review 18-4-2009 december

7/23/2019 Review 18-4-2009 December

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/review-18-4-2009-december 1/32

V OL UME

1 8

NO.4

DE C E

MB E R

2 0 0 9

THE JOURNAL OF

THE ASIAN ARTS SOCIETYOF AUSTRALIA

TAASA Review

ADORNMENT



3 EDITORIAL

Sandra Forbes and Sabrina Snow, guest editors

4 WHITE RABBIT

Elizabeth Keenan

6 SO WHAT IS ‘CONTEMPORARY’? QUEENSLAND’S APT6

Russell Storer

9 ON BEING ART: DADANG CHRISTANTO’S SU RV IV OR

Helen Holmes

10 THE ARTISTS OF ANGKOR: CONTEMPORARY AND MEDIEVAL STONE WORKSHOPS IN CAMBODIA

Martin Polkinghorne

13 GREAT PERFECTED BEINGS

Jackie Menzies

16 THE ART OF IMITATION: MING WONG AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

Alexandra Crosby

1 9 S Y D N E Y ’ S B L A N K E T O F C L A Y: A V I E W O F T H E A U S T R A L I A N C E R A M I C S T R I E N N A L E

Merran Esson

21 THE PAZYRYK CARPET, 60 YEARS ON

Leigh Mackay

24 IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN: TWO JAPANESE TEMPLE GUARDIANS

Russell Kelty

25 ALASTAIR MORRISON (1915-2009)

Claire Roberts

26 CITIES OF THE SILK ROAD: A TAASA SEMINAR

Christina Sumner

28 RECENT TAASA ACTIVITIES / TAASA MEMBERS’ DIARY

29 BOOK REVIEW: COMMUNITY AND MEMORY

Jocelyn Chey

30 WHAT’S ON IN AUSTRALIA: DECEMBER 2009 – FEBRUARY 2010

Compiled by Tina Burge

C O N T E N T S

Volume 18 No.4 December 2009

TAASA REVIEW

THE ASIAN ARTS SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA INC.Abn 64093697537 • Vol. 18 No. 4, December 2009

ISSN 1037.6674Registered by Australia Post. Publication No. NBQ 4134

editoriAL • email: [email protected]

General editor, Josefa Green

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

Josefa Gree (coveor) • Tia burge

Melaie Eastur • Sadra Fores • A MacArthur

Jim Masselos • A Proctor • Susa Scollay

Saria Sow • Christia Sumer

DESIGN/LAYOUT

Ingo Voss, VossDesign

PRINTING

John Fisher Printing

Published by The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc.PO Box 996 Potts Point NSW 2011 www.taasa.org.au

Enquiries: [email protected]

TAASA Review is published quarterly and is distributed to members

of The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc. TAASA Review welcomes

submissions of articles, notes and reviews on Asian visual and

performing arts. All articles are refereed. Additional copies and

subscription to TAASA Review are available on request.

No opinion or point of view is to be construed as the opinion of

The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc., its staff, servants or agents.No claim for loss or damage will be acknowledged by TAASA

Review as a result of material published within its pages or

in other material published by it. We reserve the right to alter

or omit any article or advertisements submitted and require

indemnity from the advertisers and contributors against damages

or liabilities that may arise from material published.

All reasonable efforts have been made to trace copyright holders.

TAASA MEMBERSHIP RATES

$60 Single

$90 Dual

$90 Single overseas (includes postage)$30 Concession (students/pensioners with ID)

$95 Libraries (overseas, $95 + $20 postage)

$195 Corporate/institutional (up to 10 employees)$425 Corporate/institutional (more than 10 employees)

$650 Life membership (free admission all events)

AD VE RT IS IN G RATE S

TAASA Review welcomes advertisements fromappropriate companies, institutions and individuals.

Rates below are GST inclusive.

Back page $850Full inner page $725

Half page horizontal $484Third page (vertical or horizontal) $364Half column $265

Insert $300

For further information re advertising, includingdiscounts for regular quarterly advertising, please contact

[email protected]

THE DEADLINE FOR ALL ARTICLES

FOR OUR NEXT ISSUE IS 15 DECEMBER 2009

THE DEADLINE FOR ALL ADVERTISING

FOR OUR NEXT ISSUE IS 1 FEBRUARY 2010

2

A FU LL IN DE X OF AR TI CL ES PU BL IS HE D IN TAASA REVIEW SINCE ITS BEGINNINGS

IN 1991 IS AVAILABLE ON THE TAASA WEB SITE, WWW.TAASA.ORG.AU

COVER

OBJECT OF DESIRE BY WANG ZHIYUAN, CHINA, 2008,FIBREGLASS, BAKING PAINT,

LIGHTS, SOUND, 355 X 356 X 70 CM



E D I T O R I A L

Sandra Forbes and Sabrina Snow, guest editors Ju di th ru th er fo rd • PRESIDENTCollector and specialist in Chinese textiles

GiLL Green • VI CE PR ES ID EN TArt historian specialising in Cambodian culture

An n Gu iL d • TREASURER Former Director of the Embroiders Guild (UK)

KAte JohnSton • SECRETARYIntellectual property lawyer withan interest in Asian textiles

HWEI-FE’N CHEAH

Lecturer, Art History, Australian National University,with an interest in needlework

JO CE LYN CH EY

Visiting Professor, Department of Chinese Studies,University of Sydney; former diplomat

MATT COX

Study Room Co-ordinator, Art Gallery of New SouthWales, with a particular interest in Islamic Art ofSoutheast Asia

PHILIP COURTENAY

Former Professor and Rector of the Cairns Campus, James Cook University, with a special interest inSoutheast Asian ceramics

SANDRA FORBES

Editorial consultant with long-standing interestin South and Southeast Asian art

JO SE FA GR EE N

General editor of TAASA Review. Collector of Chineseceramics, with long-standing interest in East Asianart as student and traveller

GERALDINE HARDMAN

Collector of Chinese furniture and Burmese lacquerware

AN N PR OC TO R

Lecturer in Asian Art, Sydney Universityand the National Art School, Sydney

AN N RO BE RT S

Art consultant specialising in Chineseceramics and works of art

SABRINA SNOW

Has a long association with the Art Gallery of NewSouth Wales and a particular interest in the arts of China

CHRISTINA SUMNER

Principal Curator, Design and Society,Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

SPECIALIST ADVISOR ON NE ASIA

Min-Jung Kim

HON. AUDITOR

Rosenfeld Kant and Co

S T A T E R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

ROBYN MAXWELL

Visiting Fellow in Art History, ANU;Senior Curator of Asian Art, National Gallery of Australia

NORTHERN TERRITORY

JO AN NA BA RR KM AN

Curator of Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture,Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

QUEENSLAND

SUHANYA RAFFEL

Head of Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

JA ME S BE NN ET T

Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia

VICTORIA

CAROL CAINS

Curator Asian Art, National Gallery of Victoria International

TASMANIA

KATE BRITTLEBANK

Lecturer in Asian History, School of History and Classics,University of Tasmania

This December edition of the TAASA Review ,is indeed a collaborative effort: Josefa Greenand myself soliciting articles, Sandra Forbescompleting the bulk of the editorial work, andfinally myself pulling it all together! Excellentteamwork from the TAASA Publicationscommittee!!

This Review was intended as general issue, but in early 2009, our publications teamdiscovered that Australia was offering this yeara most vibrant and exciting exhibition scene,especially in the context of contemporary

Asian art. Since July, Sydney has playedhost to the Australian Ceramics Triennal; hasseen the opening in August of the excitingnew private museum specializing in Chinesecontemporary art, The White Rabbit, and has witnessed the stirring performance artof Indonesian Dadang Christanto at Gallery4A. In addition, in Brisbane, on December5th, the sixth Australian Triennal of AsianPacific Art (APT) a major regional forumfor contemporary art, will open at theQueensland Art Gallery (QAG). To completethe Asian exhibition coverage with a moretraditional theme, we feature an article on

the stunning Indian art collection of the royalRathore family of Jodhpur, now on show atthe Art Gallery of New South Wales. So if thisedition were to have a title, ‘Australian Asianart exhibitions and Events 2009’ would seema most appropriate one.

The 2009 APT at the QAG is a culminationof sixteen years showcasing the excitingdevelopments in contemporary art in ourregion, amongst the most dynamic in theglobal context. ( See TAASA Reviews Aug 93;Dec 96; Sep 99; Sep, Dec 02; Dec 06 ) Here,Russell Storer traces the changes in the aimsand orientation of the Triennial, showing howit has responded over the years to the artisticmovements in Asia and the Pacific. From anearly focus on a general introduction to artistsand practices in the region, to that of looking atindividual practices, it is now launching its mostambitious project yet, in 2009 exhibiting over100 artists from 25 countries. This APT presentschallenging questions on the intrinsic meaningof contemporary art, covering its variedpractices, forms and approaches, and goes onto explore the dominant themes that preoccupycontemporary Asian artists – popular culture,consumerism, social issues, dislocation, placeand identity, and many more.

These themes certainly feature with the artistsof the White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale.Elizabeth Keenan describes how, in the contextof what are universal social and economic

pressures of life today, these artists interpretaspects both of traditional and modern life inChina to produce works of striking creativity,wit, and freshness - especially in the inventiverange of media used. The work of WhiteRabbit artists are represented on both ourfront and back covers this edition.

Alexandra Crosby, writing from the VeniceBiennale, discusses how the Singaporeanartist – curator team Ming Wong and Tang FuKuen manipulate stereotypes of race, genderand nationality, to show the changing nature

of cultural identity in an increasingly globalworld. Wong does this with wit and humourthrough the medium of video, giving insightsinto the changing interpretations of nationalfilm and its identities.

Underlying many of the works of Asian artistsdiscussed in this review is an awareness oftradition, where traditional media and artpractices have been revised or reinterpretedusing contemporary methods and ideas. Thisis evident in the work as much at the APTas it was in that of the emerging ceramicistsat the Ceramics Triennale. Many of these

artists draw their inspiration from Asia,especially China, as reflected in the title ofone of its 40 exhibitions Another Silk Road.The Review carries this theme further witha report on the TAASA seminar on The SilkRoad held in Sydney in September. A seriesof speakers offered a variety of perspectiveson the history, architecture, art and textureof human life in the Silk Road cities fromantiquity to the present. Leigh Mackay alsopresents here a fascinating article on the oldestpreserved Persian pile carpet ever excavated,from Pazyryk on the edges of the Silk Road inNorth Central Asia, thought to be from a 3rdcentury BCE Persian inspired workshop.

For lovers of sculpture and Khmer art, thisedition of TAASA Review carries a leadingarticle on contemporary and medievalstone workshops in Cambodia, by MartinPolkinghorne. Martin’s detailed researchprovides new light on the methods andpractices of the artists who continue topass on exquisite carving techniques fromcenturies - old prototypes .

This December edition of TAASA I thinkoffers something for everyone. In particular,it offers insights into the vibrant exhibition

scene Australia is offering its public in Asianart, especially contemporary art. The APT inBrisbane continues until April 2010, don’tmiss it!

3

T A A S A C O M M I T T E E



n 1999, after almost ten years living in

Australia, the artist Wang Zhiyuan paid a

visit to Beijing. There he heard something that

stopped him in his tracks: dance-hall songs

from pre-revolutionary Shanghai. When he

was growing up, these ‘capitalistic’ tunes had

been banned. Now they were everywhere

-- along with Debussy and jazz, rock and

hip-hop. Art too was exulting in its liberation.

Painters who had once been jailed for making

‘bourgeois’ art were now richly paid for it.

When Wang Zhiyuan left China in 1989,

there were no commercial art galleries in thecountry. Now there were thousands, and

whole districts of Beijing were being turned

into artists’ enclaves. So exciting were the

changes that Wang Zhiyuan started thinking

he’d move back there.

Meanwhile, in Sydney, Judith Neilson was also

being bowled over by Chinese contemporary

art. Now that her two daughters were teenagers,

the former graphic designer and photographer

wanted to resume her art studies and was

looking for a tutor. At the Ray Hughes Gallery,

she spotted a series of flat shapes, cut from

sheet metal, that portrayed whimsical fusionsof animals, birds and plants: a bird-angel,

a winged cloud-man, a pig sprouting fruit.

Whoever made these, Neilson decided, was

the artist she wanted to learn from. His name,

she discovered, was Wang Zhiyuan.

After returning to Sydney, Wang soon

became a regular visitor to the Neilsons’

home, tutoring Judith Neilson in drawing and

painting--and enthusing about the wonderful

art he’d seen in China. After several months

of this treatment, Neilson and one of her

daughters went to Beijing to see what all thefuss was about. They came back with a single

painting, but when she raved to her husband,

Kerr, about all the other works she’d seen,

he said, ‘Why didn’t you buy more?’ ‘I said,

‘We have no room in the house,’ she recalls.

‘But later I started thinking, ‘it would be

wonderful if we could have a space, to show

what contemporary Chinese art really is’. So I

said, ‘Why don’t we open a gallery?’

In August 2009, the White Rabbit Collection

opened to the public. ‘The name just came

to me,’ Neilson says. ‘It was a little flash.’

Admission to the three-storey former knittingfactory, in the inner-Sydney suburb of

Chippendale, is free. ‘I did this for a quite

personal reason,’ Neilson explains. ‘I just want

to share the art because I can.’ And to share it

with as many people as possible: ‘I wanted a

place where people who’d never set foot in a

gallery could come and not feel intimidated,

or that they weren’t smart enough, or their

opinion was wrong.’

When their ideological shackles were first loosed,

in the mid-1980s, the first instinct of many Chinese

artists was to look backwards. Countless works

appeared mocking Mao and the revolution,

collectivism and communist propaganda.

By 2000, older artists had got the past out oftheir system, and new artists were emerging

who had no past to worry about. They were

exploring any subject that grabbed them, using

every genre from abstract expressionism and

traditional ink painting to embroidery, flash video

and conceptual art, incorporating themes and

influences drawn from Western magazines, pop

music, Zen, Taoism, Chinese folk art, the internet,

consumerism, feminism, Marshall McLuhan

and Marcel Duchamp. Their output was prolific,

energetic and superbly executed. Chinese art

education may have been ideologically rigid, but

it was also technically rigorous. Now that artists

could say anything they pleased, they had the

skills to do so with flair.

The 400 works in the White Rabbit Collection

(90 of which appear in the opening exhibition

of August 09 ) reflect the fireworks that

4

I

W H I T E R A B B I T

Elizabeth Keenan

T A A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 1 8 N O . 4

RED MEMORY – SMILE BY CHEN WENLING, CHINA, 2007,BRONZE AND VEHICLE DUCO, 290 X 120X 200CM


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/review-18-4-2009-december 5/325T A A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 1 8 N O . 4

EXUVIATE II – WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHILDREN GONE BY JIN NU, CHINA, 2005, COTTON, MUSLIN

result when creative freedom meets technical

mastery. They range from Chen Wenling’s

naked, grinning boy, six metres tall and

covered in red car duco, to Jin Nu’s delicate

little-girls’ dresses, floating like a pastel cloud.

Dai Hua’s I Love Beijing’s Tiananmen , a witty

cavalcade of Chinese history and legend, was

made entirely in a computer. A few steps

away are the spare geometries of Gu Fan’s

Find Light in the Rain , hand-stitched in black

wool on white cloth. There are Jiang Jian’s

heart-tugging full-length portraits of Chineseorphans, and an installation by Xiao Lu--

featuring sperm freezer and glass jars—that

mourns her inability to have a child. There are

Liu Haizhou’s gigantic, fluorescent portraits

of dead chickens, and the tiny abstracts of

his wife Du Jie, each spun from a single,

intricately folded line. There is exuberant

colour: Zhu Jinshi’s paint is applied so thickly

(with a spade and a wok spatula that form

part of one work) that it took months to

dry. And there is no-colour: Lu Zhengyuan

sculpted his seven Mental Patients in grey, he

says, because that is what you get ‘when you

dilute every colour enough, and when you

mix all the colours together’.

All the works were bought because Neilson

loved them. Wang Zhiyuan, now living in

Beijing, scouts for pieces he thinks will appeal

to her; sometimes she buys them, sometimes

not. Three-monthly visits to China have honedher eye. ‘The more you see,’ she says, ‘the

faster you can identify what is good.’ Since

the works are not bought for resale, Neilson is

free to define ‘good’ independently of market

fads. ‘I buy work because I have a reaction

to it,’ she explains. ‘It might be the colour or

the shape or the subject, but I notice it -- it

stays with me.’ Names are not important: ‘I

want to show established artists and promote

undiscovered ones.’ White Rabbit has works

by celebrities such as Ai Weiwei and Lin

Tianmiao, and by emerging artists like Jin Nu

and Dong Yuan, both aged 25. ‘This is not a

star show,’ Neilson says. ‘It is a document of

Chinese contemporary art since 2000.’

Just inside the gallery’s glass doors hangs

Wang Zhiyuan’s Object of Desire , a bas-relief

on a giant pair of brightly coloured women’s

panties. On a red-curtained bed lie a fat

businessman and a young woman flaunting a

ring that flashes with electric light. Above the

couple glows a green neon sign: ‘Diamonds

matter most’. The work mocks the libertinism

that is the shadow side of liberty. But it

also has a soundtrack: those long-banned

Shanghai dance-hall songs, which seem to

add ‘...And freedom is a diamond’.

Elizabeth Keenan is Press and Publications

Director for the White Rabbit Collection, Sydney.

All quotations from Judith Neilson from personal

interviews, August 2009

WORKS REFERRED TO

Chen Wenling (b. 1969), Red Memory—Smile (2007)

Jin Nu (b. 1984), Exuviate II—Where Have All the Children Gone? (2005)

Dai Hua (b. 1976), I Love Beijing’s Tiananmen (2006)

Gu Fan (b. 1980), Find Light in the Rain (2007)

Jiang Jian (b. 1953), The Orphan Files (2004)

Xiao Lu (b. 1962), Sperm (2006)Liu Haizhou (b. 1971), Gorgeousness Overripe No. 11 and No. 21 (2007)

Du Jie (b. 1968), Green, 2007.01.18 (2007)

Zhu Jinshi (b. 1954), Diary: 25.12.2006 (2006)

Lu Zhengyuan (b. 1982), Mental Patients (2006); quotation from

personal interview, August 2009

Ai Weiwei (b. 1957), Oil Spill (2007)

Lin Tianmiao (b. 1961), Focus Series No. 1 and No. 2 (2007)

Dong Yuan (b. 1984), Sketch of Family Belongings (2008)

I LOVE BEIJING’S TIANANMEN BY DAI HUA, 2006, GICLEE PRINT, 110 X 635CM


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/review-18-4-2009-december 6/326 T A A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 1 8 N O . 4

ver the past 16 years, the Asia Pacific

Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT ) has

reflected the cultural and social changes taking

place in this extraordinarily dynamic part of

the world. From its inception, the APT has

introduced new artists and practices to local

and international audiences, helping to build

interest in, knowledge of and engagement

with the diversity of cultures that surround

us. Arising at a time when there were few

opportunities, not only in Australia but also

overseas, for Asian and Pacific artists to

show their work in a museum context, theAPT has been a significant agent in building

discussions around contemporary art in the

region. From what was a series of largely

grass-roots scenes in the early 1990s, the

Asian contemporary art landscape now also

includes numerous biennials and triennials,

an array of public and private museums, a

vigorous art market, and a number of critical

journals and magazines.

With each instalment, the APT has responded

to the artistic movements taking place in Asia

and the Pacific, as well as to shifts in reception.

As local knowledge also grows, increasinglynuanced and sophisticated understandings of

art and exhibition making are enabled and

expected. The earlyAPT exhibitions, for example,

provided much-needed introductions to artists,

art practices and contemporary cultures, with

QAG staff working with co-curators and

advisors throughout the region to select artists

and to facilitate their participation. As regional

networks have strengthened, institutional

expertise has developed, and audiences have

become more informed, the exhibition has been

able to be articulated in new ways. The broad

representation and multi-curator approach ofthe first three Triennials moved into the tighter

focus and retrospective model of APT 2002 ,

which looked at individual practices over several

decades. This deepening view extended to thegrand scope of APT5 in 2006, which launched

the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)

and presented complex, collection-driven

commissions such as Pacific Textiles and a multi-

part display by the Long March Project, Beijing.

The Asia Pacific department of the Gallery has

also grown in response to this increased focus

and expertise, establishing dedicated positions

in contemporary Pacific and Asian art, unique in

Australia and rare internationally.

APT6 builds upon this history with arguably

its most ambitious exhibition to date. Takingup the entire GoMA building, as well as

the Water Mall and adjoining spaces of the

Queensland Art Gallery, APT6 will feature

works by over 100 artists from 25 countries.While maintaining its focus on new and

recent work, the exhibition offers numerous

opportunities to question what constitutes

‘the contemporary’ in the region, through

enormously varied practices, forms and

approaches. Contemporary art has been

described by the art historian Boris Groys

as ‘the act of presenting the present’, rather

than simply describing art produced today

(Groys 2008: 71). Grounded in the here and

now, works in the exhibition offer myriad

responses to the conditions and experiences

of being in the world – a world ever-morecomplex and interconnected.

O

S O W H A T I S ‘ C O N T E M P O R A R Y ’ ? Q U E E N S L A N D ’ S A P T 6

Russell Storer

IMMORTALIS (FROM EFFUGIO SERIES) BY THUKRAL & TAGRA, INDIA, 2008. ACRYLIC AND OIL ON RESIN, 76 X 72CM. ON SHOW AT APT6, QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY. COURTESY THE ARTISTS

TANDEM BICYCLE (FROM SHARING KNOWLEDGE SERIES) BY SVAY KEN, CAMBODIA 2008. OIL ON CANVAS, 60.5 X 80CM.

ON SHOW AT APT6, QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY. COLLECTION QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY, PURCHASED 2008 THROUGH

THE QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT’S GALLERY OF MODERN ART ACQUISITIONS FUND



Phone 9979 7162Email [email protected]

R & V TregaskisOriental Antiques Pty Ltd• 30 years experience• by appointment only • buying & selling quality objects• expert valuations

Member of the Aust Antique Dealers Assoc

Approved to Value Oriental Antiques for the Aust Govt's Cultural Gifts Program A CHINESE CLOISONNE MEIPING VASE, 17TH CENTURY.

Reflecting these interrelationships, APT6

weaves several thematic threads through the

exhibition, drawing productive links between

works. The prevalence of popular culture,

for example, both in its global aspects and

local inflections, is a constant inspiration forartists. With burgeoning wealth and growing

middle classes across much of Asia, luxury

goods and fashionable lifestyles have become

highly visible, producing marked shifts in

visual cultures. Artists such as Thukral &

Tagra, Farhad Moshiri, Rudi Mantofani and

Tracey Moffatt use the vivid imagery and

communicatory techniques of advertising,

cinema and pop art to explore intricate social

questions such as imperialism, consumerism

and intercultural relations.

Changing economic fortunes and urbandevelopment have led to the dramatic

transformation of cities and had enormous

impact on individual lives. Works by

Chen Qiulin address the impact of human

displacement through the Three Gorges Dam

project, while both Chen Chieh-jen and Yao

Jui-chung reflect upon the effects of financial

crises and the loss of industry in Taiwan.

Similar forces are considered in works by

artists from the Mekong region of Southeast

Asia, which has undergone great economic

and social transformations over the past few

decades. Presented as a focused platform within

APT6 and co-organised with the Vietnamese

artist and researcher Rich Streitmatter-Tran,

‘The Mekong’ features works by Jun Nguyen-

Hatsushiba and Svay Ken that convey the

tensions between Buddhist tradition and

consumer society, while Vandy Rattana’s

photographic project ‘Fire of the Year’ looks

at problems faced by overcrowding and lack

of infrastructure in Phnom Penh. Bui Cong

Khanh’s ceramic works locate the new urban

lifestyles in Vietnam within a long history of

trade and capital flows, in the form of blue-

and-white porcelain vases.

Other themes in APT6 look at artistic forms

and approaches. A resurgence of drawing

THE NEW BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS (PART 1) (STILL) BY QIU ANXIONG, CHINA, 2006. DIGITAL HAND-PAINTED ANIMATION,

AVI FILE, 3 CHANNEL PROJECTION EXHIBITED FROM P C, MEDIAPLAYER 11, 4:1, BLACK AND WHITE, SOUND, ED. 1/10, 30:15 MINUTES.

ON SHOW AT APT6, QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HANART TZ GALLERY, HONG KONG



is a feature of contemporary art all over the

world, and artists in Asia and the Pacific

are able to tap into rich graphic histories.

Minam Apang and Gonkar Gyatso both

trained in Buddhist thangka painting, and

employ its exquisite linear technique to new

ends; while Qiu Anxiong’s animated videoworks combine drawing and traditional

brush-and-ink techniques to comment on the

transforming landscapes of China. Hawai’ian

artist Solomon Enos uses a comic strip mode

to create a sprawling epic of thousands of

years of Polynesian history, reaching to the

past and into the future. Looking at another

popular form, the musical genre of reggae

has enormous currency across the Pacific, and

a special program of promotional and live

video clips, documentaries and performances

has been developed for APT6 . Curated with

the assistance of ABC broadcaster Brent

Clough, ‘Pacific Reggae’ demonstrates thevaried ways this form has been adopted

and articulated by musicians from Hawai’i

to Vanuatu to New Zealand, and how it has

become an important means of telling stories

and addressing local concerns.

Collaboration – a key element in contemporary

art’s engagement with the social – is another

important aspect of APT6. Several collectives

and collaborative projects are included inthe exhibition, reflecting the wide sphere

of activity artists are involved with, across

disciplines and in different sites. The

Australian group DAMP, which has been

operating since 1995, have constructed a space

within the gallery in which meetings can be

held and people can sit and interact with

each other; while the art/design collaboration

Yoshitomo Nara and Graf, known as YNG,

have built an elaborate architectural structure

reminiscent of an artist’s studio, filled with

art works produced by Nara. A number of

artistic collaborations are featured in APT6 ,

including Thukral and Tagra, Alfredo andIsabel Aquilizan, Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing,

Robin White, Leba Toki and Bale Jione, and

Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu, conveying the

importance of collaboration in the production

of contemporary art, technically as well as

conceptually. While models of collaboration

and collectivity differ, and arise for a range

of reasons, they inevitably enable broader

approaches to making art, with different yetcomplementary skills brought together to

realise ambitious works.

The interdisciplinarity that flows out from

these interactions is a feature of much

significant art-making in the region, and

underpins many works in APT6. Artists often

work across design, architecture, and various

disciplines within visual art simultaneously,

expanding and invigorating our conception

of artistic practice. As theorist Sarat Maharaj

has noted, ‘what we call art activity is

expanding, extending, transmogrifying in thecontemporary art setting’ (Maharaj 2008: 280).

This interrogation of the parameters of art

has been a consistent motif in the APT project

since the beginning, with its presentation of

performance, music, video and film alongside

traditional artistic media such as sculpture

and painting. The conception of ‘tradition’ has

also continuously been brought into question,

with the inclusion of media such as textiles,

brush-and-ink painting, calligraphy, porcelain

and miniature painting, which have been

revised or reinterpreted with contemporary

methods and ideas.

One of the strengths of the APT has been

its embrace of the great heterogeneity and

mutability of Asian and Pacific art, rather

than attempting to contain it within linear

narratives of modernity and history. It is this

openness to the protean energies of the region

that has maintained the project’s vigour, and

APT6 promises to extend this further.

Russell Storer is Curator of Contemporary Asian Art

at the Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern

Art. The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary

Art (APT6 ) opens at the Queensland gallery on 5December 2009 and runs to 5 April 2010.

REFERENCES

Groys, B, 2008: ‘The Topology of Contemporary Art’, in Terry

Smith, Okwui Enwezor and Nancy Condee (eds), Antinomies of

Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, p.71.

Duke University Press, Durham.

Maharaj, S, 2009: ‘Philosophical Geographies’, in Making Worlds:

53rd Biennale of Venice (exhibition catalogue), p.280. Marsilio

Editori, Venice.

FROM THE SERIES FLOWERS, FRUITS & PORTRAITS [SCHAEDEL-01-2007] BY SHIRANA SHAHBAZI, IRAN, 2007. TYPE C PHOTOGRAPH,

90 X 70CM. ON SHOW AT APT6, QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY. COURTESY BOB VAN ORSOUW GALLERY, ZURICH, © THE ARTIST



¯

urvivor continues Dadang Christanto’s

interrogation of the impact of human

disaster. The work refers to the tragic man-

made mud catastrophe in the Sidoarjo region

of East Java where, three years ago, hot mud

began to erupt from the site of a gas exploration

well, effectively wiping out 11 villages in the

region. To this day, the mud flow continues to

subsume surrounding villages. Christanto’s

work gives voice to the tragedy of lives lost

and the silent suffering of the survivors. The

work is a continuation of his theme of loss,

empathy for human suffering and all victimsof injustice, and relates to his previous work

about the disappearance of his own father

under the Suharto regime in the mid-1960s.

As the director of Sydney’s Gallery 4A,

Aaron Seeto, explains: ‘The entire history of

a village – its livelihood and future -- is being

buried under the mud. While Christanto’s

work is politically confronting, it is also a

poetic experience that reminds us of a human

fragility and erasure in the face of disaster.’

Christanto’s solo show, also titled Survivor ,

opened at Gallery 4A in Sydney on 15 August.The major performance work associated

with the show was orchestrated by Summar

Hipworth as part of the show’s opening. For

this performance, volunteers were requested.

So, in mid-winter, 30 stoic individuals donned

sawn-off track-suit pants and oversized T-

shirts and, after what seemed like ‘The Last

Supper’ (a vast morning tea) and instructions

from our creator Christanto, we spent the

next half hour rolling about in mud (clay).

The majority of volunteers were young art

students, though the performers also includeda handful of others, who, let’s say, were

eligible for concession bus tickets. For the

latter, three hours without bathroom facilities

was somewhat daunting.

Each individual was handed a photographic

portrait memorialising the life of one of those

lost, fractured or displaced in the tragedy

that has inspired Christanto’s work. Our

instructions were to focus on that person, to

remain silent and motionless, making only

slow pivotal movements, until the press had

been and gone; after that, we could sit or

recline in pose if necessary.

After a half hour of hilarious child play,

cavorting about in ‘glorious mud’, Christanto

asked us to take our poses and instantly we

were transformed into serious silent clay

models ready to embody the tragedy of the

human struggle.

Three hours went by in a flash. It was a

truly sombre and meditative experience.

We remained in an almost trance-like state,

vaguely conscious of people coming and

going, photographers clicking away and

the hum of conversation and tinkling wine

glasses echoing from a group at the end of

the gallery. Movement was minimal, just a

slow pivot in the slippery sludge with care

not to fall and no eye contact with our fellow

performers. As the clay caked and dried

on our bodies and then started to crust and

powder and drop to the canvas there was asense of decay and disintegration: yet our

bodies remained resilient and resolute. The

drip, drip of falling clay and the slow silent

revolutions were reminiscent of the passage

of time, as survivors wait…

During the final half hour individual

performers tiptoed quietly out of the art,

leaving behind in the mud the powerful image

of the survivor they had held. Their reward

was showers and sustenance, provided by

the very capable, friendly staff at Gallery 4A.

Then after three hours Christanto gave the

sign that the performance was over.

The astonishing revelation for me was that we

could maintain the poses for so long, and that

we could metamorphose from a gregarious

gathering of people into victims of disaster

and become the art -- and indeed, a Survivor,

in more ways than one.

Helen Holmes is the ‘cook, the wife, the lover’,

a guide at the AGNSW and a one- time piece of

performance art. Survivor was staged at Gallery

4A, Sydney, on Saturday 15 August 2009,

with ‘documentation and detritus from the

performance’on display until 19 September.

The work was previously staged in Jakarta in

2007 in Proclamation Square.

Dadang Christanto was born in Tegal, Central Java,

in 1957 and studied painting in Yogyakarta. Over

the past decade his work has gained worldwide

recognition with exhibitions of paintings, sculpture,installations and performance art. In Australia he has

had two solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New

South Wales and Sherman Galleries in Sydney, and

at the Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory.

He has been included in two Asia-Pacific Triennials

at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, and has

exhibited in key contemporary Asian art museums in

the Asian region and the Venice Biennale 2003.

REFERENCES

www.4a.com.au

Gallery 4A, ‘About the project Survivor’, information sheet for

volunteers. www.crossart.com

S

O N B E I N G A R T: D A D A N G C H R I S T A N T O ’ S S U R V I V O R

Helen Holmes

VOLUNTEERS STAGE DADANG CHRISTANTO’S PERFORMANCE WORK SURVIVOR

AT GALLERY 4A, SYDNEY, ON 15 AUGUST 2009 . PHOTO GARRY TRINH



he beauty and significance of Angkorian

sculpture is, without fear of exaggeration,

superlative, and is recognised as among the

greatest achievements of human creativity.

Drawing from an established tradition of

hieratical forms founded in earlier urban

centres, the artists of Angkor fashioned

sculpture characterised by universally

recognised values of beauty, harmony of

composition, naturalism and precision of

execution. Although sculptural fashions

changed over time, medieval Khmer sculpture

continuously observed a delicate anddistinctive balance between simplicity and

attention to detail, humility and grandeur,

subtlety and expressiveness. Today, we can

revere these sculptures in situ in numerous

Angkorian sanctuaries and in museums

throughout the world. But what do we

actually know about the Angkorian artistic

process and artists themselves? The medieval

Khmer epigraphic record is silent on the

matter; there are few references to artists and

no indications about the organisation and

direction of their work.

The artists and their methods wereundoubtedly of considerable importance to

the court and to broader Khmer society, yet

they remain largely anonymous. Although

‘the past is a foreign country’ (Hartley

1953),a carefully considered analogy with

contemporary Cambodian stone workshops

offers us considerable potential to appraise the

processes and organisation of the celebrated

artists of Angkor. In contemporary Cambodia,

from Ta Keo to Preah Vihear, artists faithfully

continue and transform the Khmer aesthetic

by replicating the designs, sculptures and

bas-reliefs of their ancestors.

Seventy-eight year old master Him Tuo, of the

Banteay Srei Rachana workshop in Siem Reap

is one such artist. Accomplished to reproduce

any pre-Angkorian or Angkorian masterpiece,

Tuo still marvels at the aesthetic and technicalabilities of the ancient artists who fashioned

their works without the aid of modern

methods or tools. Like many contemporary

stone sculptors, and conceivably Angkorian

sculptors, Tuo comes from a family lineage

of artists. Just as he learnt the suite of Khmer

design features from his grandfather and

father, he has passed them on to his children

and grandchildren, who apply their art at

several locations in Siem Reap. The array of

Khmer decorative motifs, known as kbach,

primarily derive their inspiration from natural

forms. Among these are the mythical ‘goose

tail’ shape, the ‘fish egg’ shape, a row of

fish eggs surrounded by lotus petals called

‘romduol’ , the ‘chakachan’ shape named after

a steamed rice flour sweet cut in the shape

of a diamond, the hanging ornament called

‘romyoul’ after the flower of the NymphaeaLotus, and the spiral snail shell or ‘vong hien’

shape (Chan and Preap 2005).

Before the Second World War Tuo’s father

and grandfather were based at the Tomlap

Rangsey Pagoda of Prasat commune in

Banteay Meanchey province, a specialised

artistic pagoda that undertook sculptural

commissions for the pagodas of the region.

Tuo began his training at the age of six or

seven, but his education in sculpture could

be described more as a process of ‘osmosis’,

rather than a formal delineated program. Forstudents recruited from outside the familial

structure, basic sculptural training can take

anywhere between six months and three years,

depending on the aptitude of the individual.

It takes over ten years to be an accomplished

artist worthy of the title of master. Trainees

are given easy and monotonous work at first,

such as cleaning sculptures and cutting raw

sandstone blocks, and then are gradually

trusted with more skilled duties, until the

entirety of practices are propagated. At no

time are pupils instructed to draw from nature

directly. Instead they are required to reproduce

the traditional kbach idealised forms handeddown and transformed from generation to

generation. This allows the artist to imitate

from memory certain well-known designs and

T

T H E A R T I S T S O F A N G K O R : C O N T E M P O R A R Y A N D M E D I E V A L

S T O N E W O R K S H O P S I N C A M B O D I A

Martin Polkinghorne DECORATIVE LINTEL FROM LOLEI, HARIHARALAYA, SHOWING THE TECHNICAL MASTERY AND SUBLIME BEAUTY

OF KHMER SCULPTURE , LATE 9TH CENTURY. PHOTO: MARTIN POLKINGHORNE

MASTER HIM TUO AND APPRENTICE OF THE BANTEAY SREI RACHANA WORKSHOP PUT THE FINAL TOUCHES TO A REPLICA OF

THE 7TH CENTURY PRE-ANGKORIAN BUDDHA FROM PHUM THMEI, KOMPONG SPEU. PHOTO: MARTIN POLKINGHORNE


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/review-18-4-2009-december 11/3211T A A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 1 8 N O . 4 11

figure subjects, making use of the traditionalelements of design on whatever surfaces they

are commissioned to decorate.

Many artists learn the traditional forms of kbach

by sculpting in wood first. Correspondingly,

art historians have considered that the

sandstone sculptures replicated techniques

pioneered from working in wood. (Coral-

Rémusat 1934, 246) supposed that wooden

models were the common ancestors of both

Indian and Khmer decorative ornamentation.

This is particularly apparent in the sculpting

of motifs such as foliage and rinceaux that

appear to follow the combined naturaltendency of the craftsman’s chisel and the

grain of the wood. (Dupont (1952, 40) thought

that sculpture of the 7th century must have

succeeded prototypes represented by wooden

sculptures that have since disappeared.

(Marchal 1951, 10) believed that the particular

sandstone employed by the Khmer was so

easily manipulated that the adaptation from

wood to stone decorative techniques was

made with little impediment. Although there is

little evidence to substantiate how knowledge

of the trade was transmitted from artist to

artist in the Angkorian period, a pragmaticdeduction would be that the exchange of

skills was conveyed via an analogous master

and apprentice relationship. For instance, on

the large projects of the 10th century (East

Mebon, Pre Rup), numerous decorative lintels

of lesser skill are situated on minor prasat and

were likely the work of apprentices and junior

artists whereas the decorative lintels on the

primary prasat were reserved for the masters.

The first task creating a sculpture is sourcing

adequate stone. Numerous Angkorian period

sandstone quarries have been identified

across Cambodia including sites at PhnomKulen, Beng Melea, Koh Ker and in Banteay

Meanchey province. In contemporary

Cambodia, sandstone from Phnom Chunh

Chaing and Phnom Srok in the north-west

province of Banteay Meanchey is the most

sought after, though there are also quarries at

Phnom Tbèng in Preah Vihear, and in Pursat

and Kompong Thom. Most sandstone can

be rendered into any sculpture irrespectiveof size or detail, however in the Angkorian

period, possibly because of the limitations of

their tools, different sandstones were selected

for different kinds of work.

Recent scholarship suggests that harder

sandstones were selected for sculpture in

the round, compared with decorative lintels

which typically depict higher levels of detail

(Caro, Douglas and Im in press). At the

Banteay Srei Rachana and Artisans d’Angkor

workshops subject choice is primarily market

driven, based on specific commissions andis largely drawn from pre-Angkorian and

Angkorian masterpieces. Designs are finalised

on a computer using image manipulation

software which is adjusted accordingly to the

size of the sandstone block to be carved upon.

The design is printed on carbon paper at full

size and then placed and traced onto the stone

designating the basic sculptural divisions.

Drawings and photos of the original sculptures

provide a constant reference source for the

working sculpture. During the Angkor period

it is conceivable that artists used copy books,

but because of their perishable nature none

have survived to the present day. However(Marchal 1951, 34) believed that Cambodians

were not accustomed to working according to

texts and that the oral traditions were enough

in the majority of the cases to be used as

starting point from which imaginative ardour

could take over.

Once the basic form of a sculpture has been

delineated by lesser craftspeople, one or two

artists take ownership of the actual sculptural

process. When working on a contemporary

decorative lintel, for example, two artists

regularly swap positions working on thesame areas to maintain the work’s overall

consistency. George Groslier’s analysis of

the pilasters of Angkor Wat, the Bayon and

Banteay Chmar concluded that more than

one artist must have worked on the same

piece at any given time. Each ‘section’ was

the combined effort of at least two persons; a

tracer, and a sculptor. Many similar pilasters

carved by many artists indicate that artisans

possessed common knowledge, and similar

technical practices and abilities, which were

informed by consistent and standardised

training (Groslier 1921, 224.226, 1921.23,

206.208). Similarly, the medieval process ofcarving decorative lintels can be reconstructed

by reference to the great many unfinished

lintels in the material record. There is little

indication why each lintel was not finished,

but the deficit works are a window into the

process of sculpture manufacture.

Scrutiny of the unfinished lintels indicates

that the process of sculpture was not uniformthrough time or space, yet general consistencies

allow reconstruction of the overall process. In

comparison to contemporary lintel sculpture

which is completed on the ground, in the

Angkor period lintel sculpture predominantly

began with the stone being fixed into position

first, and then being prepared for carving.

The lintel face was roughly finished into

structural divisions. Characters, motifs and

designs were transferred onto the sandstone

face with charcoal or chalk. Nothing remains

of these drawings, but the commitment to

preliminary light carving of the final lintelform could not have occurred without such

sketches. At Prasat Chhuk light engravings

show the beginnings of a central foliage

arch. This carving could not have occurred

without the final symmetrical composition of

the work having already been copied onto the

stone. The next task consisted of light carving

ARTISTS AT BANTEAY SREI RACHANA II WORKSHOP FASHION A

‘BANTEAY SREI STYLE’ DECORATIVE LINTEL WITH TUNGSTEN

BLADE CHISELS, REFERRING TO A PHOTO OF THE ORIGINAL AS

THEY PROGRESS. PHOTO: MARTIN POLKINGHORNE



of the details. Examples from Pre Rup, Prasat

Kravanh and the North Khleang indicate that

the shallow engraving was completed in its

entirety before deep carving and finishing

began. This exact same process occurs inthe contemporary sculpture of decorative

lintels and bas-reliefs. Lintels from Trapeang

Totung Thngay, Trapeang Srangè (Dei Dom),

and Kutisvara, however, retain totally blank

segments offset by completed sculpture on

the same lintel (see also Polkinghorne 2008a).

The incisions on numerous decorative lintels

were very deep, and required the precise

removal of small localised pieces of stone.

This was probably executed with the use

of a small drill that created holes to break

elements of the sandstone away. Becauselintels were carved in situ the application

of this technique, and indeed the whole act

of lintel carving must have been carried

out with the utmost skill and care by the

most experienced carvers. Today accidental

breakages can be remedied with the aid

of glue, yet during the Angkor period a

stone fracture probably meant that the image

must be recreated from the beginning. Artists

use specialised chisels of their own making,

with iron shafts and tungsten blades. At

the Phnom Santuk workshops of Kompong

Thom the use of angle grinders for bulk

stone removal and more nuanced modellingis common practice. As yet no recognisable

tools have been indentified in excavations at

Angkor, however numerous iron chisels were

recovered during the restoration of Prasat

Phimai now in contemporary Thailand.

Medieval tools were certainly lesser quality

than contemporary instruments, making thetechnical marvel of Angkorian sculpture all

the greater. In contemporary workshops the

master sculptor also acts as a quality controller,

marking the sculptures with pencil where they

need to be corrected. The final tasks are the

detailed and refined carving , followed by

cleaning and polishing with a grinding stone

which bring the work to completion. The time

it takes to complete a sculpture, depends on

the skill level of the artist, however, one large

and detailed decorative lintel can take as long

as three months for two master sculptors to

complete. Today workshops are paid in cashfor the outputs of their labour, but in medieval

Cambodia, where there was no system of

easily exchanged currency, the inscriptions

tell of a system of commerce where donations,

payments, and taxes were exchanged between

temples, individuals, and the state in numerous

forms , including land, grain, livestock, textiles,

and metals. Sculptors may also have been

compelled to provide their services out of

religious or regal obligation.

The supply of sacred images to Angkorian

temples must have employed many teams

of artists, similar to those who continue theKhmer sculptural traditions By extrapolating

from contemporary workshops, Angkorian

artistic production was most probably

familial based, organised on a village basis,

and responded to commissions at the

request of patrons throughout the empire

(Polkinghorne 2008b). Discovery of an actual

Angkorian sculpture workshop has thus far

eluded researchers, however recent fieldworkapproximately 8kms north of Jayavarman

VII’s walled city of Angkor Thom at the sites

of Phnom Dei and Daun Tei has identified

production debitage consistent with artistic

intensification. The unearthing of numerous

unfinished sculptures of late 12th – early 13th

century Avalokiteshvara by French scholars in

the early 20th century suggests that this site

could indeed be the location of a sculpture

workshop. By appraising the methods and

technology of this workshop, researchers have

a unique opportunity to connect master Him

Tuo of the Banteay Srei Rachana workshopand the sculptors of contemporary Cambodia,

to the lineage of artists who have continuously

fashioned at Angkor some of the world’s

greatest sculptures.

Martin Polkinghorne is an expert in Khmer art and

completed his PhD in 2008 at the Department of Art

History and Film Studies, The University of Sydney,

with a focus on Angkorian architectural sculpture.

He is currently living in Cambodia undertaking a

post-doctoral Endeavour Fellowship including a

placement at The National Museum of Cambodia.

REFERENCES

Chan Vitharin and Preap Chanmara. 2005. Kbach. A Study of

Khmer Ornamentation. Translated by I. Muan. Reyum Publishing:

Phnom Penh.

Coral-Rémusat, G., de. 1934. ‘De l’origine commune des linteaux

de l’Inde Pallava et des linteaux khmèrs préangkoriens’, Revue des

Arts Asiatiques 8(3):242 - 251.

Coral-Rémusat, G., de. 1951. L’art khmer. Les grandes étapes

de son évolution (2nd édition). Van Oest, Les Éditions d’Art et

d’histoire: Paris.

Dupont, P. 1952. ‘Les l inteaux khmers du VIIIe siècle’, Artibus

Asiae 15(1-2):31 - 83.

F. Caro, J. G. Douglas, Im Sokrithy, in press. ‘Towards a

Quantitative Petrographic Database of Khmer Stone Materials –

Koh Ker Style’, Archaeometry.

Groslier, G. 1921 – 1923. ‘Étude sur la psychologie de l’artisan

Cambodgien. Arts et archéologie khmers’ , Revue des recherches

sur les arts, les monuments et l’ethnographie du Cambodge, depuis

les origines jusqu’à nos jours 1(2):205 – 220.

Groslier, G. 1921. Recherches sur les Cambodgiens. D’après les

textes et les monuments depuis les premiers siècles de notre ère.

Augustin Challamel: Paris.

Hartley, L. P. 1953. The go-between. Hamish Hamilton: London

Marchal, H. 1951. Le décor et la sculpture khmers. Études d’art et

d’ethnologie asiatiques. Vanoest: Paris.

Polkinghorne, M. 2008a. ‘Khmer decorative lintels and the

allocation of artistic labour’, Arts Asiatiques 63: 21 – 35.

Polkinghorne, M. 2008b. ‘Artists and Ateliers: Khmer Decorative

Lintels of the ninth and tenth centuries’, Udaya – The Journal of

Khmer Studies 8: 219 – 242.

STONE SCULPTURE, BOROBUDUR, JAVA. 780-850 CE. ROYAL COUPLE WEARING GOLDEN

JEWELLERY IN THE INDIAN STYLE. PHOTO: DR ROBERT PARKER, 2008



he absorbing paintings in the impressive

Indian art exhibition Garden & Cosmos,

currently showing at the Art Gallery of New

South Wales, were recently rediscovered

in the ancestral collection of the powerful

Rathore clan whose current maharaja still

lives in the royal palace in Jodhpur. The

Rathores ruled the desert kingdom of Marwar

in Rajasthan from the 13th century to Indian

independence in 1947, with a crucial point

in their history occurring in 1564 when their

acceptance of Mughal sovereignty elevated

them from local authorities to great kings(maharajas). A unique Marwar court culture,

reflecting the merging of indigenous Rajput

traditions with those of the Mughals, emerged

across the fields of literature, music and

painting. This culture was further enriched by

the religious piety of various maharajas who

commissioned texts and paintings that would

propagate their beliefs. Particularly under

the reign of Man Singh (r.1803-43), the 18th

maharaja of the Rathore clan, new imagery

emerged as a result of his patronage of the

Nath order of yogins.

The paintings created from the 17th to 19thcenturies in the Marwar royal workshops

are extraordinarily well preserved, many of

them still glowing with the pristine, luminous

colours and gold and silver highlighting of

the day they were made. Created for the

private enjoyment of the Maharajas and

their courts, they range in size from the

expected dimensions of an Indian ‘miniature’

(approximately 30 x 20 cm) to unusually

large, designated ‘monumental’ paintings

(approximately 45 x 135 cm).

In this article I want to focus on a selection of

the paintings that illustrate the hagiology and

teaching of the Nath order of yogins. Most such

paintings were created at the request of Man

Singh, who gave unprecedented patronage

to the Naths. His patronage extended to

commissioning illustrated texts from the royal

workshops, challenging his artists to create a

new vocabulary of vibrant imagery relating to

Nath beliefs and teaching.

The Nath sect traces its origins back to the

12th or 13th century when various heterodoxShaivite lineages and disparate groups of yogis

coalesced to recognise the guru Gorakhnath

as their historical founder. Traditionally,

Gorakhnath is credited with the creation of

hatha yoga which, Naths believed, offered the

means to move beyond the phenomenal world

and to become an immortal ascetic (siddha)

through its discipline of physical postures and

meditation. Outstanding individuals such as

Gorakhnath were recognised as mahasiddhas

(‘great perfected beings’), and there were

various lists of the Nine, the Twelve, even

the Eighty-four important mahasiddhas.

Traditionally Nath devotional practice didnot embrace images; teaching was mainly oral

transmission from guru to student, although

unillustrated texts did exist. This situation

changed with Man Singh, whose reign

witnessed not only the composition of three

new Nath texts – the Nath Charit, Nath Purana

and the Meghamala – but also the creation of

a new visual vocabulary to illustrate them. In

addition, three other illustrated manuscripts

were produced: the Siddha Siddanta Paddhati,

Shiva Rahasya and Shiva Purana. In total,

the Jodhpur workshop completed perhaps a

thousand smaller paintings and more than

340 monumental folios (Diamond 2008: 43).

The Naths had not received any preferential

support during the reign of Man Singh’s

predecessors, but because Man Singh credited

his accession to the Marwar throne to the Nath

sectarian order, he gave them unprecedented

power and favours. The reason for his

support of the Naths is well documented. In

the summer of 1803 he had been hostage in

his castle at Jalore, besieged by the troops ofhis uncle Maharaja Bhim Singh (r.1793-1803),

who had assassinated every other claimant

to the Marwar throne. Man Singh was

already a devotee of the Nath sectarian order,

particularly of the immortal mahasiddha (‘great

perfected being’) Jallandharnath, for whom a

temple had been built near Jalore. Just when

Man Singh was on the point of surrendering

to Bhim Singh, his Nath spiritual preceptor,

the guru Dev Nath, pronounced a message

from Jallandharnath to the effect that if Man

Singh waited a few more days, he would

keep his fortress at Jalore plus become ruler

of Marwar. Man Singh therefore deferredsurrendering. Bhim Singh unexpectedly died,

and his royal forces came to the support

of Man Singh, who did become the next

Rathore Maharaja. Thus his respect for the

Naths, his guru Dev Nath and above all the

mahasiddha Jallandharnath was consolidated.

As Maharaja, Man Singh elevated the Naths

to positions of power, built temples for them,

and commissioned new art relating to Nath

portraits and teachings.

T

G R E A T P E R F E C T E D B E I N G S

Jackie Menzies

THE PRACTICE OF YOGA, FOLIO 5 FROM THE SIDDHA SIDDHANTA PADDHATI ATTRIBUTED TO BULAKI, INDIA (RAJASTHAN), 1824.

MEDIUM OPAQUE WATERCOLOUR ON HAND MADE PAPER 46 X 122 CM. COURTESY MEHRANGARH MUSEUM TRUST, INDIA



A feature of Man Singh’s transformative impact

on Nath teaching was his commissioning

of numerous portraits of Jallandhranath,

of whom previously there had been no

images. Through countless repetition, the

artists of the royal atelier created what is

now an immediately recognisable icon of

Jallandranath. Portraits of Jallandranath show

him teaching lesser gurus, advising the Hindu

gods, or, as in the image illustrated, beingworshipped by Man Singh. This image is a

characteristic depiction of Jallandranath: he

is shown in profile, his body is ash-smeared,

he wears the saffron coloured garment and

jata (dreadlocks) of a Shaivite holy man, a

triangular black hat and the large kundal

earrings (worn through holes bored in the

ears’ inner cartilage) that are a distinctive

feature of Nath gurus. (In his depiction of the

eyes, however, the artist resorts to traditional

Rajasthani court practice for royal portraits.)

The subtly didactic intent of many of theverdant landscape scenes, peopled with

various gods, mahasiddhas , birds and

animals, is exemplified in The Practice of

Yoga, where nine mahasiddhas , each depicted

in the recognisable iconic style created for

portraits of Jallandranath, are seen meditating

in secluded vignettes. A fish and lotus-filled

silver river reinforces the arcadian, lush

landscape to which all who follow Nathpractice can aspire. In the lower right of the

painting is depicted an aspiring yogin, while

the white-walled celestial city above him and

the pink mountain peaks are overwhelmed

by the scale of the mahasiddhas who are the

foci as our eye moves across the painting.

This folio, and the other first five folios

of the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, correlate

closely with the opening chapters of the text

they illustrate, which is attributed to the

mahasiddha Goraknath and considered to be

the clearest and most systematic exposition

of Nath metaphysics and practice (Diamond208: 232). The mahasiddhas sit in different

yoga postures (asanas) , their hands in various

gestures (mudras). One faces frontally, his

right index finger compressing his nostril

as he practices pranayama (breath control).

The group of Nine Naths is a grouping

of significant, legendary or historical

founders of the Nath sampradaya (religious

community; teaching tradition). There are

many permutations to the list of Nine Naths,

according to different texts and traditions, but

the names of Gorakhnath and Jallandranath

appear frequently on such lists.

Apart from images of Jallandranath and

other mahasiddhas of the Nath lineage, the

exhibition contains paintings that exemplify

the new imagery created to illustrate Nath

cosmographies. For example, while Nath

teaching, like many Hindu religious traditions,

embraces the concept of the Absolute known

as Brahman, Man Singh commissioned his

court artists to depict it. The artists solved the

challenge of depicting the Absolute, which --

being immeasurable and formless -- is beyond

the constraints of imagery, by depicting it

as luminous, shimmering fields of gold.Other innovations inspired by Nath teaching

include anthropomorphic images to illustrate

such expansive concepts as Consciousness

(Purusha) and Matter (Prakriti).

The Naths regarded Jallandharnath as an

anthropomorphic manifestation of the

Absolute, with the court artists reflecting

such beliefs through pictorial representations

of him. For example, Nathji creates the

Earth’s Sacred Waters depicts Jallandranath

(whom Man Singh referred to as Nathji) as

the anthropomorphic manifestation of the

universe, teaching Kala (Time), representedas a Nath siddha. This particular painting, as

well as others illustrating Nath mythologies,

proclaims Nath belief in the pre-eminence

JALLANDHARNATH AND MAHARAJA MAN SINGH ON DIWALI BY SHIVDAS BHATTI, INDIA (MARWAR, RAJASTHAN), C1820-BEFORE JULY 1825.

OPAQUE WATERCOLOUR ON HANDMADE PAPER (WASLI), 50 X 33 CM. COURTESY MEHRANGARH MUSEUM TRUST, INDIA



of Nath mahasiddhas over

Hindu gods: Jallandranath

is shown instructing the

three great Hindu gods:

Shiva, blue-skinned

Vishnu, and four-headedBrahma (Diamond 2008:

187). A number of lesser

deities are depicted

overawed by the Nathji’s

radiance that suffuses the

whole scene. Further right

in this extraordinary and

innovative painting, Nathji

is seen creating the great

rivers of India, and meeting

several times with Shiva

who had doubted Nathji’s

primacy (see Diamondp.187 for fuller discussion

of this painting).

According to Nath belief,

in the penultimate year of

the 12-year course of hatha

yoga, a yogin becomes

a siddha, a perfected

being who achieves an

equivalence of self and

universe (Diamond, 209).

This belief is graphically

captured in the image of

the fully frontal stand-ing siddha whose eyes

are crossed in yogic

meditation, and on whose

body and orange dhoti are

mapped the 14 principal

worlds of the universe. The

scale of this transcendental

figure can be gauged by

the complementary sun

and moon on his cheeks.

In depicting Nath beliefs

and aspirations, thereare further paintings

illustrating yantras, sacred

diagrams for realising

the self; others depicting

cosmographical mandalas;

and yet others depicting

Nath mahasiddhas against

vibrating fields of swirl-

ing cosmic waters. Each

expanse of water is a

different colour: gold,

pink, silver, saffron; each

folio contains a symbol, for

example the letter om, atortoise, a snake, significant

within yogic tradition. The

exact meaning of many of

these images is still uncertain, awaiting the

appearance of currently unidentified texts

that might elucidate their meaning. As so

often with Asian art, we are confronted with

the expanse of what is still unknown.

Jackie Menzies is Head Curator of Asian Art at the

Art Gallery of New South Wales. The exhibition

Garden & Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur

was curated and organised for its world tour by

the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian

Institution, Washington DC, in partnership with the

Mehrangarh Museum Trust, and is at the Art Gallery

of New South Wales until 26 January 2010. Further

information on the exhibition and associated events,

see What’s On, p. 30.

REFERENCES

Diamond, Debra et al, 2008: Garden & Cosmos: The RoyalPaintings of Jodhpur. Thames and Hudson, London.

THE EQUIVALENCE OF SELF AND UNIVERSE, FOLIO 6 FROM THE SIDDHA SIDDHANTA PADDHA,

BY BULAKI, INDIA (RAJASTHAN), 1824. OPAQUE WATERCOLOUR ON HANDMADE PAPER ,

122 X 46 CM. COURTESY MEHRANGARH MUSEUM TRUST, INDIA



he Venice Biennale has and may always

maintain a Euro-American focus. With

audiences queuing for the most talked-about

shows at the British and American pavilions,

this year’s Biennale (7 June to 22 November

2009) has been no exception. Many of the

Asian pavilions and exhibits went relatively

unnoticed. But Singapore’s artist-curator team

Ming Wong and Tang Fu Kuen produced one

of the exhibition highlights. Their courageous

show Life of Imitation certainly fitted the theme

of this year’s Biennale, ‘Making Worlds’, and

well deserved the Expanding Worlds award.

Tucked away in the glorious crumbling

Palazzo Michiel del Brusa in Cannareggio,

the Singapore pavilion transformed a dusty

Venetian interior into an opulent Singaporean

cinema. With careful attention to a series of

defining cinematic moments, Wong expressed

a deep perspective on the various and

shifting dimensions to national film and the

global flow of filmic identities. Rather than

attempting to produce an ‘authentic’ voice of

Singapore (or Asia), Life of Imitation exposed

the futility of thinking along such lines.

Three multi-channel video installations

were displayed in Sala1, Sala2, and Sala3,

each recreating scenes made by different

directors. Sala3 showed Wong’s oldest

work, Four Malay Stories (2005), in which the

artist himself portrays 16 characters from

four films: Ibu Mertua Ku/ My Mother-In-

Law (1962), Labu dan Labi/ Labu and Labi

(1962), Docktor Rushdi/ Doctor Rushdi (1971),

and Semerah Padi/ The Village of Semerah Padi

(1956), all by the famous Malay director, actor

and musician P. Ramlee. Heavily influenced

by Indian cinema, Ramlee’s work is typically

melodramatic. But his stock characters – the

evil rich mother-in-law, the poor musician,the unjustly treated servant – are also drawn

from stereotypes of a Malay society defined

by class, gender and ethnicity. The artist’s

conceptual strategy here is to destabilise

these stereotypes with humour, introducing

himself as each of the characters, isolated on a

plain grey background, to further deconstruct

all the elements of the scene and engage in

interpersonal melodramas with the other –

now invisible – characters. In each scenario,

we recognise him as both the artist and

the character, rendering the context of each

film’s narrative much less relevant than the

re-enactment of the characters. Bringing thefour films together in this manner points to

the way these identities interact to form an

entire language – through speech, gesture

and costume – that plays out the social and

moral concerns of the time.

Re-identification through self-portraiture

may be a well-trodden path in contemporary

art. Cindy Sherman, for example, restaged

herself in the 1960s as hundreds of characters

from an imagined film canon, her familiar

stare showing the self and constructions of

femininity to be in constant metamorphosis.What is unique about Wong’s work is his

remarkable attention to language – though

perhaps this is not so surprising for an artist

from multilingual Singapore who currently

lives in the linguistic muddle of Europe.

Four Malay Stories is subtitled in Malay and

English, while Wong is clearly learning

Malay as he recites his lines, his mistakes are

recorded and sequenced one after another.

And while these characters may be familiar

in households across Singapore, Malaysia and

Indonesia, for Wong as a Chinese Singaporean

their language is a kind of indirect heritage.Wong’s immaculate costumes also show signs

of imperfection and exaggeration. On Wong’s

chameleon features, a false moustache, a

prosthetic bald brow and overly dramatic

makeup all question the authenticity of the

original as much as his pastiche.

In Sala1, the title work Life of Imitation

(2009) appropriated Imitation of Life (1959)

by German director Douglas Sirk, itself a

remake of John M. Stahl’s 1939 film adapted

from Fannie Hurst’s novel. Sirk’s film deals

with the privileges of whiteness in the

United States. Its plot is based around thestruggle of a black woman with her light-

complexioned daughter who attempts to pass

for white, both pitied by a white actress.

T H E A R T O F I M I T A T I O N: M I N G W O N G A T T H E V E N I C E B I E N N A L E

Alexandra Crosby

T

MING WONG AT THE VENICE BIENNALE 2009. PHOTO ALEX DAVIES

LIFE OF IMITATION BY MING WONG, FROM INSTALLATION AT THE SINGAPORE PAVILION, VENICE BIENNALE 2009,

CURATED BY TANG FU KUEN. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTIST



In Life of Imitation, Wong casts three actors

from Singapore, a Chinese, a Malay and an

Indian, to recreate these racial tensions in a

single heart-wrenching scene from the film.

Exposing the fact that performing identities

is not exclusive to black and white, nor to the

melodrama of mother-daughter relationships,

Wong ridicules the simplification involved

in reducing the complexity of such identities

to flat characterisations. Wong’s actors take

turns in each of the roles, producing a kind

of round robin of interpersonal relations that

makes it impossible to see anyone as either a

victim or culprit. ‘I’m white. White!’ they cry,

one after another.

In Love for the Mood (2009), shown in Sala2,

also problematises whiteness by replacing

both star-struck lovers from the famous

Wong Kar Wai film In the Mood for Love

(2000) with a Caucasian New Zealand actress.

By referencing an internationally acclaimed

film of Chinese origin, this piece uses film

itself as a metaphor for the way cultural

ideas travel, constantly redistributing not

only representations of their place of origin,

but their relationships with other places and

ideas as they drift in the global flows of

production and audience. He questions how

sex and love are bound up in complex rites,

LIFE OF IMITATION BY MING WONG, FROM INSTALLATION AT THE SINGAPORE PAVILION, VENICE BIENNALE 2009, CURATED BY TANG FU KUEN. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTIST



taboos and experiments, and how these are

exchanged across cultures. The resulting

work is a deeply layered expression of how

Singaporeans and Asians represent traditions

of love and relationships, and also of how

non-Asians see and represent love in Asian

contexts. In this way, Wong’s work is neither

Singaporean nor Asian, but essentially global

in context.

Wong, who is now based in Berlin, negotiates

the constrictions of the contemporary art

world with refreshing humour. While manyartists deal with dislocation, diaspora and

transience with a sense of longing (a recurring

theme in the Biennale), Wong conquers the

differences between shifting cultural spaces,

claiming them as the foundation for his own

distinct global identity.

But Life of Imitation is also nostalgic,

specifically for the 1950s and 60s, the golden

age of Singaporean cinema. As a retrospective,

the show is as much about the spaces of

film consumption as it is about the films

themselves. Filem-Filem-Filem (2008) is a series

of Polaroids depicting the fate of old cinemasin Singapore and Malaysia. These buildings

show evidence of the mobility of international

architectural styles, particularly Art Deco and

Bauhaus. But on closer inspection, these styles

were clearly localised for the tropical climate

and the multiple identities they were required

to express, with signage in English, Chinese,

Tamil and Jawi. This was also the period of

Singapore’s partition from Malaysia (1965)

and, along with Four Malay Stories , such work

encourages a re-reading of ‘national cinema’

that acknowledges the multiple histories of

language and identity. While Malaysia has

never scored a pavilion at Venice, Wong’s

view of the messiness of visual culture

probes national boundaries of Malaysia andSingapore, and does much to include their

shared cultural histories, a slippery terrain of

authenticity and ownership.

The exhibition also included a series of

documentary interviews with Wong Han

Min, a private collector of cine-memorabilia

from Singapore and the Malay world, and a

movie ticket seller. Eight striking canvases

painted by Singapore’s last surviving movie

billboard painter, Neo Chon Teck, completed

the tribute to a time that may have passed,

but for Ming Wong it is seemingly available

to limitless interpretations.

If we are to look through the lens of the

Nationalist Biennale model – and this is

impossible to avoid in Venice – we must

consider the absence as well as the inclusion

of so many countries. Where is Malaysia,

Indonesia, or India, in this cacophony of

culture? Ming Wong elegantly dealt with the

clumsy nationalism of the Venice Biennale

with his own reading of Singapore, Asian,

and international cinema. Freely quoting

from multiple cultures and histories, he

resists visual languages that confine him

to a singular identity. Despite its place in

global surveys such as the Venice Biennale,

the context of contemporary art such as Lifeof Imitation can no longer be defined as if

the world was neatly divided into exclusive

geographic or cultural zones.

Alexandra Crosby is a writer and researcher

currently based in Brussels. She is completing a PhD

on the cultural practices of environmental activists

in Java, and recently co-edited the book re:Publik,

Indonesia-Australia Creative Adventures, available at

www.gangfestival.com

FOUR MALAY STORIES BY MING WONG, FROM INSTALLATION AT THE SINGAPORE PAVILION, VENICE BIENNALE 2009, CURATED BY TANG FU KUEN. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTIST



Along with others from UK, Poland, USA,

NZ, Canada and Australia who have visited

and worked in Asian workshops, we were

able to discuss this phenomenon of Western

artists being drawn to the East.

The Triennale was supported by three of

Sydney’s art education institutions. At COFA’sIvan Dougherty Gallery, Jacqueline Clayton

curated Another Silk Road , an exhibition that

focussed on work being made in China by

both local and international artists. In the

exhibition catalogue, she says: ‘The Silk Road

has become a metaphor for cultural exchange

between disparate and distant groups with

China as a key destination and hub.’

At Sydney College of the Arts Galleries, Jan

Guy curated Young Guns. In her catalogue

essay, she wrote: ‘The idea for Young Guns

germinated from long reflection on the stateand status of ceramic arts in Australia. Still

today there is much talk of the demise of the

discipline and its failure to produce works

of a high standard or innovation. This loose

chatter contradicted what I was seeing on the

ground locally. Here the emerging ceramicists

were creating exciting experimental works

that dealt with contemporary social issues and

constructed new views of ceramic traditions.’

At the National Art School Gallery in

Darlinghurst we presented LINK , an

exhibition profiling the ceramics departments

of The National Art School in Sydney andKongju University in Korea. This was curated

by me and Professor Hae Sin Ro from Kongju

University, South Korea. ‘Link’, a word

which in the English language has a certain

ambiguity, is not so easily defined in Korean.

Link suggests a form that connects to another

as in a chain, where as in the appropriate

Korean characters there is far more emphasis

on person-to-person and the connection

resulting from this ‘link’. The exhibition was

about much more than the work; it wasabout an association made between people,

between cultures. The most productive

projects, the most dynamic exhibitions

result from genuine personal bonds. The

ceramic work represented more than just an

individual’s personal expression: it offered

a rare opportunity to identify ideas which

are common across cultures, celebrating

the similarities rather than differences. Our

common language is clay, which has a long

history in Asian cultures and is important ineveryday Asian life. The history of ceramics

allows us to track the evolution of humanity,

the development of ideas, the connection to a

cultural heritage or an institutional tradition.

Rather than the links of a chain that shackle

and restrict, the exhibition and the Triennale

conference forged new associations and

pointed to new and dynamic possibilities.

We leave our footsteps and fingerprints upon

this earth, and those of us lucky enough to

work with the materials of the earth have

the opportunity to make a language all of itsown. From earliest time humans discovered

that to press a thumb into a lump of clay

leaves a small hollow impression. The aim

of the Triennale was to make a slightly

larger impression. Exchanges begun at this

conference offer a healthy dialogue through

process, materiality and concept. Ceramic

artists from Australia and Asia will certainly

continue to interact.

Merran Esson is a ceramic artist, Acting Head of

Ceramics at the National Art School, Sydney, and

Chair of the Australian Ceramics Triennale.

TEAPOT BY TAKESHI YASUDA, JAPAN/UK, 2009. PORCELAIN, HT 23CM X DIAM 20CM. IMAGE COURTESY THE ARTIST

FRESHWATER-SALTWATER POTS BY ROGER LAW, UK, 2008. MADE AND PHOTOGRAPHED IN JINGDEZHEN, CHINA, 2008.

PORCELAIN, CELEDON GLAZE, SIZES VARIABLE, TALL POTS HT 140CM X DIAM 95CM



ne ancient summer in the Altai Mountains

of southern Siberia, a band of iron-age

horsemen gouged a deep chamber in the earth

and buried an aristocratic couple equipped with

various items for the afterlife. The mourners then

covered the tomb with heavy layers of logs and

soil, topped it with a broad mound of stones,

and rode away. This alpine cemetery, slightly

northeast of the junction of Russia, Kazakhstan,

China and Mongolia, was later called Pazyryk --

local Turkic dialect for Valley of the Dead.

Robbers soon looted the tomb of any preciousobjects. But a permafrost gripped the burial

chamber, and through the hole the robbers

left, the rain poured in and quickly froze,

eventually filling the tomb with ice. When

veteran Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko

opened the tomb 60 years ago, in 1949, he

found the two embalmed aristocrats, nine

horse carcasses with riding gear, exquisite

artefacts and everyday utensils – preserved in

ice for more than 2000 years (Rudenko 1970).

This moment 60 years ago was magical, not

only for archaeology but the study of carpets

and textiles. For the ice yielded an embroidered

Chinese silk, coloured felt saddle cloths, a

huge felt appliqué hanging showing a rider

approaching a goddess -- and a spectacular

multi-coloured pile carpet, the oldest ever found.It is now displayed in the Hermitage Museum in

St Petersburg (Barkova 1999, 2002; Bunker 1991).

This tomb or kurgan (the Russian term), labelled

‘Pazyryk V’, is among hundreds of nomadic

burials across the Altai and the Eurasian steppes

from the Ukraine to Mongolia, most of them

looted in antiquity. Of the mounted pastoral

nomads who dominated Eurasia from about

1000 BCE until well into the Common Era, the

best documented are the Scythians, Sarmatians

and Sakas to the west and the Xiongnu in the

east; the Pazyryk people clearly belonged to

this cultural spectrum (Rudenko op cit). These

kurgans have yielded an astonishing range

of artefacts in gold and other solid materials

fashioned in the ‘Animal Style’ of steppe art

(Aruz et al 2000). But the nomads’ textiles aremostly a mystery, for these quickly perished

unless preserved in salt, dry sand or ice.

The Pazyryk carpet is all wool, measures

1.83m x 2.00m, and its format hardly differs

O

T H E P A Z Y R Y K C A R P E T , 6 0 Y E A R S O N

Leigh Mackay

THE PAZYRYK CARPET, C 328-250 BCE, DISCOVERED IN AN IRON AGE TOMB IN SOUTHERN SIBERIA IN 1949. WOOL WARP, WOOL WEFT, 1.83M X 2.00M.

COLLECTION HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG. PHOTO COURTESY HALI



from that of today’s oriental carpets. Its centre

field of 24 symmetrical squares is surrounded

by two major borders with guard stripes.

One shows a procession of 28 horsemen in

steppe gear, alternately walking or riding

their horses; the other shows a line of stags orelk (moose) walking in the opposite direction.

These counterwise processions give the carpet

balance and movement. Two minor borders

show griffins or winged lions.

The carpet’s silky, lustrous pile is cropped to

only 2mm high. Its seven vegetable colours

are predominantly red or crimson and include

turquoise and yellow. The dense asymmetrical

knotting (each knot completely encircling two

warps) is extremely regular (Barkova 1999). Rug

scholars Harald Bohmer and Jon Thompson

estimate the Pazyryk consumed the fleece ofabout 100 sheep (Bohmer, Thomson 1991).

The carpet’s symbolism and purpose are

subject to speculation -- but not its age, quality

and significance for textile history (Pinner

1982). Some experts had assumed pile weaving

was a nomadic invention carried westward

by migrating Turkic-speaking nomads, such

as the Oguz confederation of around the 10th

century CE. But radio-carbon dating of the

Pazyryk’s fibres and the timber used to line the

tomb, combined with dendrochronology (the

study of tree rings), gave the most probable

date as 328-250 BCE (Rageth 2004).

Together, the Pazyryk’s age and technical

excellence proved the art of weaving fine pile

rugs with polychrome designs was significantly

older than previously thought. Further, since

1949 numerous pile fragments have been

discovered in the At-tar caves of Iraq and

Fostat (old Cairo), woven in the early centuries

CE. Rug scholar Murray Eiland Jr observed:

‘Clearly all the weaving techniques required

for a variety of pile carpets -- including the

techniques still most commonly used -- were

present in Western Asia before the 1st centuryAD, and any theories based on a hypothesis

that this weaving technology was first brought

West by the Turks in the 10th century [CE]….

or by any other East Asian group, is quite

unnecessary.’ (Eiland Jr 1998).

So, who wove the Pazyryk and where? Here,

science blends with art historical analysis,

offering probabilities but not certainty.

Many researchers doubt that the Pazyryk

inhabitants had the necessary technology and

skills to produce the carpet -- though we should

never underestimate the abilities of the steppenomads. A firmer argument against a steppe

origin was the Pazyryk’s iconography. Steppe

artefacts are typically wrought in the elegantly

curved ‘Animal Style’, usually portraying

wild animals in combat or feline predators

attacking hoofed animals. Their bodies are

highly stylised or distorted to suggest pain

or spontaneous action, while body parts

often morph into others: for example, deer

antlers end in bird’s heads (Rudenko 1970).

In contrast, the Pazyryk’s imagery is highly

formal, symmetrical, balanced and realistic.

There is nothing wild or fanciful about thehorsemen (rarely depicted in steppe art), or the

carefully-drawn horses, harnesses and bridles,

or the stags with their antlers and patterning.

Even the griffins, which do occur in steppe art,

appear in symmetrical repeats (Barkova 1999).

To many observers, the carpet’s imagery

and composition indicate an origin not on

the steppes, but in Achaemenid Persia or

perhaps Mesopotamia via Persia (Azerpay

1959; Rudenko 1970). For example:

• The rug’s cetral grid of squares with

floral motifs resembles the carved grid onstone floor panels in the Assyrian palace

of Senacherib at Nineveh, from the 7th

century BCE (Schurmann 1982).

• The processio of riders ad horses

strongly echoes the Pointed-cap Saka

nomads (from Central Asia) carved on the

Apadana steps at the Achaemenid capital,

Persepolis. In both cases they walk their

steeds with arms bent along the animal’sspine, reining its head back sharply,

while the horses wear head plumes and

braided manes, and are of small stature.

Such human and animal processions are

common in Near Eastern art, not steppe

art (Schurmann 1982; Learner 1991).

• The motifs that represet the shoulder

and hindquarter muscles of the stags also

appear in lions in Mesopotamian glazed

brick friezes -- at Susa for example -- and

the bulls carved in relief on the Apadana

stairs at Persepolis (Learner 1991).

So the carpet could be a Persian import

incorporating Mesopotamian elements; in fact,

Pazyryk V also contained a cut-up, illustrated

kilim (tapestry) thought to be inspired by

Achaemenid Persia (Rubinson 1990). Of

course, Altaian weavers might have copied an

original Persian carpet, perhaps because its

iconography represented Achaemenid power

and cultural prestige.

Bohmer and Thompson gave the Persian theory a

twist. While accepting the New Eastern character

of the imagery, they stressed – as rug scholarsalways do – that textile designs and motifs

easily migrate, so to identify a carpet’s origins

we must also study its structure and technique.

They noted the extremely even knotting and

resulting consistency of design, the carefully

planned spacing of the stags and riders, and the

depressed warp that produced the dense, tight

structure. They concluded that these and other

points indicated the Pazyryk carpet was woven

in an urban workshop, perhaps commissioned

by a nomadic VIP. A workshop would entail a

fixed loom and one or more weavers following a

designer’s cartoon – or even copying an originalcarpet with the same design (Bohmer, Thompson

1991; Barkova 1999).

Researchers also noted the Pazyryk’s rustic

touches and steppe references, such as the

stags, the horsemen’s steppe gear, and the

horse blankets bearing ‘Tree of Life’ designs

associated with nomadic textiles (Barkova 1999).

These elements indicated the proposed carpet

workshop lay not in the Persian heartland, such

as a royal atelier, but on the periphery: perhaps

a steppe province where Achaemenid cultural

traditions survived and nomadic lifeways were

a familiar sight. The weavers might well have been former nomads. Bohmer and Thomson

further noted that the insects (Polish kermes)

that were crushed for the crimson dye in the

22 T A A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 1 8 N O . 4



carpet were native to Central Asia and western

steppes, both on the Persian fringe, and not to

the Iranian Plateau itself.

They concluded: ‘If the urban character of its

weaving style is accepted, then the Pazyryk

carpet can be seen as a provincial interpretation

of the fashionable Achaemenid court styleproduced for a nomadic clientele by urban

weavers with cultural connections to both Persia

and the steppes’ (Bohmer, Thomson 1991).

Logistically, the most likely location of such

a workshop would be in the ancient Persian-

controlled regions of Sogdia or Fergana (both now

in Uzbekistan), or Bactria (northern Afghanistan)

before Hellenistic Greek art displaced Persian

styles; or in Chorasmia (now Karakalpakstan

and Turkmenistan), or even Parthia in the same

region. All were linked to southern Siberia and

the Altai by trade routes and numerous Saka

and other nomadic tribes who might have

transmitted Persian luxury goods northwards in

exchange for gold and furs.

Today the experts still favour this view of the

Pazyryk’s origin -- but cautiously, because muchabout the carpet remains elusive. Even Thomson

and Bohmer conceded that the Pazyryk could be

a nomadic copy of an Achaemenid Persian

original (Bohmer, Thomson 1991). Never

underestimate the nomads.

Leigh Mackay is President of the Oriental Rug Society of

NSW. He has a BA in Philosophy and Linguistics and an

MA in Islamic Studies. A former journalist, he has lived

in Iran and travelled in Central Asia, and has a strong

interest in the history and culture of these regions.

REFERENCES

Aruz J., Farkas A., Alekseev A., Korolkova E. (eds), 2000: The Golden

Deer of Eurasia: Scythian and Sarmatian Treasures from the Russian

Steppes. Metropolitan Museum NY & Yale University Press 2000.

Azerpay, G. 1959: ‘Some Classical and Near Eastern Motifs in the

Art of Pazyryk’, Artibus Asiae 22, pp 313-339.Barkova, L. 1999: ‘The Pazyryk -- Fifty Years On’, HALI 107, pp 64-69.

Barkova, L. 1999: ‘Pazyryk Felts’, HALI 113, pp 74-79.

Bohmer, H., Thompson, J., Bunker, E.C., Learner J. et al, 1991: in

Source: Notes in the History of Art, 10.4 Summer 1991 (devoted to

the Pazyryk carpet).

Eiland, M. Jr., Eiland M. 1998: Oriental Carpets: A Complete

Guide. Bullfinch Press, London, Ch. 1.

Pinner, R. 1982: ‘The Earliest Carpets’, HALI 5.2, pp 110-115, 118-119.

Rageth, J. 2004: ‘Radiocarbon dating of textiles’, Orientations

35:44, pp 57-62.

Robinson, K.S.1990: ‘The Textiles from Pazyryk: A study in the transfer

and transformation of artistic motifs’, Expedition 32.1, pp 49-61.

Rudenko, S.I. 1970: Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials

of Iron Age Horsemen. University of California Press, Berkley.Schurmann, U. 1982: The Pazyryk (symposium paper, Armenian

Rug Society.

Hermitage Museum web site: http://depts.washington.edu/

silkroad/museums/shm/shmpazyryk.html

.

We offer over 20 study tours each year, of which the following scheduled during2010 may be of interest to TAASA members.

JORDAN AND SYRIA04 - 24 FEBRUARY 2010Jordan and Syria have seen the birth of civilisations and have experienced the movements of successive

nations across their soil. Trace the story from Neolithic times, to sites like Ugarit, to Roman Jerash in

Jordan and Dura Europas in Syria. The Christian west becomes involved with the ill-fated Crusades but

also leave their mark with crusader castles like Kerak in Jordan and Crac des Chavaliers in Syria.

Of course fabled Petra and Wadi Rum are included. Tour leader is Ancient Historian Leonie Hayne.

Land Only price per person, twin share: $6,595

EGYPT: FROM ALEXANDRIA TO ABU SIMBEL15 FEBRUARY – 08 MARCH 2010This comprehensive tour of Egypt includes the usual cruise from Luxor to Aswan, with time to explore

the Luxor temples and Valleys of Kings and Queens. You will also visit Abu Simbel. There will be time to

explore both the ancient sites around Cairo but also the Islamic medieval city as well. You will visit the

UNESCO Library in Alexandria and travel to the fabulous Siwa Oasis. The tour is led by Ben Churcher.


IRAN26 MARCH – 16 APRIL 2010John Tidmarsh (Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation) leads his second tour to Iran for us, exploring

pre-historic sites, the cities of the Persians and Sassanians, whose sophisticated society challenged

the Byzantines and laid the foundations for an advanced Islamic succession. Includes fabled Isfahan

and Shiraz.


SPRING IN THE STANS01 – 14 APRIL 2010A comprehensive tour of the great sites and cities of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan where Turkic culture

and art flourished. Visit legendary Samarkand and Bukhara, Khiva, Nukus, Merv and Mary. Tour leader

is Helen Nicholson.

JAPAN: THROUGH THE TORII GATE05 -22 APRIL 2010Experience Japan at Cherry Blossom Time. This tour covers central and southern Japan, and includes

visits to great modern cities like Tokyo and Osaka, historic centres like Kyoto and Nara, feudal castles

like Himeji and Matsuyama, and well preserved small towns like Kanazawa and Takayama. In

conjunction with WEA and led by Simon Gentry.


THREE ANCIENT LANDS: AZERBAIJAN, GEORGIA AND ARMENIA16 APRIL – 05 MAY 2010The Caucasus – a unique melting pot of Eastern Orthodox and Islam. From the shores of Lake Sevan,

the oil boomtown of Baku, to the lush church-studded hills of Georgia, the Caucasus is its own world.

Led by Rob Lovell


ALSO

FROM HO CHI MINH CITY TO HANOI’S 1000TH BIRTHDAY 19 SEPTEMBER – 11 OCTOBER

ARABIA FELIX: OMAN AND YEMEN6 OCTOBER – 20 NOVEMBER

For a brochure on any of the above tours, or to receive our quarterly newsletter Bon Voyage, please phone:(02) 9290 3856 or 1300 799 887 (outside Sydney metrop.), fax: (02) 9290 3857, e-mail: [email protected]; www.alumnitravel.com.au

PAZCRYK CARPET, DETAIL OF HORSEMAN: NOTE STEPPE COSTUME,

HORSE’S GEAR. COLLECTION HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG

PAZYRYK CARPET, DETAIL OF STAG, PROBABLY ELK (MOOSE):

NOTE ANTLERS, PATTERNING. COLLECTION HERMITAGE MUSEUM,

ST PETERSBURG



he Art Gallery of South Australia recentlyacquired a pair of Japanese temple

guardians (nio) which are a spectaculartestament to the great heritage of East Asian

Buddhist art. They are unusually large, andare the only examples of their kind in an

Australian public collection.

On passing through the main gateway of many

Buddhist temples in Japan, the frighteningvisages of two wrathful nio figures inevitably

confront the visitor . These threshold guardiansare usually housed on either side of the southern

gate and delineate the boundary separatingprofane and sacred space. Their role is to protect

monks and lay devotees from the negativeforces and spirits that would contradict theBuddha’s Dharma. As guardians of the Buddhist

teaching, nio are ubiquitous elements of templearchitecture throughout East Asia. The majority

of these statues were fashioned from wood andenshrined in semi-open porches, exposed to the

vagaries of the weather as well as to the civilunrest that often led to the destruction of temple

buildings. An intact pair of figures is thereforea rare survival.

The two figures are known respectively as NaraenKongo and Misshaku Kongo , and are commonly

called kongo rikishi or ‘vajra-wielding strongmen’.Naraen Kongo , a form of the Hindu god Vishnu ,

probably once held a vajra in his raised hand.He would have stood on the right of the temple

entrance. Misshaku Kongo , a manifestation ofthe Hindu god Indra , probably once held a

sword in his lowered left hand and wouldhave stood on the left side of the entrance. The

two figures together are sometimes described as‘doubles’ of Vajrapani , the bodhisattva of power.Vajrapani is often depicted in Chinese Buddhist

cave chapels dating to the late Tang (618-917)and early Song dynasty (960-1279) and in those

locations displays similar appearance and traitsto the Japanese nio.

The carved faces still possess their original bulging

glass eyes, and convey a powerful expression ofunbridled ferocity. The mouth of Naraen Kongo

is open in the agyou position and the mouth of Misshaku Kongo is closed in the ungyou position;according to a common interpretation, these

positions represent the Sanskrit mantra syllables‘Ah’ and ‘Om’. Since ‘Ah’ and ‘Om’ are the first

and last syllables of the Sanskrit alphabet, it is

often said that this alludes to the beginning andend of the world. However, recent research intothe connection between East Asian Buddhist

imagery and ritual practices suggests that the

mouth expressions were intended to represent

the forceful declamation of a mantra associatedwith acts of exorcism. Alternatively, the

expressions may be connected to a secret mantraused in esoteric rituals to summon protector

deities during the visualization of a deity and hisentourage, similar to Shingon Buddhist practice.

The partially disrobed bodies of the Art Gallery’stwonio are fantastically muscled and their dramatic

gestures articulate their role as spiritual guardians– demonic protectors of the faith - epitomizing

righteous cosmic fury. The arm postures mayderive from the movements of ancient Chinese

martial arts or even the stylized choreography ofshamans during Buddhist exorcisms.

The iconographical lineage of these gods dates backto the earliest development of Buddhist figurative

imagery. Their ancestors were the yakshas , ancientIndian Vedic forest gods described as inoffensive

male nature fairies or gruesome ogres. One of theearliest figurative elements of Indian art, yakshas are

portrayed either as fearsome warriors or as portly,dwarf-like figures. In a Buddhist context, the yaksha

subsequently transformed into dharmapala (Skt:‘protectors of the Dharma’) and were stationed

at temple entrances charged with the protectionof the Buddha and the Dharma. Nevertheless, a

forest yaksha still appears frequently as an attendantmourner in Japanese nehan paintings depicting the

death of the Buddha.

The SA Gallery’s temple guardian figures were

created in the 17th-18th century with hinoki

(Japanese cypress) wood, prized in Japan forits fragrance, long-lasting quality and sacred

associations. The unknown sculptors used the

common yosegi zukuri (joined block) carvingtechnique introduced in Japan in the later halfof the 10th century. Sculptural elements like

the chignon (top knot), glaring eyes, stylizedmusculature and fluttering waist wraps,

derived from the Indian dhoti garment, arehallmarks of nio in Japan, Korea and China. Inparticular the figures’ ‘chrysanthemum nipples’

documents a stylistic link to the theatricalidealism of sculptures produced during the

Kamakura period (1185-1333), which many Japanese scholars believe represents the zenith

of Buddhist art in Japan.

The Art Gallery of South Australia’s Pair oftemple guardians possess a spectacular sense of

energy. The charming naivety in the modelingof details such as the feet indicates a provenancefrom an extant Fukui Prefecture temple. The

lack of idealization of the bulbous belly and lessself-conscious articulation of the musculature

directly connects them to an ancient heritage ofBuddhist protector art found in archaic stone

sculpture at locations like the Longmen grottoes(c. 493CE) in China. They are a unique testimony

to the interpretation of this subject as it evolvedover a millennium in the art of East Asia.

Russell Kelty recieved his BA in Art History fromColorado State University and is currently pursuing

his MA in Art History (Asian Art) at the University

of Adelaide.

T

I N T H E P U B L I C D O M A I N : T W O J A P A N E S E T E M P L E G U A R D I A N S

Russell Kelty PAIR OF TEMPLE GUARDIANS [NIO], JAPAN EDO PERIOD (1615-1868), 17TH-18TH CENTURY. FUKUI, WOOD, LACQUER, CLOTH, PAINT, GLASS,

IRON; LEFT FIGURE 192.0 C 120.0 X 65.0 CM, RIGHT FIGURE 200.0 X 95.0 X 65.0 CM. GIFT OF ANDREW AND HIROKO GWINNETT THROUGH THE

ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA FOUNDATION 2009, COLLECTION ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA



lastair Morrison, who died in Canberra

in August aged 93, was a passionate

collector and a generous donor to cultural

institutions. He was a great traveller,

raconteur, ornithologist, conservationist,

colonial administrator, and high-level public

servant, the son of George Ernest Morrison

(1862-1920), husband of the photographer

Hedda Morrison (1908-1991) and much loved

friend of many people from diverse social and

cultural backgrounds.

Alastair was born in Peking in 1915, thesecond son of George Ernest Morrison and

Jenny Wark Robin (1889-1923). His father,

an Australian doctor turned journalist,

was the Peking correspondent for The

Times newspaper in London from 1897-

1912, and later political advisor to Yuan

Shikai, President of the Chinese Republic.

Morrison’s insightful dispatches earned him

the nickname ‘Chinese’ Morrison. Tragically,

Alastair’s father died when he was five years

old and his mother died three years later.

He and his two brothers Colin and Ian were

brought up by their nanny and an elderly

maiden aunt and educated in England.

From an early age Alastair immersed himself

in the natural world, finding solace and

pleasure in the heaths and pinewoods of

Surrey and in the pages of books about birds

and the lives of naturalists drawn from his

father’s vast travel library. As a child he

suffered from various ailments and it was

during a period of convalescence that he

began to take an active interest in ornithology

and keeping birds. His first collections were

of moths and butterflies. After graduating in

economics from Cambridge in 1937, Alastairtravelled to Peru and Chile to collect bird

specimens, many of which he then sold to

British zoos and museums.

In 1940 he visited his brother Ian, who was

working in Shanghai, and accompanied him

on a trip to Peking. Alastair had been ill and

decided to recuperate there. He met and

became enamoured of Hedda Hammer, a

photographer who had lived in Peking since

1933, and together they explored the city of

his birth. He took a job as a cipher officer in

the British Embassy and after the outbreak

of the Pacific War worked in intelligence inIndia and then entered the army and joined

the 2nd Ghurkhas. At the end of the War he

returned to Peking, marrying Hedda in 1946.

After demobilisation in Hong Kong, Alastair

joined the British Colonial Service, and the

following year the Morrisons moved to

Sarawak, where Alastair worked as a District

Officer in various up-river locations. He

was appointed to the Colonial Secretariat

in Kuching in 1954 and worked as Principal

Assistant Secretary (Defence), Development

Secretary and then Information Officer. After

the incorporation of Sarawak into the state

of Malaysia in 1963, Alastair was invited

to work in the new Federal Department of

Information. Prior to his departure fromSarawak the title ‘Dato’ was conferred upon

him in recognition of his service to Malaysia.

In 1967 the Morrisons moved to Canberra

where Alastair worked as Head of the South-

East Asia branch of the Office of Current

Intelligence under the Joint Intelligence

Organisation until his retirement in 1976.

Alastair was born with an innate curiosity

and wanderlust. Like his father and his two

brothers, he spent much of his life in Asia.

After his retirement, Alastair and Hedda

drove around Australia in their ‘beetle’ before

choosing to settle in Canberra, where theycame to love the landscape of the Australian

Capital Territory. Alastair was a keen walker,

bird watcher and conservationist. In the

lonely years after Hedda’s death in 1991,

he was supported by his many friends and

colleagues. He sponsored the publication of

a field guide to the birds of the ACT and

reptiles and frogs of the ACT and expanded

his interest in collecting. The Powerhouse

Museum was one institution that became part

of his late-life extended family.

I first met Alastair in 1989 when the PowerhouseMuseum commissioned Narelle Jubelin to

produce an artwork that responded to objects

in the Museum’s collection. Hedda Morrison

gave permission for her photographs of life in

Peking to be used as the basis for petit-point

renditions that formed Jubelin’s Legacies of

Travel and Trade (1990).

After Hedda’s death Alastair donated a large

collection of his wife’s exhibition prints to the

Powerhouse Museum and a smaller set of

prints to the National Gallery of Australia. Her

substantial archive of photographic negatives

was divided into East Asian, South andSoutheast Asian, and Australian groupings

and was bequeathed to the Harvard-Yenching

Library, Cornell University Library and the

National Library of Australia respectively.

The photographs gifted to the Powerhouse

formed the basis of the retrospective In Her

View: The Photographs of Hedda Morrison in

China and Sarawak (Powerhouse Museum,

1993). In the years that followed the

Powerhouse became the home of important

collections of papercuts, Chinese belt toggles;

Japanese netsuke; Indian, Nepali and Tibetan

bronze figures; ceramics from North andSoutheast Asia, and a rich library of books

reflecting Alastair and Hedda’s wide-ranging

collecting interests. In 2002 Alastair was made

a Life Fellow of the Powerhouse Museum in

recognition of his outstanding contribution to

the development of the collection.

Alastair was himself a rare bird, a learned,

inspiring and gentle man. He is greatly missed.

His generous spirit now lives on in Hedda

Hammer Morrison’s remarkable photographs

and in the objects that he and Hedda collected

and gifted to cultural institutions in Australiaand America in order to spark the interests of

future generations.

Claire Roberts, Senior Curator of Asian arts and

design at the Powerhouse Museum, is currently

(2009-10) a Research Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute

for Advanced Study at Harvard University, working

on a research project relating to photography and

China and including a detailed study of the Hedda

Morrison archive at the Harvard-Yenching Library.

REFERENCES

www.powerhousemuseum.com/heddamorrison/

catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1585946?lookfor=yallourn&offset=

218&max=220

hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/harvard-yenching/collections/morrison/

rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM04516.html

A

A L A S TA I R M O R R I S O N ( 1 9 1 5 - 2 0 0 9 )

Claire Roberts ALASTAIR MORRISON AT HOME IN HUGHES,

CANBERRA, IN 2006. PHOTO JEAN-FRANCOIS LANZARONE ©

POWERHOUSE MUSEUM, SYDNEY



C I T I E S O F T H E S I L K R O A D : A T A A S A S E M I N A R

Christina Sumner

entral Asia has a hold on us. This land of

contrasts at the heart of the Asian landmass

arouses endless fascination and an appetite for

its stories. In particular we are drawn to those

narratives which promise to untangle for us

the ancient network of trade routes which

traversed the region and which we know as

the Silk Roads. Equally appealing is the lure

of the great cities of the region, redolent as

they are of romance and immoderate histories.

Not surprisingly, the recent TAASA seminar

Cities of the Silk Road , held at the Powerhouse

Museum in Sydney on Saturday 5 Septemberthis year, was a sellout.

For this seminar, the latest in an excellent

series on the great cities of Asia, five cities

were chosen as topics. They were Damascus,

Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand and Kashgar,

each of which would arguably merit a whole

day of lectures. As a carefully chosen group

they were strong not only for themselves

but also as representative of the region and

the history of the Silk Roads. Grouping them

enabled us to glimpse the urban landscape of

the region and the Silk Roads in their entirety,

from Damascus, Europe and the West, throughUzbekistan and on to Kashgar, China and the

East. Conversely, the fact that the Silk Road

covered such vast distances and spanned

some 2000 years, ensured that capturing

its history and differing cultures in a day

would be a challenge. TAASA approached

this challenge with great sensitivity, selecting

speakers who brought differing perspectives.

This diversity of approach enabled a wider

view and expanded our understanding of the

region considerably.

In ‘Discovering Damascus’, Ross Burns tracedthe early history of the city through an analysis

of the work of the city’s first historians and

archaeologists. As Australian ambassador to

Syria from 1984 to 1987, Burns fell in love with

the area and, following his undergraduate

degree in history and archaeology and two

publications on the archaeology of Syria,

is currently undertaking a doctorate at

Macquarie University. His talk challenged

many assumptions and conclusions regarding

the archaeological record and brought the

scant remains of ancient Roman, Byzantine

and Arab Damascus carefully into focus.

Central to Burns’ talk was the Great

Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, which

is now documented as having been built

upon an earlier temple to Jupiter by the

Umayyad Caliph al-Walid I between 705

and 715. Many early historians, reflecting a

growing European interest in Western Asia,

sought to demonstrate that mosques were

once Christian buildings. In the mid-1600s

for example, Edward Pococke argued that

the Great Mosque was originally Roman and

Byzantine, rather than the work of Arab

architects. In the 1850s, Josaiah Porter drew

an accurate plan of the Great Mosque,

showing its overall schema of two concentric

rectangles; but sadly, the marvellous interior

of the great building which Porter and other

early travellers saw was almost entirely

gutted by fire in 1893.

More recently, in the early 1900s, Karl

Watzinger and Karl Wulzinger carriedout research with a view to preserving old

Damascus through preventing the Turks

from their customary practice of robbing old

buildings to make new ones. Some elements of

the great colonnaded thoroughfare of Roman

Damascus, which lies under the modern city,

can still be identified today, as can intact

remaining stonework of the original 8th

century Umayyad building which forms the

western wall of the Great Mosque.

By contrast, Rae Bolotin’s ‘Memories from

Tashkent: life between two cultures in the City

of Stone’, offered a highly personal perspectivedescribing her childhood in Tashkent from

the early 1960s to the late 1970s. Uzbekistan

at that time was part of the USSR (it did not

become independent until 1991, following the

dissolution of the Soviet Union). Tashkent

suffered a devastating earthquake in 1966

which had a profound impact on the city

which, with a population of 2.1 million, was the

fourth largest in the USSR. Large numbers of

people were homeless, living in rows of tents,

and Tashkent faced the enormous challenge of

building a new city before winter. The result as

described by Bolotin was a concrete jungle of

cheap and ugly buildings.

Life in Tashkent for Bolotin centred on the

walled compound where she lived as the only

child of academic parents. Interestingly, for the

additional insights provided, the compound

was shared with another family who had

a dramatically different lifestyle. Bolotin’s

account of the contrasting yet peacefullyinterconnected lives of the two families offered

a model of tolerance. While Bolotin was the

only child of a Jewish family from Belarus who

spoke Russian and generally stayed indoors,

the other family was Uzbek-speaking and

Muslim, with six daughters and a son, and

lived mostly outdoors. On opposite sides of the

same compound, the two houses also differed

considerably, one with wooden floors, metal

roof and a refrigerator, the other with earthen

floors, straw and clay roof, and large holes in

the ground for cool storage. Particularly telling

was Bolotin’s reference to the inclusion of

children in the daily work of the other family .Although this is often characterised as child

labour, Bolotin as an only child simply saw the

laughter and togetherness of a large family.

C

IN DAMASCUS, SYRIA: THE GREAT MOSQUE OF THE UMAYYADS, 705-715: THE PRAYER HALL FAÇADE

AS SEEN FROM THE COURTYARD. PHOTO ROSS BURNS



Leigh Mackay’s talk, ‘Bukhara: microcosm of

Central Asia’, focused on how the Bukhara we

see today has been shaped by its past. More

a large agricultural country town than a city,

Bukhara was a key oasis stop on the Silk Road

network and its old town typifies Central Asiancities generally. Bukhara also has immense

charm, in large part due to the protection

of its remarkable buildings. Contributing

factors in Bukhara’s preservation have been

the restoration work done by the Soviets in

the 1970s in preparing it for tourism and, more

recently and more conservatively, by UNESCO,

following the city’s heritage listing in 1993.

Mackay identified six historical periods for

Bukhara beginning with the 700s, which saw

Muslim Arabs bringing Islam to Central Asia.

This was followed by a Golden Age from 900-1200, when the city was a famed intellectual

centre with large numbers of mosques. The

10th century Samanid Mausoleum dates to

this period and the Kalyan Minaret, also

featuring exquisite decorative brickwork, was

built in 1127. Decline and eclipse followed,

however, in the period 1200-1500. Central

Asia was devastated by Ghengis Khan in

1220 and Bukhara was almost entirely razed,

although it was partially rebuilt by Timur and

the Timurids from the late 1300s.

1500 to 1700 was Bukhara’s Silver Age, a

period of considerable building work,notably mosques, madrassas, bazaars

and caravanserais, when the city was

re-established as regional capital. Stagnation

followed, however, from1700-1900. The Silk

Roads trade had declined dramatically and

Bukhara acquired a reputation for despotism

and cruelty. The heavily fortified Ark, today

the Bukhara Museum, was the seat of the

ruling Emirs who lived extravagantly while

the city became increasingly impoverished.

Bukhara was eventually annexed by Russia,

along with the rest of Central Asia, in the

mid 1800s. As a result, Western influences areincreasingly evident, as in the Palace of Moon

and Stars outside Bukhara. The last phase

brought in the modern Soviet socialist state

in the 1920s and finally the independence of

Uzbekistan in 1991.

Samarkand, one of the world’s oldest cities and

situated in the middle of the ancient Silk Road,

was the subject of Dr Heleanor Feltham’s

talk ‘Samarkand: the golden crossroads’.

Feltham emphasised the magical status of

Samarkand in the popular mind and sought

to account for and balance its eternal romance

and fascination as an imaginary destinationthrough a summary of the city’s role in the

broader scheme of things and consideration of

its economic historiography.

As an oasis settlement in a very dry land,an abiding preoccupation for Samarkand’s

inhabitants was the management of water for

their practice of intensive irrigated agriculture.

The earliest agriculturalists of Samarkand,

then called Afrasiab, were the Sogdians who

understood that their agricultural way worked

best when they allied themselves with pastoral

nomads and their flocks. The cultural symbiosis

thus formed allowed cities like Samarkand to

become great centres of commerce.

Known to the ancient Greeks as Marakanda,

Samarkand was part of the Persian Achaemenid

Empire until conquered by Alexander theGreat in 330 BCE. Some 200 years later,

Chinese adventurers travelled to Central Asia

in search of horses, paving the way for the Silk

Road trade, whereby the Sogdian traders of

Samarkand flourished. Samarkand too was

destroyed by Mongol invaders in the 1200s,

but rebuilt by the Timurids to become a great

cultural centre for the arts. Its spectacular

surviving Timurid architecture of the 1300s

and 1400s includes the fabled Registan, Timur’s

tomb the Gur Emir, Ulug Beg’s extraordinary

Observatory and, a little outside the city, the

necropolis Shah-i-Zinda.

Today in Samarkand, economic life continues

to reflect ancient nomadic and urban

interactions. Following independence in 1991

after 100 years of Russian and Soviet rule,

local Uzbek and Tajik traditions are being

reaffirmed in tandem with a rapid return to

trade and tourism.

The final talk of the day took us east to Kashgar,

in an area traditionally inhabited by Uighur

people and now part of the Chinese province

of Xinjiang. Dr Farid Bezhan, in ‘Kashgar: oasis

city on China’s old Silk Road’, portrayed thecity through two lenses: firstly the analytical

eye of researchers at the Monash Institute,

working with Chinese scholars at the Xinjiang

Normal University and Urumchi’s Institute ofArchaeology; and secondly the camera lens

of Australian photographer John Gollings.

Mesmerised as we were by the haunting

beauty of Gollings’ photographs, many of

them in a soft monochrome reminiscent of

the surrounding desert landscape, we were

readily drawn by Bezhan into a virtual

experience of contemporary Kashgar.

Bezhan emphasised the uniqueness of Kashgar

in its location, its history and its surviving

culture, including its exceptionally large

donkeys. Surrounded by mountains and the

Taklamakan Desert, Kashgar connected Chinawith Central Asia via the Silk Roads. Echoes of

Kashgar’s past can still be seen in its surviving

architecture and also at the renowned Sunday

market, to which people still bring their goods

to sell loaded on animal carts.

Bezhan posed the political question of how

much Kashgar now belongs to China and how

much to Central Asia. Hundreds of thousands

of Chinese have moved to Kashgar from Beijing

and Urumchi, but Kashgar is still immediately

adjacent to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The Uighurs were converted to Islam by Sufiswho ruled Kashgar for 200 years and their form

of Islam is soft and flexible, strongly influenced

by shamanism. It seems the people of Kashgar

inhabit two worlds simultaneously, Muslim

Uighur and the everyday political reality.

This was an excellent seminar, a good day

which greatly enriched our understanding

of five great Silk Road cities of Central Asia

and evoked in diverse ways their remarkable

interconnected history, culture and survival.

Christina Sumner is Principal Curator, Design &

Society, at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

For a review of the book Kashgar, Oasis on China’s

Old Silk Road by Jocelyn Chey, see p. 28 this issue.

KASHGAR MARKETPLACE, XINJIANG, CHINA. PHOTO © JOHN GOLLINGS 2 005



R E C E N T T A A S A A C T I V I T I E S

28 T A A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 1 8 N O . 4

TAASA QLD

Asian Textiles Seminar

On Saturday 26 September, with the

co-operation of the Australian Centre for Asia

Pacific Art (ACAPA), a seminar on Asian

textiles was held in the lecture theatre at the

Queensland Art Gallery (QAG). Members

Marjorie Morris and Dana McCown spoke

respectively on Central Asia, on the subject

of A Look at the Silk Road and Telia Rumal,

an extraordinary but neglected group of

textiles from South India. They illustratedtheir presentations with slides and samples

of garments and textiles from their personal

collections. Miranda Wallace, curator of the

Easton Pearson fashion exhibition running in

the adjoining Queensland Gallery of Modern

Art at the time of the seminar, also gave a

short slide show and then a floor talk about

the exhibition, with emphasis on the Indian

influence on the fashions. Most who attended

then enjoyed a social function in the Museum

café after the seminar.

TAASA NSW

TAASA Textile Study Group

For the October meeting, Chris Reid and

Safrina (Evi) Thristiawati recreated the

textile components of their wedding in

Lampung, South Sumatra nine years ago

(TAASA Review, Vol 11, no.1, March 2002).

The bride wore a stunning gold wrapped

thread traditional tapis and the groom a

checked pattern sarong with a silk ikat

patterned headwrapper. Chris and Evi filled

the meeting room with textiles from their

collection of wall hangings, door drapes and

covers traditionally used in the ceremony.

Book launch

On 20 October TAASA and the Australian

Institute for International Affairs (AIIA)

hosted a book launch of Dr Solomon Bard’s

newly published book ‘Light and Shade:

Sketches from an Uncommon Life’ at Glover

Cottages, Sydney. Dr Bard, who during his

life relocated from eastern Siberia to Harbin

in northern China , then to Hong Kong and

now to Sydney, recounted his experiences as

a child growing up in Chita, Siberia. He chose

to study medicine in Hong Kong and went on

to become a conductor of the orchestra there,as well as to delve into the archaeology of the

island. As that period of the twentieth century

witnessed the Russian revolution, the takeover

of Manchuria by the Japanese, then the horrors

of World War II in Hong Kong, Dr Bard’s

experiences shed a multitude of fascinating

personal insights into this period of history.

TAASA VIC

Talk: Sibylle Noras on The Mythical Snow

Lions of Tibet

On 1st September members of TAASA Victoria

were treated to a talk on The Mythical SnowLions of Tibet , by Sibylle Noras. Sibylle discussed

the origin and iconography of the snow lion,

illustrating her presentation with images

of snow lions in paintings, sculpture and

architecture, and examples of snow lions from

her collection. Sibylle has travelled extensively

in the Himalayas for many years and became

fascinated by the playful snow lions that are

often depicted upholding the Buddha’s throne.

She started collecting repousse and wooden

snow lions while working on a project with

ICIMOD, the International Centre for Integrated

Mountain Development in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Preview of Sotheby’s Connoisseurs

collection Sale

On Wednesday 21 October TAASA Victorian

members were invited to an evening Preview

of the Sotheby’s Connoisseur’s Collection sale

which took place on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday

28 October in Melbourne. The sale included many

specialised areas including Jewellery, Clocks,

Watches, Furniture, Silver, Glass, Ceramics,Paintings and Rugs. Of particular interest to

TAASA members was the section of Chinese and

other Asian Works of Art. Among the highlights

were a group of 19th century cinnabar lacquer

vases and a brushpot, a 17th/18th century

rhinoceros horn libation cup, a Wanli mark and

period ‘Three Friends’ blue and white jar, and

an impressive 19th/20th century gilt copper

alloy with polychrome Vajrabhairava. It was

a very enjoyable evening with refreshments

kindly provided by Sotheby’s in their attractive

Armadale showrooms.

Talk: Julia Johnston on Hiroshi

Sugimoto’s Seascapes

On Wednesday 18 November Julia Johnston,

who is visiting Japan in January to further

her research on this artist, gave a talk on the

contemporary Japanese photographer Hiroshi

Sugimoto at Kazari Collector Gallery in

Prahran. Julia discussed Sugimoto’s renowned

Seascape series within the framework of the

artist’s reworking of the series.

STUDY GROUP MEMBERS EXAMINING SOME TRADITIONAL WEDDING

TEXTILES. PHOTO GILL GREEN

TAASA NSW CHRISTMAS PARTY

On Wednesday December 9 TAASA NSW will be holding its annual Christmas Party.

from 6.00 – 9.00 pm. This year the venue will be in The Briefing Room at the Powerhouse

Museum, Harris St., Pyrmont. As this party is a way for all TAASA members to get together

after a busy year, there is no charge for the drinks and nibbles for members. Access to the

Briefing Room is from MacArthur Street, which runs off Harris Street to the side of the

Powerhouse building.

TAASA ACT EVENT

On Saturday March 13th (tbc) TAASA is planning to hold a Study Day with curators to

view the Asian photographic collection at the NGA and the artworks of East Asia at theNational Library. Members will also be invited to a talk on Islamic calligraphy by the

Australian - Iranian artist Nasser Palangi on Sunday 14th.

T A A S A M E M B E R S ’ D I A R YD E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 – M A R C H 2 0 1 0



B O O K R E V I E W : C O M M U N I T Y A N D M E M O R Y

Jocelyn Chey

Kashgar, Oasis on China’s Old Silk Road

John Gollings (photography), George Michell,

Marika Vicziany and Tsui Yen Hu (introduction).

Frances Lincoln, London 2008.

Kashgar, on the southern edge of the Taklamakan

Desert in far west China, has been in the

news this year because of widespread conflicts

between Han Chinese and local Uighur citizens.

The demolition of Kashgar’s Old City and its

impact on Uighur cultural identity and way of

life, well documented in this book, are certainly

among the causes of recent violence.

Kashgar was a Silk Road junction where trav-

ellers met before or after hazardous mountain

crossings to Persia and India. The foothills of

the Pamirs are clearly visible from the city.

An age-old trading centre whose populationtoday is over 70 percent ethnic Uighur, it feels

as if it belongs in Central Asia. Beijing is over

4,000 kilometres to the northeast.

Once named Shule, Kashgar first came under

Chinese rule during the Han dynasty. It

briefly regained independence around 75CE

before being retaken by General Ban Chao.

It was wrested from Tang rule by Tibetan

forces, retaken and lost again to Arab forces

in 751 at the battle of nearby Talas River. In

the 10th century Kashgar became the seat

of power of the Karakhanid kingdom, thefirst Turkic state to convert to Islam. Marco

Polo visited Kashgar in 1273 and remarked

on ‘the wonderful gardens and vineyards

and the large quantities of cotton’. Emperor

Qianlong annexed the city in 1759: it has

since remained under Chinese control, while

retaining a strong sense of local identity.

The Uighurs have a well-established

historical identity. A clear line of descent

can be established between the 8th century

Orkhon Turkic inscriptions and today’s

Uighur language. In 2005, a seminar in

Kashgar marked the millenarian anniversaryof Mahmoud al-Kashgari, who compiled

Diwan Lughat at-Turk , a key text for research

into Turkic history. Al-Kashgari compiled the

dictionary when living in Baghdad, but his

tomb is in his hometown, Kashgar.

Kashgar: Oasis City on China’s Old Silk Road pro-

files the history and everyday life of the town

and its residents and provides a brief introduc-

tion to the ongoing research project being under-

taken by Monash University’s Asia Institute

in the Kashgar/Yarkand region. Photographer

John Gollings visited in 2005 and took thousands

of photographs of archaeological sites, mosques,

tombs, bazaars, streets, and Kashgar residents at

work and play. An illustrative selection of photosis accompanied by an excellent introduction by

the Monash team and their Chinese collaborator,

Prof Tsui of Xinjiang University in Urumqi.

The book provides a succinct history of the

Southern Xinjiang Uighur people and their

culture – but its chief importance may well lie

in the unfortunate fact that Gollings’ excellent

photographs now stand as a memorial to a way

of life already lost. Ninety percent of the Old

City of Kashgar has already been demolished

because of government concerns about the

threat of earthquakes. Officials from UNESCO-

linked ICOMOS (International Council onMonuments and Sites) wrote to the Chinese

government in June 2009 to express concern

about the threat to the unique mudbrick city.

The Chinese government recognises the cultural

importance of the historic Silk Road. It has

announced its intention to rebuild the old city ‘in

traditional style’ while incorporating earthquake-

proofing technology. This is not likely to be a

success, judging by similar work carried out in

Beijing in the lead up to the Olympics last year

The Silk Road flourished because of internationalcommerce and cultural exchange. This supra-

national message does not conform with national

policy, which stresses unity and conformity. In

Kashgar, Uighurs are by definition a minority.

Their views on cultural heritage are discounted

and their cultural monuments are suspect if

they reinforce separate ethnic identity.

The Old City of Kashgar is redolent

of community and inherited memory,

characterised by mud brick courtyard houses

overshadowing narrow lanes that may be

built and rebuilt many times over the centuries

but remain the centre of the tight-knit localcommunity. Now, under a US$4.4 billion

project launched last year, authorities will

‘reconstruct’ the Old City and resettle roughly

50,000 households in high-rise apartments in

new suburbs.

A recent report from the Beijing Cultural

Heritage Protection Centre emphasised

the preservation value of the Old City and

expressed concern about procedural aspects

of the project. Rebuilding the city not only

promotes earthquake safety but also reinforces

‘ethnic unity and the reinforcement of

Xinjiang’s borders’, according to one report

from a local planning meeting.

The reconstruction project highlights weaknesses

in China’s framework for cultural heritage protec-

tion, particularly as it relates to ethnic minorities.

The Kashgar demolition project illustrates broader

problems in China’s policies on ethnic minorities.

Jocelyn Chey, a former diplomat, is Visiting

Professor at the University of Sydney and a member

of TAASA’s Committee of Management.



W H AT ’ S O N I N A U S T R A L I A : D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 – F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 0

A S E L E C T I V E R O U N D U P O F E X H I B I T I O N S A N D E V E N T S

Compiled by Tina Burge

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

Asian Art Talks

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

19 January 12.45: Beatrice Thompson, Asian

Art - Asian costume

2 February 12.45: Niki Van den Heuvel -

mythical creatures of Borneo.

18 February at 12.45: Pamela Walker ,

International Art - Islamic calligraphy from

Southeast Asia.

For further information go to:

www.nga.gov.au

NEW SOUTH WALES

Garden and cosmos: The royal paintings

of Jodhpur

The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

29 October 2009 – 26 January 2010

The exhibition showcases the internationally

renowned royal collection of the Mehrangarh

Museum Trust, Jodhpur, famous for the

superb paintings from the unique arttradition that flourished in the royal courts

between the 17th and 19th centuries The

paintings included in the exhibition range

from miniatures to monumental artworks

depicting the palaces, wives and families

of the Jodhpur rulers,and epic narratives

demonstrating the devotion of Maharaja

Man Singh to an esoteric yogic tradition.

There is an event program associated with

the exhibition

Hymn to beauty: the art of Utamaro Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

13 February - 2 May 2010

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) is the

quintessential exponent of ukiyo e

woodblock prints of Jaapanese courtesans

His sensuous and insightful portraits

of women from all walks of life - aloof

courtesans, diligent housewives, affectionate

mothers and passionate lovers – have

enjoyed unabated popularity in Japan

and worldwide.

Featuring around 80 prints from therenowned collection of the Museum of Asian

Art, State Museums in Berlin, this exhibition

is the first extensive survey of Utamaro’s

work in Australia and also includes work by

his contemporaries and followers.

Go to www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au for

further information

2010 Arts of Asia Lecture Series -

Powerful Patrons

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Tuesdays 1-2pm from 2 March - 12 October 2010

The 2010 Arts of Asia lecture series explores

the preeminent individuals in Asia who haveshaped the arts, culture and sense of identity

of their peoples. Lectures will include well

known historical identities such as Ottoman

sultan Suleyman the Magnificent and Shah

Jehan, architect of the Taj Mahal. However,

the series will also explore other influential

leaders who are less widely known such as

Korean King Cheongjo himself a painter,

who sponsored Buddhist temples and

created the royal library or Tibet’s 5th Dalai

Lama, who oversaw the efflorescence of

Tibetan artistic style and set into motion the

creation of the Potala Palace. Art Gallery

of NSW Director Edmund Capon launchesthe series of two terms of 12 lectures each

by introducing the legacy of China’s First

Emperor Qin Shihuangdi.

For full program and online booking

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/events/courses

Zhongjian: Midway

Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth

15 Jan - 28 Feb 2010

Following its tour of four major centres in

China - Beijing, Tianjin, Xiamen, Shanghai,

- Zhongjian: Midway will tour to fourteen

Australian regional venues, after commencing

at Wollongong City Gallery in October

2009. The exhibition consists of works by

fifteen artists from China and Australia,

including several of China’s and Australia’s

most notable contemporary artists: Ah Xian(Australian tour only), Guan Wei, Liu Xiao

Xian, Guo Jian, Jin Sha, Xifa Yang, Sally

Smart, Kate Beynon, Lionel Bawden, Laurens

Tan, Julie Bartholomew. Lu Peng, Shen

Shaomin, Liu Qing He, Zhang Qing.


www.tamworthregionalgallery.com.au

QUEENSLAND

The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of

Contemporary Art (APT6)

Qeensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art5 December 2009 – 5 April 2010

The sixth exhibition in the Gallery’s Asia

Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art series

will include the work of more than 100 artists

from 25 countries, including collaborations

and collectives, which reflect the diversity of

GUO JIAN, UNTITLED NO.8, 2008, OIL ON CANVAS, 152 X 213 CM, TAMWORTH REGIONAL GALLERY VISITING EXHIBITION



practices across Asia, the Pacific and Australia.

It will have a number of specific focuses

and thematic links while considering recent

shifts in contemporary art in communities

that have not been represented in the APT

before, including works by artists from Tibet,North Korea (DPRK), Turkey and Iran, and

from countries of the Mekong region such as

Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma).Innovation

in performance art and music in the Asia

Pacific is also represented, as is cinema from

the Indian sub continent to the Middle East.


www.qag.qld.gov.au

Paperskin: Barkcloth across the Pacific

Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

31 October 2009 – 14 February 2010

‘Paperskin’ celebrates the visual sophistication

and vitality of cloth made from the beaten

bark of paper mulberry, banyan and fruit

trees, which has played an essential role in

everyday life in SE Asia, as well as holding

political and ceremonial significance.

‘Paperskin’ explores the stories embodied

in these cloths. With their evocative visual

language of bold and intricate patterning,

barkcloths have been likened to tattoos

Drawn from the collections of the Queensland

Art Gallery, the Queensland Museum, the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

and a private collector, the exhibition features

works from Fiji, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Hawai’i,

Futuna, the Solomon and Cook Islands,Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

For further information go to: qag.qld.gov.

au/exhibitions/current/paperskin

VICTORIA

Chinoiserie: Asia in Europe 1620–1840

National Gallery of Victoria, International,

Melbourne

9 October 2009 – 14 March 2010

Chinoiserie refers to a style in Western art whichdraws its inspiration from the arts of China,

Japan and India. Drawing mainly from the NGV

Collection, with a few key loans, this exhibition

will showcase European Chinoiserie in a range

of media including ceramics, furniture, glass,

textiles, painting, prints and drawings. These

creations will be placed with examples of Asian

art which illustrate both the inspiration for the

European productions and how these works

depart from their Asian models.

There is Program of free events associated

with this exhibition

For more information about other programs

associated with the exhibition go to

www.ngv.vic.gov.au/ngvinternational.

H E R I T A G E D E S T I N A T I O N SN A T U R E • B U I L D I N G S • P E O P L E • T R A V E L L E R S

PO Box U237, University of Wollongong NSW 2500 Australia

m 0409 927 129 e [email protected]

ABN 93 086 748 834 LIC NO 2TA004916

JAPAN: AUTUMN,ISLANDS AND ART

BURMA: THE ESSENTIAL

EXPERIENCE

CAMBODIA:ANGKOR WATAND BEYOND

BACKROADSOF BURMA

LAOS: LAND OF THE LOTUS-EATERS

17 October –02 November 2010

Japan is a two-sided coin: onepost-modernist side embracescutting-edge technology; theother reveres and preserves

fine artistic and culturaltraditions. Ann MacArthur,Senior Coordinator of AsianPrograms at the Art Gallery

of NSW, is our experiencedJapanophile leader. Kyushu andShikoku predominate including

the Setouchi InternationalArt Festival on the island of

Naoshima on the Inland Sea.A lengthy stay in Kyoto is our

spectacular autumn finale.

Land Only cost per personex Fukuoka $5000

29 October –17 November 2010

Designed and hosted by TAASAcontributor Dr Bob Hudson, our

longstanding annual Burmaprogram features extended stays

in medieval Mrauk U, capitalof the lost ancient kingdom ofArakan (now Rakhine State)and Bagan, rivalling Angkor

Wat as Southeast Asia’srichest archaeological precinct.Exciting experiences in Yangon,

Inle Lake, Mandalay and aprivate cruise down the mightyAyeyarwady are also included.

Land Only cost per personex Yangon $4750

07 November –24 November 2010

Angkor’s timeless grandeur isunmissable, an unforgettabletravel memory. Yet Cambodia

offers a host of other importantcultural and travel experiences:

outstanding ancient,vernacular and French colonial

architecture; spectacular riverine

environments; a revitalisingurban capital in Phnom Penh;

and beautiful countryside.Join our team of Gill Green,

art historian, author andVice President of TAASA plus

expatriate museologist, Angkorresident and TAASA contributor

Darryl Collins on this latest,updated version of our highly

evaluated 2008 and 2009programs.

Land Only cost per personex Phnom Penh $4700

16 November –02 December 2010

One trip to Burma is neverenough. Backroads of Burma isideal for the second-time visitor

or indeed first-time travellersdesiring remote and rustic

locations. Starting and finishingin Yangon, our schedule wendssouth into Mon State, visiting

Kyaiktiyo and Moulmeinbefore heading north to Sri

Ksetra, the ancient Pyu capital.Mystical Mount Popa, Bagan,Monywa and the spectacular

cave temples of Po Win Taung,Sagaing and Mandalay follow.

Dr Bob Hudson is programleader.

Land Only cost per personex Yangon $4150

27 January –10 February 2011

Enigmatic and relativelyundeveloped, landlockedLaos offers travellers an

intimate glimpse of traditionalSoutheast Asian life. Gradually

emerging from tumultuousrecent history, Laos is a gem ofIndochina with interesting art,

architecture, French and Laocuisine, intricate river systems,and rugged highlands. DarrylCollins, long term SoutheastAsian resident, has designed

and will guide a comprehensivetour of Laos which includes thewonderful historic royal city ofLuang Prabang and Wat Phu

Champasak.

Land Only cost per personex Vientiane $4400

For a brochure or further information phone Ray Boniface at Heritage Destinations

on 0409 927 129 or email [email protected] or visit our websitewww.heritagedestinations.com.au

VIENNA PORCELAIN FACTORY (DU PAQUIER), VIENNA AUSTRIA

1718–1864 COFFEE POT C.1725–30, PORCELAIN (HARD-PASTE) 26.2

X 24.7 X 17 .0 CM, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, MELBOU RNE

FELTON BEQUEST, 1940

review 18-4-2009 december

Documents