The Japan Foundation Asia Center will present a series of talk sessions called "Condition Report Dialogue." The title of the second round is "Representation and Participation: The Venice Biennale and the Southeast Asian Pavilions."
The contemporary art scene is closely connected to world politics and economics and, as such, the strong economic development in Southeast Asia is helping to support the growth of the art market in the region. In the background of this is the role played by the Venice Biennale, the international art exhibition long known globally as the "Olympics of the art world" and at which Southeast Asian nations are increasingly participating.
Following their East Asian counterparts like Japan, which has contributed a pavilion since the early postwar period, South Korea, which built the final pavilion in the Venice Giardini in the later 1990s, and China, which has a huge space at the biennale where it holds sensational exhibitions, various nations in Southeast Asia started to exhibit at the event from the 2000s. The trend was exemplified by the decision by Singapore, after having participated since 2001, to lease a site at the Arsenale from 2013 and construct its own dedicated pavilion, as well as the return of the Philippines in 2015, following a 51-year absence With these nations' participation providing a perspective on local situations as seen from the center of the global art world that is Europe, the biennale functions in a different way to the group exhibitions held in Europe and America since the 1990s introducing artists through the frameworks of Asia or Southeast Asia. The participating nations each have their own contexts and aims that go beyond just serving as independent expressions of the nation-state, and possess a strong dimension whereby they can present statements that transcend the boundaries of the individual nations or region.
The second talk in this series welcomes curators from Southeast Asian nations participating in the Venice Biennale in May 2019, joined by curators from Japan. Together they will discuss these developments as a general shift in the recent global art scene, rather than a merely transient trend, and as representation of Asia towards outside regions.
Condition Report Dialogue 1 "Geopolitics in Contemporary Art: Thailand, the Philippines, Australia"
Event detail
| Date | Friday, February 1, 2019 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. |
|---|---|
| Venue |
The Japan Foundation (Main Building) Hall "Sakura" Access |
| Admission | Free (Pre-registration required), Capacity of the venue: 70 persons |
| Language | English-Japanese simultaneous interpretation available |
| Organizer | The Japan Foundation Asia Center |
| How to apply | Email your 1) Name, 2) Affiliation, 3)Phone number, and 4) E-mail address with the subject "Representation and Participation" to the following address. jfac_visual_arts@jpf.go.jp Deadline: January 28, 2019 |
| Inquiries | Yasuko Furuichi (Ms.) Arts, Culture, and Exchange Section 1 The Japan Foundation Asia Center Tel: 81-3-5369-6140 E-mail: jfac_visual_arts@jpf.go.jp |
Panelists
1. Asmudjo Jono Irianto (Lecturer, Art Study Program, Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia)
2. Tessa Maria Guazon (Assistant Professor, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines)
3. Michelle Ho (GalleryDirector, ADM Gallery, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
4. Hattori Hiroyuki (Independent curator / Associate Professor, Graduate School of Transdisciplinary Arts, Akita University of Art, Japan)
Moderator
Hoashi Aki (Project Manager, Organizing Committee for Yokohama Triennale Office / Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan)
