Deep S. E. a: Contemporary Art from South East Asia

Deep S. E. a: Contemporary Art from South East Asia

Primo Giovanni Marella • Damiani

ISBN-10: 8862082843 · ISBN-13: 978‑8862082846 · 2013

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Playing with the semantic meaning ambivalence, the exhibition title revolve around the word “S.E.A.”, all the while acronym of South East Asia and cross-reference to the common geo-physical element of the sea, the only shared border among ASEAN countries: except for Laos, indeed, all the countries shores producing exhibited artists are lapped by the Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, water courses and streams are of strategic importance in the economical and social development of S.E.A. nations, with specific reference to the Myanmar case, as we will examine. Constantly fluctuating between physics and thought, the deepness of the sea mirrors into the vastness of these countries historic-artistic inheritance, which ought to be plumbed through appropriate echnical and cultural tools, starting from the clearest visible layer of the surface – the artworks – to reach the inner core of the floor – the concepts. Arguably, the reader will take into account the hereby notion of art “from” Southeast Asia instead of “by” Southeast Asia, supporting the objective absence of an art classifiable as regional. Rather, it is a group of astonishing ideas and practices springing up from a pinpointed creative context. Artworks made by 11 artists from 8 countries and introduced by 11 critic essays constitute the visual support of this far away coming story, telling of identity and memory, hope and trauma, religion and oppression, emotional and concrete diaspora, swinging between nationalism and globalism, happening to gravitate around the unavoidable orbit of regionalism. Well-known protagonists of the trendiest parterre, ranging from the Singapore Art Museum (Singapore) to dOCUMENTA (Kassel, Germany) accompany emerging talents currently standing out in the regional art scene.

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