Home > History & Culture > Pakistan Culture > A new cartography of cultures
 Contemporary art, in a Western context, usually means the updating of modern art, whether as post-modern or else as simply recent. But the term ‘contemporary’ in the Asian environment differs from the European standpoint.
Asian art showcases values and criteria other than that of Western art or art that is produced in the West for the Western art market. It is a post-modern and post-ethnic art that, through paintings, installations, film, video, photography, sculpture, and objects is trying to grapple with post-colonial realities. Poised at the crossroads of ancient traditions, post modernism and commercialisation, contemporary Asian art is wrestling with cultural influences and identity issues in a backdrop of geo political conflicts and socio economic crisis. However, the shadow of Eurocentrism still looms large and non-western cultures are still unable to interpret themselves. This inability is the real crux of the identity crisis most Third World nations are facing.
In the realm of art, the urge to identify with the West or to gain the recognition of the West dominates art-making strategies. This has veered us away from the daunting task of re-building our independent ability to interpret contemporary cultural reality. A considerable amount of new Asian art, underpinned with the Western canon, has impacted western curators, dealers, gallerists and collectors and this has upped its profile and in the western art market.
Experimental media was preferred by many younger generation artists during the 1980s, many of them curious about Western culture and art history, which seemed more progressive, exciting and liberating than the type of activities conventionally regarded as culture in their own, often tradition-bound, societies. Through the adoption of experimental media, Asian artists were able to engage with an international art world: they began to be included in large thematic survey exhibitions outside Asia, as well as art magazines and popular studies of contemporary art.
The knowledge of experimental contemporary art was transmitted to artists living in Asian countries through multiple channels. One obvious route was imported foreign art magazines and books, which provided much needed historical and visual information. During the 1980s and 1990s, transmission of experimental art came from artists who had returned from study overseas.
This pattern of transmission has historical precedents in countries such as China and Japan in the early 20th century, where the return of artists from abroad prompted wide-ranging artistic reform linked to discussions of modernity. But perhaps the single most important influence was the international and regional biennial and triennial exhibitions.
These events not only brought significant international art and artists to Asian cities, often for the first time, but they also fostered a new sense of a regional contemporary art identity. First, they united the work of contemporary artists from different countries in one place, and second, they created spaces in which artists from these countries could meet, see each other’s art and discuss shared issues and concerns. Subsequent exhibition catalogues remain some of the most important primary documents for Asian contemporary art.
Under the aegis of the term ‘globalisation’ art from emerging nations was now being elevated/reduced to a global platform where it had to conform to global requirements. The notion of a ‘world art’ is the brainchild of the western civilisation, born of the ideological intention to suppress and exclude any artistic expression that does not adapt to the western canon. But fortunately the will of non-western countries to preserve their identity from a western cultural model is beginning to manifest itself.
Works by an exciting range of contemporary Asian artists, for whom the clash of cultures means fertile new fields of work, is focusing on various aspects of the issues at hand. What now appears to be a babble of voices can eventually streamline into a coherent voice if and when the sensibility to assert ones independence is fully realised.
The most recent showing of Asian art (from our part of the world) at a prestigious world art forum is ex-Tate curator Jemima Montagu’s Turquoise Mountain presentation, ‘East-West Divan: Contemporary Art from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan’ at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. The exhibition includes recent works by ten artists from three countries, better known in the West for stereotypes of terrorism and Islamic extremism than for their rich artistic heritage and vibrant contemporary cultures.
‘East-West Divan’ challenges these negative perceptions with works by both emerging and established artists, who are engaged in an ongoing dialogue between the artistic traditions of East and West. Far from being overburdened by the baggage of tradition, the artists have reinvented the arts of miniature painting, calligraphy and Islamic geometric design to address contemporary concerns.
Playing with a broad range of references which bring together Pop art and Shi’ite shrines, modernist abstraction and Islamic architecture, the exhibition reflects upon the realities and perceptions of contemporary life, history and politics in the Middle East, South and Central Asia, unravelling, albeit to some extent only, the complex relationship between the eastern and the western cultures. From slavish imitation of western ideals to confrontation and assertion of actual realities, a transformation in attitudes on both sides of the divide is gradually becoming evident.
In the editorial of Thermocline of art: New Asian waves Peter Weibel writes: ‘The problem already is prefigured in multicultural societies of the West in which minorities may not share the mainstream definition of art. In this respect the former colonies or Third World countries on the one hand, will look for their own art to represent their culture. On the other hand, however, their claims will have to acknowledge their place in the new process of global art.
‘It is evident that art and politics will more and more interact with or contradict each other, as especially the conflict with Islamic countries brings to the fore. It seems that the future of art in the 21st century will be determined in such parts of the world, which
have not yet raised their voice. It is therefore essential for institutions to respond to a changing art discourse that will develop in a new cartography of cultures.’ |
