'The Asia-Pacific Effect': Geo-Cultural Grouping at the ... - Past volumes

Limina, Volume 13, 2007
Lisa Chandler
10 Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production; Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge & New York, 1977; Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, Polity Press,
Cambridge, 1996.
11 Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, p.58.
12 ibid., p.60.
13 In the 1950s, director Robert Haines considered that the Honolulu Art Gallery, which included a fine selection of historical
Asian art, provided a relevant model for QAG which could also benefit from ‘a good Oriental collection because we, like
Honolulu, are such close neighbours of the East’. P. J. Moroney, ‘An Art Gallery for Queensland’, unidentified thesis,
University of Queensland, 1958, p.24. In the mid 1980s, prior to Hall’s appointment as director, the Gallery considered
focusing its contemporary international art collection on works from Pacific rim countries including ‘America, Japan and
countries of the Pacific, including New Zealand’. Jenny Harper, ‘Queensland Art Gallery. European Art Collection Policy.
Discussion Paper Only, September 1985’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1985, p.2.
14 Richard Austin, View From the Chair: Speeches of Richard W. L. Austin, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane, 1997,
p.14.
15 Author conversations with the late Richard Austin, and Caroline Turner, interview with the author, Canberra, 22,
November 2000. Austin’s enthusiasm for Japanese art and culture is all the more remarkable given that during the Second
World War he was shot and held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese, interred in Changi prison camp and later worked
on the notorious Burma railway.
16 Queensland Art Gallery, ‘Designing the Future of the Gallery: Queensland Art Gallery Strategic Plan, 22 October 1987’,
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1987, pp.1-3.
17 Queensland Art Gallery, ‘Review of Acquisitions Policy Discussion Paper’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1987,
pp.1&4.
18 Queensland Art Gallery, ‘Acquisitions Policy: Queensland Art Gallery Collection’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane,
1988), p.1.
19 The exhibition title later become something of an embarrassment for QAG, as Turner reveals: ‘In retrospect its thesis,
summed up in the title, that Japanese art was a fusion of East and West, failed to take into account the more complex and
unique qualities of Japanese eclecticism’. Caroline Turner, ‘Transcending time: the enigma of Japanese contemporary art’,
Artlink, vol. 20, no. 2, 2000, p.40. As part of this collaborative exchange, a reciprocal exhibition of Australian art was sent
to Japan.
20 Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production.
21 Caroline Turner, ‘The Greatest Challenge’, paper presented at the AMAA conference, Perth, 1991, p.10.
22 Caroline Turner, ‘Session 1’, in Yasuko Furuichi and Aki Hoashi (eds), Symposium: ‘Asian Contemporary Art Reconsidered’,
Japan Foundation Asia Center, Tokyo, 1998, p.142.
23 Alison Carroll, interview with the author, Brisbane, 29 October, 2005. See also Queensland Art Gallery, ‘Briefing Paper
for Trustees for Noting, Asia Pacific Triennials of Contemporary Art’, 24 July 1991. The inaugural Sydney Biennale in 1973
had incorporated artists from East Asia and although the intent was to continue with such inclusions, it continued to give
emphasis to European and American art.
24 In 1990-91, 12.5% of the Australia Council international budget was designated for Asian or Pacific focused initiatives,
while this allocation was increased to 25% in 1991-92 and to 50% in 1992-93. Australia Council for the Arts, Annual Report
1991-92, Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, 1992; Australia Council for the Arts, Annual Report 1992-93, Australia
Council for the Arts, Sydney, 1993.
25 The Queensland Government provided a special allocation of $100 000 towards the 1993 APT, plus an ongoing commitment
of $275 000 per annum for the next two Triennials. Wayne Goss, ‘Message from the Premier of Queensland’, Asia-Pacific
Triennial Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 1, 1991, p.1.
26 The EDF was not targeted to any particular exhibition but it was intended that monies be applied to important projects
that would gain substantial critical and public attention. By the early 1990s the combined corporate and government
contributions amounted to over one million dollars.
27 David Walker, ‘Cultural Change and the Response to Asia: 1945 to the Present’, in M. McGillivray and G. Smith (eds),
Australia and Asia, Oxford University Press, Oxford & Melbourne, 1997, p.22.
28 Pat Hoffie, ‘Dissolutions, Requiems, And small hopes’, Periphery, no. 17, November 1993, p.9. The selected countries were
Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, Singapore, South Korea,
Thailand and Vietnam. India was originally included but subsequently omitted due to logistics and lack of contacts.
29 See Julie Ewington, ‘A Moment in a Journey: The First Queensland Art Gallery Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary
Art’, Art and Asia Pacific, vol. 1, no. 2, 1994, pp.10-14; Sue Smith, ‘Grand aperitif’, Courier Mail, 24 September 1993, p.9.
30 Queensland Art Gallery, ‘Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 1993, Exhibition Report’, Queensland Art Gallery,
South Brisbane, 1994, Appendix X.
31 Hall cited in Christine Clark and Simon Elliot, ‘The Status of the Visual Arts in Australia’s Policies Towards Asia: The
Case of “The First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 1993”’, MA thesis, Griffith University, 1994, p.31. QAG’s
strongest contacts at this point were in Japan, China and New Zealand.
32 Turner, ‘Introduction - From Extraregionalism to Intraregionalism?’, p.8.
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