PBainese stone carvings, Ubud, Imaga via Wikipedia
In the third in a series, Alison Carroll moves from Asian concepts of time and Asian philosophies of space, to examining how different values of community and individual play out in cross-cultural art exchange.
Christine Nicholls, writing in The Conversation in July 2013, describes the way Central Desert Aboriginal culture inculcates an awareness of relational space into the smallest babies. They nod to directions in relation to themselves, rather than an abstracted, mathematical understanding of an area. The nature of the whole implies that all parts have a place within it—it is a communal understanding, with each individual having a place within society.
To go against this—putting one’s hand up and getting individual attention—breaks the harmony of this understanding. In arts engagement, a younger individual questioning an elder, who may be the agreed spokesperson for the group, destabilizes the accepted order, and provokes consternation. Young people looking an older person too boldly in the eye breaks protocol. Western foreigners are given some allowance for such bad behavior but if the right behavior is acknowledged, the project will go so much more smoothly.
There are numerous examples of the strength of the hold of the communal way in Asia and its impact on cross-cultural engagements. One is a natural conservatism from officialdom, not wanting to stand out and take a risk. It might end with a ‘loss of face’, but it also makes that individual seem to be putting him- or herself above the rest. Groups make decisions, including in curatorial settings. The status quo often holds for this same reason—‘risk’ is a problem culturally. The more conservative the group or institution, the more likely this will be the scenario. It means that younger, more provocative individuals will either work for less institutional employers, including private and philanthropic companies and individuals, or for projects that need international (Western) understandings, like Biennales, where greater cultural leniency can be possible.
The tensions in the organization of some Biennales in Asia comes from the pressure to conform to harmonious, communal values, and to make a project that by its nature in international contemporary art circles, challenges those values. The issue with the Jakarta Biennale IX of 1993–94 is an example of the disjunction between local and “international” values in the visual arts, with artists, organizers, funders, and audiences in a melee of upset, and ultimately leading to the demise of the project. I cannot think of Biennales in the West where this becomes such an issue.
Innovation by artists can be seen as inappropriate or disrespectful in the face of traditional respect for the established way. Traditional practice like brush painting in East Asia is more subject to this, but the knowledge of the traditions remains through the more avant-garde sectors, which often reflect on it or overtly reject it as part of their personal stand. This does not happen in the West. Academic oil painting, for example, might be part of a critique but the focus is not as loaded as it is in the East. It seems ironic that Chinese artists today are some of the most skilled in the world in oil painting on canvas, but this derives from the same practice of learning from elders and then transmitting to the next generation. The Chinese had to learn the practice of oil painting from the Soviet Russian example under Mao’s directive in the early 1950s, and it became the centre of their academic art practice, so their skills even today are outstanding. This idea of the importance of the group, of communalism, and suspicion or even rejection of individualism has echoes in other forms of arts practice to do with Asia internationally.
One trend in (Western) art museums has been for Asian art departments to focus on iconography, rather than treat the artwork as Western art would be—with Western art historical stylistic analysis, endeavoring to see individual masters, ateliers and trends through the art under their analysis.
An issue for Asian art departments has been their separation from mainstream sections of museums. The very expertise expected in language and culture makes specialists of the staff and can set up ghetto mentalities, something governance of many museums seem either unwilling or unable to address.
The “Eastern” mindset mitigating against approbation of individual artistic achievement has led to an equally Eastern communal approach to curatorial research: themes, content or iconography, the group style, are what curators identify rather than significant individual artist research and the building of an understanding of their particular oeuvre. How many detailed monographs of pre-twentieth-century artists of the East exist? Not many. Imagine Rubens being a name amongst the Flemish school without the research to uncover every one of his drawings, paintings, and students? This Western art historical methodology of minute and careful recording is just one way to undertake museum work. It can, indeed, obscure the great enjoyment of the spirit of an artwork, which may be the central desire for audiences, both secular and religious, in the East. But perhaps both approaches can be applied. A challenge to this in 2011 has been the Rietberg Museum in Zurich’s research into the ateliers of the Mughal and Rajput rules of India, identifying more than 40 masters and their styles.
Australia has provided a mixed response in extending this individual acknowledgement to Indigenous art. Certainly Indigenous artists’ names are known and their oeuvre respected, but besides two or three individuals (e.g. Emily Kngwarreye or Rover Thomas), their names are not remembered by Western audiences—they become part of the general communal group known as Indigenous Art. A similar situation applies to Balinese masters—a few individuals are identified amongst the great number of artists who come under first the Balinese, then the individual township stylistic banners.
The respect for seniority, tradition and the communal whole has led to what I see as mistakes in the presentation of Eastern art in the institutions of the West, notably the collecting museums. We put aside the question of whether this activity is both the best use of resources and the best way to introduce such cultures to those in the West (very debatable points), to see how it has played out in London. Two of the most prestigious, old-fashioned, patriarchal institutions, the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, have been targeted by Korea and Japan, using their excellent funding capacity, to display their traditional treasures. However, the work has been placed near the side stairs (the Korean work at the Victoria & Albert Museum) or up the back stairs (Japanese at the British Museum); both areas little visited and noticed by the rank and file of visitors. I noticed a sense of regret on the faces of the visiting nationals of those countries. I suspect their efforts would have been much more effective at a more overtly iconoclastic institution such as the Tate Modern. But, and this is my surmise, the instinctive response of the decision-makers of the East was the desire to be aligned with those more venerable, respectable places.
This article is an edited extract from Arts and Cultural Leadership in Asia edited by Josephine Caust and published by Routledge.
