De-westernization of the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), Brisbane, initiated the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) in 1993. Dr. Caroline Turner, who had been the Deputy Director of the QAG and curated the serial exhibitions from APT1 to APT3, had stated in the catalogue of APT1 that ”Euro-Americentric perspectives are no longer vaild as a formula for evaluating the art of this region”. This article clarifies the historical context and the practical activities of the de-westernization of APTs. In 1989, the first Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was inaugurated at Canberra. The original design of Australia for the Asia-Pacific countries had excluded Canada and USA. Dr. John Clark tells us the ambivalence of Australia, which is ”both the extension of Euramerica and also positioned to regard Euramerica as a self-defining 'other'”. APEC has been expanded through 1990s and included Russia, Canada, USA, Mexico, Peru, and Chile, which forms the Pacific rim, though, APTs have not invited the artists form these nations but included the ones from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Tahiti, Marquesas Islands, Hawaii, and Torres Strait Islands. The ”contemporary” art, in the APT's view, can not exclude the indigenous people's works, which are conventionally evaluatde as the ”traditional artifact” not the ”fine art” under the Western modernism.