Singapore Art Museum collection. © The artists. Image
courtesy of the artists. 319
94: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan. Project Be-longing #2, 1999 (installa-
tion view, The Third Asia–Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art,
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999). Image courtesy of the
artists. 322
95: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan. Project Be-longing #2, 1999 (installa-
tion detail). 322
96: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan. Address, 2008 (installation view).
Image courtesy of the artists. 326
97: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan. Address, 2008 (detail). 326
½¾ List of Illustrations xxiii
145: Mella Jaarsma. Bule Bull, 2002. Buffalo horn. Image courtesy of the
artist. 424
146: Mella Jaarsma. Shelter Me, 2005. Four one-person shelters: a
Chinese shrine, a movable shelter with tattoo images, a shelter made
out of flexible bark, wood and zinc, a curtain shelter with digital
images from Iran. Image courtesy of the artist. 425
147: Mella Jaarsma. The Trophy (Animals have no religion), 2011. Wood,
antlers, silkscreen on cotton, embroidered emblems. Image courtesy
of the artist. 425
148: Mella Jaarsma. Pribumi – Pribumi (performance, Marlioboro Street,
Yogyakarta, 3 July 1998). Frying frog legs, a Chinese food, by seven
Westerners, opening up a dialogue about the racial riots. Image cour-
tesy of the artist. 429
149: Mella Jaarsma. Pribumi – Pribumi (performance, Marlioboro Street,
Yogyakarta, 3 July 1998). 429
150: Mella Jaarsma. Hi Inlander (performance, The Third Asia–Pacific
Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane,
1999). Frog legs, chicken feet, kangaroo leather, fish skin, photo-
graphs, 3 kitchen tables, spices. Image courtesy of the artist. 430
151: Mella Jaarsma. Hi Inlander (performance, The Third Asia–Pacific
Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane,
1999). 430
152: Mella Jaarsma. Hi Inlander (Hello Native) (A P T 3, Queensland Art
Gallery, Brisbane, 1999). Treated skins (kangaroo, frog, fish and
chicken), 244 x 97 cm (kangaroo); 140 x 84 cm (frog); 150 x 100 cm
(fish); 152 x 95 cm (chicken). Image courtesy of the artist. 433
153: Mella Jaarsma. Hi Inlander (Hello Native) (A P T 3, Queensland Art
Gallery, Brisbane, 1999; face detail). 433
154: Suzann Victor. Still Waters (between estrangement & reconciliation)
(site-specific performance installation; drain on second floor of the
Singapore Art Museum, for A R X 5, 1998). Glass panels, glass
dams, water, photographs. Photograph: Jason Lim. Image courtesy of
the artist. 434
155: Suzann Victor. Still Waters (between estrangement & reconcilia-
tion), 1998. 435
156: Suzann Victor. Still Waters (between estrangement & reconcilia-
tion), 1998. 437
157: Suzann Victor. Still Waters (between estrangement & reconcilia-
tion), 1998. 437
xxviii REWORLDING ART HISTORY ½¾
179: Susyilawati Sulaiman. A wall with 8 hours air filled from a living
room, 2003 (preparations in Malaysia, before travel to Italy for
Florence Biennale 2003). 480
180: Susyilawati Sulaiman. A wall with 8 hours air filled from a living
room, 2003 (preparations in Malaysia, before travel to Italy for
Florence Biennale 2003). 480
181: Ho Tzu Nyen. 4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art, Episode 1: “Cheong
Soo Pieng – A Dream of Tropical Life,” H D V , 23 min., broadcast
on Arts Central, Singapore, 2005. Image courtesy of the artist. 491
182: Ho Tzu Nyen. 4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art, Episode 2: “Cheo
Chai Hiang – A Thousand Singapore Rivers,” H D V , 23 min, broad-
cast on Arts Central, Singapore, 2005. Image courtesy of the artist. 492
183: Ho Tzu Nyen. 4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art, Episode 3: “Tang
Da Wu – The Most Radical Gesture,” H D V , 23 min, broadcast on
Arts Central, Singapore, 2005. Image courtesy of the artist. 492
184: Ho Tzu Nyen. 4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art, Episode 3: “Tang
Da Wu – The Most Radical Gesture.” 493
185: Ho Tzu Nyen. Every Name in History is I: Film and Paintings about
the Other Founder of Singapore, 2003 (video stills selection, Sang
Nila Utama, on a voyage of discovery). Video, 23:00 min. Collec-
tion: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. © The artist. Image courtesy of
the artist. 493
186: Lee Wen. Splash! (Series #1 and #2), 2003. Digital print on archival
paper (edition: 3/5 +1 artist proof), 60.96 cm x 76.2 cm (24 inches x
30 inches). Image courtesy of the artist. 502
187: Lee Wen. Splash! (Series #1 and #2), 2003. 502
188: Lani Maestro. a book thick of ocean, 1993 (installation). Hardbound
book with linen cover, title stamped in silver, duotone reproduction,
600 pages, oak table. Dimensions: book: 61 x 48.2 x 3.8 cm; table:
182.8 x 91.4 x 78.5 cm. © Lani Maestro. Photograph: Lincoln Mul-
cahy. Image courtesy of the artist. 506
½¾
Preface
Departures
1
Nevertheless, throughout this book I include Australia in the geo-political short-
hand of ‘Euro-America’ because the discourses which emanate from Europe and the
U S A are often ones that have been influential in shaping Australian histories, in-
cluding Australian art history. Moreover, Australia has played its own role in adminis-
tering and disseminating Euro-American knowledge. This situation is changing to
some degree as Australia explores the relevance of its Indigenous art histories, and
those of its neighbouring Asian and Pacific countries, to Australian and world-wide
practices and discourses of modern and contemporary art.
2
A R X was a biennial artist exchange project established in Perth, Western Australia
in 1987 involving ‘Asia–Pacific’ artists, including a sizeable number of Southeast
Asian artists. Pamela Zeplin has argued that A R X is an important precedent for sub-
sequent Australian artistic engagements with Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Zeplin
reports that the change of nomenclature was a direct result of the participation of
Southeast Asian artists, who sought to shift the emphasis on an Australian ‘centre’ to a
broader regional dialogue. See Zeplin, “The A R X Experiment 1987–1999: Commu-
nities, controversy & regionality,” Australian Council of University Art & Design
Schools, annual conference papers, 2005, http://acuads.com.au /static/files /assets
/06ff15eb/zeplin.pdf (accessed 15 May 2013). See also Senga Peckham, “A R X to A -
P T : The Museification of Contemporary Asian Art in Australia” (M A thesis, Material
Culture & Museum Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, 1995).
½¾ Preface: Departures xxxiii
Asian neighbours. There was little offered in studies of Asian art in Australian
tertiary centres at the time. Instead, my travels to Asia, combined with my
studies of politics of the region, led me to concentrate my long-time passion
for art in the vast landscape of Asia. I was fortunate to encounter some of this
art first-hand during my travels to Southeast Asia, but I also gradually came
upon more in reproductions. My scholarly confidence grew as I discovered
that at least one Australia-based journal, then called A R T and AsiaPacific,3
was taking this art seriously, as were a few scholars scattered in different
corners of the world who gathered in Australia in 1991 for the momentous
conference on ‘Modernism and Post-Modernism in Asian Art’ – convened by
the eminent historian of Asian art, Professor John Clark – to discuss the dif-
ferently situated and long-neglected modern and contemporary art of Asia.4
These were key platforms and conferences that provide an early if developing
critical mass of knowledge shaping both Australian and broader international
perceptions of the art of the region.
What has followed since that time is a veritable explosion of international
interest in contemporary Asian art, showing that while Australia has for some
time undertaken an active role in developing its knowledge of Asian art, the
rest of the world has likewise also shown great interest in the remarkable
contemporary art developments in Asia. Accordingly, I suggest that if what I
present in this book is viewed through an Australian lens, it should also, I
hope, have relevance to all interested in contemporary art and, more speci-
fically, contemporary Southeast Asian art.
½¾
3
The journal I refer to is now known as ArtAsiaPacific, the renowned quarterly art
magazine focusing on contemporary art of Asia and the Pacific, first published in
Sydney, Australia, 1993 as A R T and AsiaPacific. Since 2004, the periodical has
undergone several changes of ownership and publishing location. In 2007 Elaine Ng
became the sole publisher and editor-in-chief and, in 2011, moved the magazine’s
office from the U S A to Hong Kong.
4
‘Modernism and Post-Modernism in Asian Art’ was held at the Australian National
University, Canberra, March 1991. Papers from the conference were revised and pub-
lished in Modernity in Asian Art, ed. John Clark (Sydney: Wild Peony, 1993).
Prologue
Points of Entry
Figure 1: Redza Piyadasa, Masa Penerimaan – Entry Points (1978). Image courtesy
of the National Visual Arts Gallery, Malaysia (Balai Seni Lukis Negara).
½¾ Prologue: Points of Entry xxxvii
It is precisely a concern with our points of entry into art and the contingencies
of context that the late Malaysian artist and art theorist Redza Piyadasa once
expressed in his artwork Entry Points of 1978 (Figure 1 above) – essentially a
conceptually driven sculptural artwork consisting of a frame within a frame.1
Stencilled in bold, colourful print along the bottom edge of the outer frame is
the statement: “Artworks never exist in time, they have ‘entry points’.” The
statement lies beneath the inner frame of an oil painting entitled Riverside
Scene executed in 1958 by the Malaysian artist Chia Yu-Chian (an influential
figure from the Southeast Asian ‘Nanyang’ or ‘Southern Seas’ School of
painting; see Chapter 2 below). By absorbing the earlier 1958 painting into
his own 1978 conceptual artwork, Piyadasa acknowledges art-historical pre-
cedents for his own practice from within the Malaysian and even Southeast
Asian ‘Nanyang’ context. In so doing, he sets up a localized, dialectical story
of art-historical relation between art practitioners of his generation and those
working two decades earlier in the regionally inflected styles of the Nanyang
School of modern art. As the eminent historian of Southeast Asian art, T.K.
Sabapathy, observes of the artwork, Piyadasa makes the point that works of
art are “no longer imprisoned in immutable time-frames.”2 Piyadasa instead
draws temporal relations between a localized art modernity, signalled by the
Nanyang School of art, and the generations of art practice which have come
after it (including ‘contemporary art’), deliberately (re-)tracing an art-histori-
cal narrative. Moreover, Entry Points encourages us to see that artworks do
not exist in frozen time but may be read as dynamic sites for the interplay of
1
Entry Points, first produced in 1978, has more recently been exhibited for its sig-
nificance to a developing contemporary Southeast Asian art history, including in the
exhibitions Telah Terbit (Out Now): South East Asian Art Practices During the 1970s,
curated by Ahmad Mashadi for the Singapore Art Museum in 2006, and Turns in
Tropics, curated by Patrick Flores for the “Position Papers” component of Okwui En-
wezor’s 2008 Gwangju Biennale, “On the Road/Position Papers/Insertions,” which
explored four Southeast Asian artists-turned-curators, including Piyadasa.
2
T.K. Sabapathy explains in his monograph on Redza Piyadasa that the statement
included in the artwork is a reference to George Kubler’s The Shape of Time, in which
Kubler “summarises a lifetime devoted to the study of art history and proposes ways
by which the history of art can be conceptualised dynamically.” See Sabapathy,
P I Y A D A S A – An Overview, 1962–2000 (Retrospective Exhibition) (exh. cat.; Kuala
Lumpur: Balai Seni Lukis Negara/National Art Gallery, 2001): 77. Cf. George Kubler,
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (New Haven C T : Yale U P ,
1962).
xxxviii REWORLDING ART HISTORY ½¾
specific temporalities and spatialities – that is, artworks exist in time, but also
in space.3
Entry Points was created in Malaysia upon Piyadasa’s return from art
studies in Hawai‘i (Master in Fine Arts, University of Hawai‘i, 1977) and,
prior to this, England (Diploma in Art & Design, Hornsey College of Art,
1963), by which time he had developed a deep fascination with conceptual
investigations into the very constitution, premises, and value of art. This,
along with other conceptual artwork produced by Piyadasa on his return home
to Malaysia, registered an exploration of the relevance of modern art for
Malaysians, and a concern for a developing modern Malaysian art history,
situated within larger Southeast Asian currents of modern art. Given this con-
ceptual interest by Piyadasa, it is not surprising that he later pursued a more
active role in curating Southeast Asian art4 and, together with Sabapathy, con-
tributed to the development of an art historiography for modern and contem-
porary Southeast Asian art, with particular attention to the pictorial styles and
visual vocabulary of the Nanyang School.5
Entry Points suggests Piyadasa’s awareness not only of the situatedness of
his practice within a chronology of art history but also of its locally situated
contexts of production, its geo-cultural points of entry, and their contingent
historical effect. The work, I would argue, is emblematic of some of the ear-
liest instances of ‘contemporary art’ emanating from the region with its self-
reflexive investigation into the constitution and form of art, especially in
dialogue with ‘the modern’. This self-reflexivity, I suggest, gives rise to an
ambivalence in Entry Points which stems from the artist’s conflicting desires:
on the one hand, his political will to recall localized but peripheralized
3
See also Francis Maravillas’ arguments on the intersections of temporality and
spatiality suggested by this artwork in “Constellations of the contemporary: Art /Asia /
Australia,” Journal of Australian Studies 32.4 (2008): 433–44.
4
Notably, Patrick Flores regards this turn – from artist to curator (and, by extension,
to art historian) – as an emblematic marking of a shift from ‘the modern’ to ‘the
contemporary’ in Southeast Asia. See Flores, “Position Papers: Turns in Tropics:
Artist–Curator,” in The 7th Gwangju Biennale: Annual Report: A Year in Exhibitions,
ed. Okwui Enwezor (Gwangju: Gwangju Biennale Foundation, 2008): 262–85.
5
See Redza Piyadasa, “Introduction” and “The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts,” in
Pameran retrospektif pelukis-pelukis Nanyang (Kuala Lumpur: Muzium Seni Negara
Malaysia, 1979): 6–7, 24–35, and T.K. Sabapathy, “The Nanyang artists: some general
remarks,” in Pameran retrospektif pelukis-pelukis Nanyang (Kuala Lumpur: Muzium
Seni Negara Malaysia, 1979): 43–48.
½¾ Prologue: Points of Entry xxxix
6
Among other writings on Malaysian art history, see the four-volume publication
project Narratives in Malaysian Art, ed. Nur Hanim Khairuddin & Beverly Yong, with
T.K. Sabapathy (Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt, 2012—).
7
The notion of contemporary art within “world currents” is developed in the work
of Terry Smith. See, for instance, Contemporary Art: World Currents (London: Lau-
rence King, 2011).
8
“critical [colonial] inheritance”: Patrick Flores, “Homespun, Worldwide: Colo-
nialism as Critical Inheritance,” in 36 Ideas from Asia: Contemporary South-East
Asian Art, ed. A S E A N Committee on Culture and Information & Singapore Art
Museum (Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2002): 16–25; “critical regionalism”:
Ismail Mohd Zain, “Towards an Utopian Paradigm: A Matter of Contingencies and
xl REWORLDING ART HISTORY ½¾
productive point of entry and even intervention into the developing (world /
global) histories of contemporary art.
12
Rob Wilson, “Afterword: Worlding as Future Tactic,” in The Worlding Project:
Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization, 209–23.
13
See Kumar Sree & Sharon Siddique, Southeast Asia: The Diversity Dilemma:
How Intra-Regional Contradictions and External Forces are Shaping Southeast Asia
Today (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2008).
xlii REWORLDING ART HISTORY ½¾
the subject-matter of art and through art practice, as part of both regional and
global dynamics. It also draws attention to the imaginative and critical possi-
bilities of art in reconfiguring contemporary subjectivities and cartographies
of Southeast Asia in an increasingly globalized world. However, as I argue
throughout this book, contemporary art not only signals new geographies of
art practice but also brings into proximity the differences and similitudes of
aesthetic encounters as they emerge from differently situated contexts in the
world. This, in turn, recognizes that the encounter with art is also an affective
one. What is often forgotten in the competing meta-narratives documenting
contemporary art is precisely the aesthetic fact of art and its affective capacity
to move us – its ‘moving’ effect. These aesthetic considerations of contempo-
rary Southeast Asian art are thus foregrounded in Reworlding Art History as a
key argumentative thread.
14
Chen Kuan-Hsing has proposed a programme of ‘Asia as Method’ and ‘Asian
Studies in Asia’, in order to continue decolonizing and de-imperializing projects in
Asia that are proposed to activate new modes of knowledge-production, not based
exclusively on Euro-American frames of theoretical reference. See Chen Kuan-Hsing,
Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (Durham N C : Duke U P , 2010); Trajec-
tories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, ed. Chen Kuan-Hsing, with Kuo Hsiu-Ling, Hans
Hang & Hsu Ming-Chu (London: Routledge, 1998); Chen Kuan-Hsing & Chua Beng
Huat, The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007); and the
journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Movements.
½¾ Prologue: Points of Entry xliii
especially across the transformed representational spaces of the art gallery and
the ethnographic or historical museum at the close of the twentieth century).
With regard to the methods and approach foregrounded in Reworlding Art
History, the interpretative frames – of art scholarship, criticism, and cura-
torship – form the argumentational impetus for the book, while the art anal-
yses offered suggest converging modes of interdisciplinary research.
The contemporary artists discussed in the book are internationally re-
nowned, with significant international experience in major exhibitions; they
include Nindityo Adipurnomo, Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan, Dadang Chris-
tanto, Heri Dono, Simryn Gill, Ho Tzu Nyen, Mella Jaarsma, Lee Wen, José
Legaspi, Lim Tzay Chuen, Lani Maestro, the Sanggawa Group, Judy Freya
Sibayan, Susyilawati Sulaiman, tsunamii.net, Suzann Victor, Roberto Villa-
nueva, Wong Hoy Cheong, and Yee I-Lann. Reworlding Art History analyses
major works by these seminal artists, featured in important regional and inter-
national exhibitions over the past two decades.
The artists I discuss have been chosen not only for their captivating and
affecting contemporary art practices, but also on the basis of their recurring
representation in international art exhibitions since the 1990s and their sub-
sequent international reputation. Given the varied exhibition contexts in-
volved, I have been motivated by the prospect of gaining insights from inves-
tigating these artists’ comparative international, regional, and national spaces
of artistic production and reception. Their trajectories of exhibition participa-
tion and related representation, as well as the particular kinds of art practice
they engage in, provide important contexts for my concerns in this book. In
gathering artists from various parts of Southeast Asia, I mark the affinities
between contemporary art practitioners from the region – specifically, Indo-
nesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore – in order to reflect critically
on the generative possibilities of Southeast Asian regionalism for crafting
more complex interpretations of the conditions and constitution of contem-
porary art and its developing critique and history, beyond prevailing centre–
periphery models (e.g., West–the Rest; East Asia–Southeast Asia), but also in
contrast to those national and regional cultural agendas which prioritize the
political usefulness of art and culture for diplomatic ends. In these latter pro-
jects, art is often essentialized to reflect a sense of homogeneous culture.
My comparative framework obviously does not reflect the full geographic
compass of Southeast Asia, which is commonly understood today to span the
eleven countries of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma /
Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Timor-Leste
xliv REWORLDING ART HISTORY ½¾
15
A S E A N refers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the postcolonial
political and economic grouping of Southeast Asian nations, originally formed in 1967
with the membership of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
It has since expanded to include Brunei, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Laos, and
Vietnam. See “About A S E A N : Overview”, at the official website of the A S E A N ,
http://www.aseansec.org/about_A S E A N .html (accessed 26 March 2012).
16
This is what the Thai scholar Thongchai Winichakul defines as the spatially en-
coded “geo-body.” See Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a
Nation (Honolulu: U of Hawai‘i P , 1994).
17
See Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia, tr. Brian Massumi (Capitalisme et Schizophrénie 2: Mille plateaux,
1980; Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P , 1987).
½¾ Prologue: Points of Entry xlv
Cosmopolitan Intersections
More often than not, the term ‘cosmopolitanism’ has been applied to describe
the kind of lifestyle that is associated with a thriving European or American
modern-day metropolis such as New York, Paris, or London; these days, how-
ever, their cosmopolitan characteristics make Asian locales such as Tokyo,
Shanghai, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore un-
ignorable.18 It was rare until recently to have an Indonesian artist such as Heri
Dono described as cosmopolitan – a ‘patriot’, yes, but seldom ‘cosmopolitan.’
By contrast, recent theories of cosmopolitanism acknowledge its relevance
beyond the Euro-American context and extend beyond the discipline of West-
ern philosophy to include forms of cosmopolitan art practice in Asia. As
Pollock et al. have argued,
What the new archives, geographies, and practices of different histori-
cal cosmopolitanisms might reveal is […] that cosmopolitanism is not
a circle created by culture diffused from a centre, but instead, that
centers are everywhere and circumferences nowhere.”19
18
Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters, ed. Edwin Jurriëns
& Jeroen de Kloet (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2007).
19
Sheldon Pollock, Homi K. Bhabha, Carol A. Breckenridge & Dipesh Chakrabarty.
“Cosmopolitanisms,” in Cosmopolitanism, ed. Breckenridge, Pollock, Bhabha &
Chakrabarty (Durham N C & London: Duke U P , 2002): 9–10, 12.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Independent
Church of God of the Juda Tribe of Israel: The
Black Jews
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
Language: English
As a fade
from black to pure white
By BISHOP A. W. COOK
Is RABBI HALING HANK LENHT
Copyright 1925
by
Bishop A. W. Cook is
Rabbi Haling Hank Lenht
The Black Jews
1. One God, One Aim, One Destiny. He created all nations of men
equal, of one blood, to dwell on the face of earth, Mother
Church.
3. This book is the first that has ever been published in this country
or any other country, of this kind, for two thousand years.
2. Black Moon.
9. Proper Training.
JOHN J. LYONS,
SECRETARY OF STATE.
CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION
OF
THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH OF GOD OF THE JUDA TRIBE OF
ISRAEL: THE BLACK JEWS
WHEREAS, we the undersigned, each being of full age, citizens of
the United States, a majority of us being residents of the State of
New York, have associated ourselves together for the purpose of
founding and continuing one or more free churches, therefore
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS: That we, the
undersigned, each being of full age, and each being a citizen of the
United States and a resident of the State of New York, have mutually
associated ourselves together for the purpose of founding and
continuing a church, do hereby certify and declare that said church is
hereby incorporated, and that:
First: The name of said incorporated church is “The INDEPENDENT
CHURCH OF GOD OF THE JUDA TRIBE OF ISRAEL: THE BLACK
JEWS.”
Second: The principal place of worship of said incorporated church is
the City of New York, in the County of Westchester and the State of
New York.
Third: The purpose for which said church is organized is: (1) to build
up moral character so that more honest men and women may be
found among us who can be trusted in any home or business; (2) to
learn to live loyal to our God, our Country, ourselves and our
fellowmen; (3) to do charitable work among all people; (4) to learn to
refrain from taking part in any unlawful meetings against our country,
or allow such to be held in our churches or halls; (5) to study and
preach the truths found in the Holy Bible and live accordingly; and
(6) to create more love and unity among us and between all races of
men.
Fourth: The trustees who shall manage said incorporated church,
five of whom are persons who are not ministers of the gospel or
priests of any denomination, are seven (7) in number, whose names
and addresses are as follows: Rev. Allan Wilson Cook, 55 North
Broadway, Yonkers, N. Y.; Rev. Alexander Cook, 82 Linden Street,
Yonkers, N. Y.; Dr. David Rudy, 44 Riverdale Avenue, Yonkers, N. Y.;
Tony Benjamin Atkins, 84 Linden Street, Yonkers, N. Y.; Richard T.
Porter, 87 North Broadway, Yonkers, N. Y.; Nathan J. Johnson, 50
Wells Avenue, Yonkers, N. Y.; Mrs. Rosa Wilson Cook, 55 North
Broadway, Yonkers, N. Y.
Fifth: All of the foregoing trustees are citizens of the United States, of
full age, and residents of the State of New York.
Sixth: The term for which said incorporated church is to exist is
perpetual, from and after the date of its incorporation.
Seventh: The said church is incorporated under Article 9, of the
Religious Corporation Law of this State, and its seats and pews shall
be forever free for the use and occupation, during public worship, of
all persons choosing to occupy the same, and no rent, charge or
exaction shall ever be made or demanded for such occupation or
use.
In Witness Whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and affixed our
seals this 11th day of December 1920.
Allan Wilson Cook (L. S.)
Rev. Alexander Cook (L. S.)
Tony Benjamin Atkins (L. S.)
Richard T. Porter (L. S.)
Nathan J. Johnson (L. S.)
David Ruby (L. S.)
Rosa Wilson Cook (L. S.)
Mrs. A. W. Cook (L. S.)
State of New York, }
ss.
County of Westchester }
On this 11th day of December, 1920, before me personally appeared
Allan Wilson Cook, Tony Benjamin Atkins, Alexander Cook, Richard
T. Porter, Nathan J. Johnson, David Rudy and Rosa Wilson Cook,
also known as Mrs. A. W. Cook, each to me known and known to me
to be the individuals described in and who executed the foregoing
certificate of incorporation of The Independent Church of God of the
Juda Tribe of Israel: The Black Jews; with a principal place of
worship at the City of Yonkers, N. Y., and they each for himself and
herself acknowledged to me that they executed the same.
STEPHEN A. BENNETT,
Notary Public,
Westchester County, N. Y.
I hereby approve of the foregoing incorporation of The Independent
Church of God of the Juda Tribe of Israel: The Black Jews, both as
to its expressed objects, and as to its form.
Dated, White Plains, N. Y., December 13, 1920.
WILLIAM P. PLATT,
Justice of the Supreme Court of
New York
State of New York, }
ss.
County of Westchester }
I have compared the preceding with the original Certificate of
Incorporation filed and recommended in this office on the 13th day of
December 1920, and do HEREBY CERTIFY the same to be a
correct transcript therefrom and of the whole of such original.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed
the seal of the office of the County Clerk of the County of
Westchester, this 25th day of August, 1921.
LOUIS N. ELLRODT,
County Clerk of Westchester County
CONSTITUTION
“One God; one aim; one Destiny”;
He created of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the
face of the earth:
ARTICLE 1
Section I.
Section III.
Section IV.
Section V.
Section VI.
Section VII.
Section VIII.
Section IX.
Section X.
Section XI.
Instructions to Ministers
All ministers shall follow these instructions when receiving
members into the Church of God; the members about to
be received must first make a confession of faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, then be baptized by burial into water,
then receive the unleaven bread and water for Christ’s
body and blood, then have their feet washed by the
minister, taught how to pray, then breathed upon the
forehead, then saluted into the church with a holy kiss first
by the Elders and afterwards by the whole church.
Section XII.
Section XIII.
Section XIV.
Section XV.