Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

structural foundations to play their own role in the art
world and the public funding available to encourage
new institutional challenge. Also, while artists,
curators, critics, gallery owners and individual
collectors are relatively independent from one another,
and play unique roles in the western art world, no
such distinction can be found in Southeast Asia. In an
Asian context, the artist often plays the role of curator
or gallery owner, and vice versa. The role and function
of alternative art space in Southeast Asia is not singular;
rather, each functions quite differently depending on
cultural and social conditions of the area to which it
belongs. While the alternative space in Asia appears to
be still underdeveloped from the western standpoint,
we need to carefully consider its unique history and
characteristics, which each alternative space holds, and
seek to develop strategies to fully develop its potential.
Alternative space in Asia then will be the core space of
Asian art, that is, the place for the artists to develop
aesthetic principles of their own independent from
profit-driven art markets or the Eurocentric system of
art.
Lastly, I would like to emphasize the importance of
creating a network system among those alternative
art spaces. As I noted above, alternative spaces have
their own characteristics in their local context. It is not
only to communicate with art works and exhibitions,
because such kinds of exchange and communication
cannot offer the ground for recognizing structural
differences of an art system itself, but for confirming
superficial differences of art works, which shows local
“styles” or specific “trend”. Long-term, continuous
and persevering exchanges among alternative spaces
make it possible to recognize each art scene in a local
context—with each value judgment system, with a
common problematic of the contemporary art world,
with a knowledge of tendencies of domestic and
international art markets—to develop contemporary
art scenes and to have a strategic practice for promoting
Asian art and the universality of the power of art.
REFERENCES
Hou Hanru. 2003. Time for alternatives. In Cemati
Art House (ed.), 15 Years Cemati Art House Exploring
Vacuum, Yogyakarta, pp. 114-117.
Agung Hujatnikajennong. 2004. The Altered Spaces in
the Indonesian Contemporary Art Scene. In The Japan
Foundation (ed.),Alternatives 2005—Contemporary Art
Spaces in Asia, Tokyo, pp. 144-145.
Nurdian Ichsan. 2005. Melangsungkan Jarak. In the
ENGAGING MODERNITY: RELIGION, GENDER, AND ART 123
catalog of exhibition Passing on Distance, Nagoya, pp.
27-31.
Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez. 2004. Gone Alternative. In
The Japan Foundation (ed.), Alternatives 2005—Contemporary
Art Spaces in Asia, Tokyo, pp. 188-189.
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows