Editor’s Note: For this article on “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia,” CNN Philippines Life invited book contributor (and frequent CNN PH Life contributor) Carlos Quijon, Jr. to talk about the book, its contents and context in the Southeast Asian art world.
While artistic production in Southeast Asia has always been inspired and flourishing, its annotation has not always been given the space and time to prosper, especially the type of publications for a general readership. Where does one go for an initiation to the robust artistic lifeworld of Southeast Asia?
Published apace with recent achievements of and developments in the contemporary art of Southeast Asia, the book “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” presents a collection of introductory essays on Southeast Asia’s contemporary artists and practitioners, mapping out the vibrant ecology of artistic production and art histories in the region. Co-edited by Ute Meta Bauer, Karin G. Oen, and the late Boon Hui Tan, the book was published in April 2022 and features short texts on the work of 64 contemporary art practitioners, spaces, and collectives from Southeast Asia and its diaspora. “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” was published by The Institutum in Singapore in partnership with Weiss Publications in Berlin.
"SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia" is co-edited by Ute Meta Bauer, Karin G. Oen, and the late Boon Hui Tan. The book was published in April 2022 and features short texts on the work of 64 contemporary art practitioners, spaces, and collectives from Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Photo courtesy of WEISS PUBLICATIONS
The book was launched in time for the most recent edition of documenta in 2022, curated by the Jakarta-based artist collective ruangrupa, who are the first artists, the first collective, and the first Asian curators of the Kassel-based quinquennial contemporary art exhibition that started in 1955. Photo courtesy of WEISS PUBLICATIONS
The circulation of the book in these myriad contexts speak not only to the exciting scenes where Southeast Asian art has found itself thriving, but also to the contexts of production and reception where the region is enlivened. Photo courtesy of WEISS PUBLICATIONS
In accounting for the sheer diversity of practices, interests, and engagements that not only describe, but constitute, the Southeast Asian art world, the editors acknowledge that it would be impossible to contain the region’s artistic ecology in a single volume. For the editors, “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” addresses the “relative lack of publications with a non-prescriptive purview, designed for a broad readership” and aims to complement writings that are already produced in the region such as “exhibition catalogs, thematic anthologies and dedicated journals that serve as necessary and important forums for curatorial discourse, artists’ writings and research and specific art histories within the region.”
The book is a timely effort in the contemporary art history of Southeast Asia. It was launched in time for the most recent edition of documenta in 2022, curated by the Jakarta-based artist collective ruangrupa, who are the first artists, the first collective, and the first Asian curators of the Kassel-based quinquennial contemporary art exhibition that started in 1955. The book was also launched during the 59th Venice Biennale, alongside the national pavilion of Singapore presenting the work of artist Shubigi Rao curated by Bauer. Closer to home, the book was launched at the first ever Art SG, Southeast Asia’s biggest art fair held in January 2023.
The circulation of the book in these myriad contexts speak not only to the exciting scenes where Southeast Asian art has found itself thriving, but also to the contexts of production and reception where the region is enlivened. By including not only individual practitioners but also collectives, communities, platforms, spaces, “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” paints a picture of a flourishing artistic ecosystem. Covering a wide range of artistic interests and investments from community engagement and organization, social and political commentary, gender and identity, environment and ecology, material traditions and processes, the book is a kaleidoscopic introduction to the equally dazzling artistic life in the region. The book includes essays on platforms such as Cemeti Institute for Art and Society in Jogjakarta, Indonesia’s oldest, founded by artists Mella Jaarsma and Nindityo Adipurnomo; Green Papaya Art Projects in Manila, the longest-running independent art space in the region, founded in 2000; and Lostgens’ Contemporary Artspace, founded by young artists based in Kuala Lumpur in 2004. Collectives that figure prominently in the art history of the region are also front and center in the book. These include collectives such as the Nha San Collective, founded in 2013, branching out of the artist-run experimental space Nha San Studio in Hanoi; Jogjakarta-based collective Taring Padi founded in 1998; The Artists Village in Singapore initiated by the artist Tang Da Wu in 1988; The Propeller Group of Ho Chi Minh which started in 2006. Alongside these important platforms and artist collectives are initiatives like Phnom Penh-based Sa Sa Art Projects founded by the collective Stiev Selapak in 2010 and the artist-led festivals Chiang Mai Social Installation held from 1992 to 1998 with Thai artists Mit Jai Inn, Uthit Atimana, Montien Boonma, and Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook at the helm.
For the editors, “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” addresses the “relative lack of publications with a non-prescriptive purview, designed for a broad readership” and aims to complement writings that are already produced in the region such “exhibition catalogs, thematic anthologies and dedicated journals that serve as necessary and important forums for curatorial discourse, artists’ writings and research and specific art histories within the region.”
For the Philippines, the selection presents a very slim consideration of our vital locality. From the more established artists such as Roberto Feleo, Pacita Abad, Norberto Roldan, and the Aquilizans to the newer generation of Pio Abad, Poklong Anading, Martha Atienza, and Eisa Jocson to Green Papaya Art Projects, this introduction lets us peek into a gamut of concerns, methods, and materialities: textile, video, objects, performance; coloniality, mythology, critique, and speculation; ethnographic, cosmopolitan, ecological. For the Philippines and the other geographic contexts of Southeast Asia, the selection of artists and artistic practitioners in this book is but exploratory. As the editors of the book explain, the book is an invitation and incitement, offering “a spark for readers to do their own research.”
Featuring art writers, academics, and curators based in the region and elsewhere, each text offers a different perspective that reflects the practices of the writers themselves. The selection of the artists to be included in the volume “were selected with input from a committee of advisors and the invited writers to assure a diversity of viewpoints and sensitivity to the diverse local landscape across Southeast Asia.” These include contributions by myself (Manila), Carla Bianpoen (Jakarta); Brian Curtin (Bangkok); Kathleen Ditzig, Michelle Ho, Iola Lenzi, Dan Koh, and Bruce Quek (Singapore); Beverly Yong (Kuala Lumpur), Jo-lene Ong (Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur), Mika Kuraya (Tokyo), Simon Wu (Brooklyn), Erin Gleeson (Minneapolis), and Nora Taylor (Chicago). The editors further note: “Such a process is influenced by the artists’ or collectives’ visibility, a condition that is often only made possible through access to a network of professionals and supporters working in the fields of art journalism, the art market and exhibitions.”
The selection of the artists to be included in the volume “were selected with input from a committee of advisors and the invited writers to assure a diversity of viewpoints and sensitivity to the diverse local landscape across Southeast Asia.” Photo courtesy of WEISS PUBLICATIONS
The book features collectives such as include collectives such as the Nha San Collective, founded in 2013, branching out of the artist-run experimental space Nha San Studio in Hanoi; Jogjakarta-based collective Taring Padi founded in 1998. Photo courtesy of WEISS PUBLICATIONS
For the Philippines, the selection presents a very slim consideration of our vital locality. One of the featured artists is Martha Atienza. Photo courtesy of WEISS PUBLICATIONS
Within this itinerary, the dynamic positions of the region’s actors are also foregrounded: most practitioners are not only artists but also writers, not only artist-writers but also curators and sometimes carers of spaces or initiators of programs and platforms. For instance, Rao is also the artistic director of the most recent edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kerala, India, which despite pandemic-related delays, opened by the tail-end of 2022. Ho Tzu Nyen, together with Taiwanese artist-curator Hsu Chia-Wei, curated the 7th Asian Art Biennale in National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung in 2019. Aside from establishing Green Papaya Art Projects, Roldan is also one of the founding members of the Black Artists of Asia in 1986, an artist collective based in Bacolod City which started the Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) — a new edition of which will open in Antique later this year. These multifaceted practitioners are the lifeblood of the region and it is through the various citations and presentations of the book that we recognize this particularity in the regional context.
A timely publication during this exciting time in Southeast Asian contemporary art, “SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia” offers us a glimpse into a regional lifeworld where artists, writers, curators, platforms, and initiatives unravel a dynamic present and unfold a compelling future of art in the region.
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Get a copy of the book here.