APT9: World History

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The Asia Pacific Triennial (APT) is its own world and it is a world I want to live in.

On the most literal level it can provide proof of terrible events, often chastening in their rawness and the knowledge that these realities continue. However, though many artworks in APT9 (The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art1) focus on such injustices, alerting us to social issues and politics past and present, there is the lingering sense that ultimately humanity can rise above such things. That humanity can acknowledge and address its ills, with artists and their capacity to encapsulate and illuminate these realities a central part of this process. APT shows us demons and monsters. It also shows us redemption. And often just joy.

Many works in APT9 focus on injustice either implicitly or explicitly. Lisa Reihana’s wonderful creation of the interaction of Europeans and people of the Pacific has captivated audiences in Brisbane and internationally (I just saw it in London, watched with delighted concentration by the mostly British visitors), with its celebration of both Oceanic culture and the seeming equality of the engagement with the visiting English, but the sting is in the title: in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015-17). Captain Cook and his men’s mission to watch the transit of the planet Venus in the Southern Ocean also brought new and lethal germs and cultural hegemony. Yes, infected, but the final impact on the viewers of this piece is admiration for the artist and the scope of her creation, and admiration for the cultures so clearly and marvellously on display.

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Qiu Zhijie, Map of Technological Ethics, 2018. Details, site-specific mural, APT9 QAGOMA, Brisbane. Courtesy and © the artist and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. Photograph Chloe Callistemon, QAGOMA.

Shinro Ohtake, Oku-Kei 13, 2017. Oil, acrylic, ink, coloured ink, colour powder, printed matter, photograph, ink-jet print, silk screen print, hemp cloth, cotton cloth, synthetic leather, cheesecloth, silk thread, cotton yarn, adhesive cellophane tape, packing tape, metal, lead, sponge, lichen, plastic, plastic sheet, balsa wood, packing paper, thin paper, Japanese paper, newspaper, wall paper, and paper in custom frame, 153x133x9.2cm. Courtesy the artist and Take Ninagawa, Tokyo.