TAASA Review Issues

I travelled through Russia to Japan on the Trans-Siberian train in 1971, a very young and impressionable woman, who after three years of art history studies at the University of Melbourne had never seen anything like the remarkable Soviet art around me. Over the next 50 years working throughout Asia on art projects with Australia I have frequently seen work that overtly reflects that Soviet imagery. I have wondered why the debt is never adequately acknowledged, and discuss this further in my article. The answer is all to do with art and politics.

The general focus of this TAASA Review is ‘art and politics’ in Asian art. Politics with a capital P. The capital P of negotiations within and between nations at best through diplomacy, at worst through war. It explores how art in our region has used and been used by governments or those driven by various ideologies endeavouring to sway their own people and influence others. Our region has seen many major political clashes in the 20th century including the ideological conflict between capitalism and socialism – the Cold War as George Orwell named it. Artists have been involved throughout.

One of the aims of this issue is to put aside moral judgements about the motives of the politicians and indeed many of the artists, if it is possible, and see the art for what it is. Is it visually powerful? Does it move you? Is it interesting, telling an unknown and revealing story? Does it present less well known points of view? Is it clever, funny, heartfelt?

Of course artists have worked for political leaders since the Egyptians. Think of Michelangelo working for the Popes to tell overtly fabricated stories of the Bible (Adam touching the hand of God, I ask you). Think of David’s painting of Napoleon keeping a rearing stallion in check with just a flick of his wrist, widely spread in Europe through the mass media of engraving. The image of Mao announcing the People’s Republic in 1949,  surrounded by a group of people included or later omitted according to their political standing, continues this historic myth making.

Is it propaganda? It is a word frequently used in this context, usually to discredit the work as unworthy artistically. The term took on a sinister meaning in the West around World War 1 – telling untruths to suit the opposing side’s agenda. My interest in Soviet art often elicits this word, but it is also used in other contexts – in this TAASA Review for example for Japanese war imagery. It is worth unpicking our response to many of these loaded terms.

This issue includes a wide range of artworks made in this context. They are documents of their time and making, as strong as words yet without the barriers of language. Included are articles by Judith Snodgrass and Carol Cains on Japanese ceramics and kimonos made to support World War II at home in Japan, and by Elena Dias-Jayasinha about the the subsequently made Hiroshima Panels and the response to this work in Australia.

We also have first-hand words from those who have experienced significant political events in their various countries. Shen Jiawei writes about his major recent work Welcome to Babel, a history of communism, a subject well-known to him through his earlier life in China and his reflections on it since. Dadang Christanto and Maharani Mancanegara are interviewed by Patriot Mukmin about how their work has engaged with the violent suppressions of 1965 in Indonesia.

Lin Zhou reflects on the post revolutionary emergence of Chinese Peasant Painting, focusing on the developments and challenges this art form is facing in the Xi Jinping era. Alex Burchmore introduces us to the substantial holdings of Chinese ‘propaganda’ posters held in collections across Australia, a legacy of engagement with China by a number of key people, mainly in the 1970’s.

John Michael Swinbank draws on Melbourne-based Martin Exelby’s major collection of Vietnamese ‘war’ art to place this genre in its historical context. Abigail Bernal has chosen three key artworks in the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art’s significant holdings of recent Filipino works to discuss how art can be used by the marginalised to make a stand against repression.

Working with all the contributors to this issue and the remarkable collective of advisors and other experts who make this TAASA Review a reality has been very rewarding. I thank Jackie Menzies and Josefa Green for their hands-on work, plus the fast and generous support of TAASA Publications Committee members, especially Carol Cains, Melanie Eastburn, Ann Proctor, Judith Snodgrass and Shuxia Chen.