TAASA Review Issues

Heleanor Feltham

Like many other members of The Asian Art Society, I have just returned from the First Triennial Asia-Pacific Conference at the Queensland Art Gallery, undoubtedly one of the most exciting, stimulating, occasionally confronting events of 1993.

For those of us who have been promoting Asian-Australian cultural exchange for much of our adult lives, the conference, involving around 400 delegates, artists, academics, from many countries of Asia-Pacific, was a spectacular indicator of a change from neutral to positive in cultural community attitudes. For others, it was a revelation, not simply of the richness and diversity of contemporary art, but of the equal richness and diversity of critical thought and method throughout the region.

The Conference was more than matched by the extraordinary range of works selected for the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition. 76 artists from 13 countries representing East and Southeast Asia and the South Pacific (including Australia) were represented, 42 of whom were actually present during the Conference adding greatly to its power and integrity. While it is possible to be critical of choices, gender balances, themes seen and excluded, even the composition of the National Committee, this seems almost like habit-formed sniping. Nothing is perfect, yes there undoubtedly were mistakes – but what a magnificent result! and, after all, this is the first, not the one and only, Triennial.

The Triennial conference was followed almost immediately by the ICOM-ASPAC 5th Regional Assembly on the theme of Museums and Cross-Cultural Understanding Ω an ideal follow-up to Brisbane. This major international event in the Museum life-cycle may have attracted fewer delegates, but the countries represented (Asia-Pacific region) were equally diverse, and the speakers equally as passionate in exploring the roles and preoccupations of museums in the mine field of cultural diversity.

Unfortunately for TAASA Review, the two conferences came barely days before the final copy (on disc and off to typesetter) deadline for this issue. Next year, however, we hope to publish several of the papers and some personal assessments of the exhibition and the conference, together with reviews of the excellent catalogue and accompanying book, Tradition and Change.

This current issue of TAASA Review brings to an end our second year of publication. During that time we have published articles on Indian painting and Central Asian carpets, Laotian street art and Chinese revolutionary opera, the industry in fake porcelains and the yin and yang of Japanese architecture, Turkish pottery and Indian textiles, bonsai and bronze bells, Japanese swords and Tibetan culture, the art of coffee and the problems of ARX, and, as the record covers say, many many more. We have profiled our committee, focused on local identities, reviewed books, films and exhibitions, discussed conservation, publicised events, and generally ranged across time and space from bronze-age China to contemporary Australia.

I would like to thank the many contributors, members and non-members, for the quality of their articles, their tolerance of editorial scissoring, and their courtesy in meeting deadlines. I would also particularly like to thank our advertisers, the major institutions who have taken full-page ads to promote significant exhibitions, and that group of dedicated gallery owners, whose regular and elegant advertisements ensure that TAASA Review continues to keep on paying its excellent designer Vicki Reilly – and its printer.