TAASA Review Issues

Judith Rutherford and Sandra Forbes

For the first time in many years, this edition of TAASA Review comes to members announcing a new President for TAASA, and under the direction of a new editor.

At the Annual General Meeting of TAASA held on 10 April in Sydney, Jackie Menzies, President of TAASA since 1993, announced that she would be stepping down from the Presidency due to pressure of work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where the immediate future includes the setting up of the new umbrella organisation VisAsia, the forthcoming major exhibition Buddha: Radiant Awakening and a new Asian Wing for the Gallery scheduled for completion in 2003.

TAASA is ten years old this year, and in that time it has had only two Presidents. The first was Carl Andrew, and the second Jackie. The infant Society would not have survived and prospered without Jackie’s outstanding dedication and hard work, and a very sincere vote of thanks was proposed to her at the meeting by Vice-President Judith Rutherford, and of course carried unanimously.

Judith Rutherford was elected incoming President of TAASA. Apart from being founder of the NSW Textile Group and Vice-President, Judith has performed sterling duty for some years as convenor of the NSW Events Sub-Committee – and she will also continue in this role. Details of up-coming events for which Judith and her sub-committee are responsible are provided in the ‘Members Diary’ on p. 27.

Two other Committee of Management members, Milton Osborne and Marjorie Ho, had both come to the end of their three-year terms at this year’s AGM, and stepped down, while Vietnamese art scholar Kerry Nguyen-Long was elected toa three-year terms. Following the AGM, the Committee of Management agreed to ask Ruth Clemens (Melbourne), Sabrina Snow and Jim Masselos (both Sydney) to fill casual vacancies on the Committee for one year.

All TAASA’s current office bearers and members of the Committee of Management for 2001 are listed to the left of this editorial.

The change of editor for TAASA Review is also caused by expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where Ann MacArthur, edit of the Review since 1994, is Coordinator of Asian Program. Ann is to be sincerely congratulated on all her work on the publication over seven years; she will remain on the Committee and becomes Vice-President. The editorship has now been taken up by Sandra Forbes, a Sydney-based member of the Committee of Management since last year. She looks forward very much to receiving ideas and feedback from all members. The Review is the most visible and continuing face of TAASA and, as Australia’s only regular journal devoted to Asian art, plays an important role in recording and expanding interest in the subject.

A wider interest in Asian art has recently been stimulated by the innovative exhibition Monet and Japan at the National Gallery of Australian in Canberra. A second major exhibition this year will be Buddha: Radiant Awakening, opening at the Art Gallery of NSW on 10 November. TAASA will be running an important three-day seminar in conjunction with the opening, so put that date in your diary now.

Buddhism is of course the dominant religion in Burma (Myanmar), and Burmese art is the subject of two major articles in this issue of TAASA Review. Bob Hudson’s examination of the Bronze Age Nyaungyan ‘goddesses’ breaks new ground – photographs of these fascinating objects have never been published before. Burma is in the news these days, both politically and artistically. So it is particularly apposite that in August TAASA will be running a day-long seminar in Sydney on ‘Art and Archaeology of Burma: recent research’, coordinated by archaeologist and art historian Pam Gutman, a member of TAASA’s Committee of Management. Her new book Burma’s Lost Kingdoms: Splendours of Arakan will have its Australian launch at the seminar.

Other articles in this issue are on the arts of Afghanistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam. This is not a thematic issue, but once which we hope includes something to interest every TAASA member. WE hope you find it rewarding.