Roger Nelson

"A New Sun Rises Over the Old Land" by Suon Sorin: A Novel of Sihanouk's Cambodia
Translated and with an introduction by Roger Nelson (NUS Press, 2019)
First published in Khmer in 1961

"A New Sun Rises Over the Old Land" traces the story of Sam, a young man who leaves the countryside for the capital after the death of his parents. In Phnom Penh, he suffers countless hardships and injustices as a cyclo driver. Sam’s humanity is denied him at every turn in the city’s capitalist society, leading to devastation for him and his wife, Soy.

As Cambodia develops and Sam’s fortunes change, he realises that while life as a farmer is far from easy, it has the potential to bring fulfilment and happiness.

First published in 1961, eight years after Cambodia gained independence from French colonial rule, Suon Sorin’s novel is an iconic work of modern Khmer literature. A singularly illuminating historical document of the new nation, the novel offers a fresh view into a period of profound transformation in Cambodia.

This is one of the first English translations of a modern Khmer novel, and is accompanied by an extended introduction which situates Suon Sorin’s work in its historical and artistic context.

"Many survivors of Norodom Sihanouk’s time in power in Cambodia (1955–1970) refer to the era as a golden age – as it certainly was when it’s compared with what came next. A New Sun Rises Over the Old Land has been deftly translated and introduced by Roger Nelson. Reading this passionate, absorbing novel, it’s poignant to re-enter a period that was filled for many Cambodians with optimism, autonomy and self-respect."
-- David Chandler, Emeritus Professor, Monash University

"Of value to researchers and diasporic Khmers alike, this is tragedy as Khmer tragedy comes, entangled in class violence, national pride, and hope."
-- Prumsodun Ok, author, dancer and choreographer

Suon Sorin was born in Battambang, Cambodia in 1930. "A New Sun Rises Over the Old Land" is his only known work of fiction, and was the best-selling novel of the 1960s. It remains widely read in Cambodia today.

168pp / 229 x 152mm, 2 images
Paperback
ISBN: 978-981-3250-77-2

https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/a-new-sun-rises-over-the-old-land-a-novel-of-sihanouk-s-cambodia

Modern Art of Southeast Asia: Introductions from A to Z features 60 concise and accessibly written accounts of the key ideas and currents underlying modern art in the region. These are accompanied by over 250 beautifully reproduced artworks from the collection of National Gallery Singapore, and other public and private collections in Southeast Asia and beyond. The book offers an informative first encounter with art as well as refreshing perspectives, and is a rewarding resource for students.

https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=6T7zDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=modern+art+of+southeast+asia&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: National Gallery Singapore; 1 edition (September 15, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9811147256
ISBN-13: 978-9811147258

The artist Emiria Sunassa (1894–1964) holds a doubly significant place in histories of Southeast Asia’s modern art: first, for having been a stylistically distinctive and active member of the pioneering modernist collective in Indonesia called Persagi, and secondly, for having been one of the only women anywhere in the region to be recognised as a professionally exhibiting artist during the 1940s. Her profile is currently rising due to growing interest among museums and curators. Studies have focused, however, on Emiria’s biography, including her gender, her anticolonial activism, and her claims to royal lineage, rather than on her artworks themselves. In this essay, I offer a different approach, based on close observations of Emiria’s paintings and related visual archives. Drawing on previously overlooked archival materials relating to two paintings from the 1940s, titled Pucuk Layu (Wilting Stamen) and Tari Kebyar (Balinese Dancer), I show that both works were painted in direct response to contemporaneous photographs made by the Russian-born German artist Walter Spies (1895–1942) in Bali. The paintings both rely on and defy these photographic sources. I propose the term citational paintings to describe these works, which I argue embody a transmedial reflexivity and provide valuable insights into their art-historical context.

Should paintings made in Sudan, or depicting scenes in Kenya, be considered “Southeast Asian” art? This essay considers this and related questions, in dialogue with the works of artists Chen Cheng Mei (b. 1927, Singapore; d. 2020, Singapore) and You Khin (b. 1947, Cambodia; d. 2009, Thailand). Chen was based in Singapore but travelled extensively on short study trips that she initiated between the 1960s and 2000s, while You Khin lived and worked in Sudan, Ivory Coast, Qatar and elsewhere during his three decades in exile from Cambodia, from the 1970s to the 2000s. The essay argues that their work reflects the divergent histories of Southeast Asian nations during the period of decolonisation, while also necessitating new critical approaches to artworks that depict unfamiliar people and places, going beyond concepts of primitivism. Drawing on primary research in both artists’ archives as well as on discourses derived from the locations depicted in their work, the essay argues that Chen’s and You’s works enable a deprovincialising of Southeast Asia’s modern art, and exemplify a postcolonial cosmopolitanism that traverses the Global South.

This essay explores whether Theravada Buddhist monks – collectively called the sangha – might constitute an ‘art public’ in Southeast Asia. Publics for art have been under-studied in this region, and rarely discussed in more nuanced terms than as being a ‘general public’ or ‘ordinary people.’ The essay argues for the need for an alternate vocabulary and terms of reference for thinking and speaking about the reception of art: one that is theoretically informed by and engaged with the multiplicity of discourses and publics in this part of the world. The essay provides a brief survey of the sangha’s role in the development of modern art in Southeast Asia, as a constitutive agent in the articulation of modernity since the mid-nineteenth century, and then concentrates on the engagement of monks with contemporary art, since the 1990s. Key examples discussed include activities organised by Sa Sa Art Projects in Phnom Penh since 2010; the collection and programming of the Buddhist Archive of Photography in Luang Prabang; the practice of artist Orawan Arunrak since 2015; and the historiography of the Chiang Mai Social Installation and related festivals held during the 1990s.

Published in a special issue of World Art journal titled "Contemporary Art Worlds and Art Publics in Southeast Asia", guest edited by Michelle Antoinette and Francis Maravillas. Link to full issue: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rwor20/10/2-3

A small yet influential strain of independent contemporary curatorial practice has emerged in Southeast Asia, which is performing (expanded) art historical functions. This mode of independent curating now constitutes an important base for exciting new research—making use of diverse archives as well as other methodologies—to study the often little-known histories of the region's modern arts, including its architecture, cinema, and photography. That such research is taking place in the context of independent contemporary curatorial practice is significant because it locates modern art history largely outside of large and state-funded institutions, including museums and universities, thus enabling the development and proliferation of art historical research in areas of Southeast Asia, including its mainland sub-regions, which have comparatively little funding and official infrastructure for the arts. This article explores the emerging practice of independent curating as (expanded) art history in Southeast Asia, through comparative discussion of three case studies: the Roung Kon Project in Phnom Penh, which researches histories of cinema in Cambodia; the Buddhist Archive of Photography in Luang Prabang, which researches histories of photography in Laos; and Spirit of Friendship in Ho Chi Minh City, which researches histories of artist groups in Vietnam.

Published in "ABE Journal: Architecture Beyond Europe" 11 (2017). Special issue "Paradoxical Southeast Asia" guest-edited by Caroline Herbelin. Open-access version available free online.
This essay concerns the construction and interpretation of post-independence architecture in Cambodia, taking as an exemplary case study the National Stadium in Phnom Penh, completed in 1964 and designed by Vann Molyvann. To date, most accounts of the Stadium—and of Molyvann’s work and modern Cambodian architecture more generally—have emphasized Angkorian stylistic references. Considered historiographically, this focus on the temples of Angkor constructs a narrative which is teleological, and nationally bound. My counter-reading centres instead on the trope of the domestic, which enables greater attention to coeval architectural forms and broader regional intersections. The essay is based in three related approaches to the Stadium, which correspond to three interlinked understandings of the domestic. The first considers the politico-historical context of the building’s construction, proposing the Stadium as emblematic of Cambodia’s policy of Cold War non-alignment, under Prince Sihanouk’s rule. This draws on archival work in Cambodia and the United States. The second is iconographic: it considers references to stilted wooden housing in the Stadium, as well as the repetition of architectural features from large-scale public buildings in smaller, anonymously-designed private houses. The third is a spatial and experiential reflection on the internal division of spaces within the Stadium, into smaller-scaled zones.

Published in "Stedelijk Studies" 3 (December 2015). Special journal issue theme: "The Place of Performance"
http://www.stedelijkstudies.com/issue-3-place-performance/
This essay considers three distinct forms of performance in Southeast Asia, each in relation to their engagement with pathways of various kinds. The essay begins by discussing a 1959 dance performed to celebrate the opening of a highway, which adapted classical Cambodian choreographic forms in distinctly modern ways. Then, a number of performances made by visual artists in Southeast Asia in the last half-decade are introduced. The essay concludes by looking to political demonstrations in Cambodia during the historically significant 2013 national elections; the actions of opposition demonstrators are considered in light of performative intersections with pathways of various kinds.
The essay does not attempt a comprehensive survey, and its intention is not to sketch a linear history. Rather, the focus is on repeated gestures and actions within these various performances. This attentiveness to recurring embodied forms aims to facilitate a comparison that spans generations and encompasses disparate modes of performance.

This essay is a study of performance and performativity in visual art in contemporary Cambodia. I argue that, while stage performances often draw on existing traditions of performance, and rapidly codify new conventions, performance in visual art is largely uninterested in existing traditions of performance, and instead relies on systems of codification from visual art, especially photography. In close readings of performance works by Khvay Samnang, Lim Sokchanlina, Amy Lee Sanford, and Anida Yoeu Ali, I argue that documentation is central to the performance practices of visual artists, and that live and mediatized performances are mutually dependent and inter-animating. I suggest four key, overlapping reasons for the centrality of documentation to performances by visual artists. These are: firstly, that artists in Cambodia are chiefly exposed to international performances through documentation rather than in live form; secondly, that
documentation renders performance legible as visual art in the contemporary Cambodian context; thirdly, that photo- and video-documenting is an automatic and everyday activity in urban Cambodia for those with access to the technology; and finally, that the format of some performances is actually shaped by the apparatuses used to record their documentation. I conclude by proposing that any meaningful understanding of contemporaneity in the Cambodian context must encompass performance in all its forms.

RÉSUMÉ
“La performance est contemporaine:” la performance et sa documentation chez les plasticiens cambodgiens
Roger Nelson
Il s’agit d’une étude de la performance et de la performativité chez les plasticiens du Cambodge. Si les arts de la scène au Cambodge de nos jours puisent ses ressources dans les traditions théâtrales khmères, il n’en est pas de même de la pratique de la performance chez les plasticiens, lesquels font
peu de cas des dites traditions, se référant plutôt aux codes des arts visuels, surtout à ceux de la photographie. L’analyse des oeuvres de Khvay Samnang, Lim Sokchanlina, Amy Lee Sanford et Anida Yoeu Ali, démontre que la documentation se trouve au coeur de l’art tel qu’il est pratiqué au Cambodge, où les formats en direct et médiatisés sont interactifs et interdépendants. J’identifie quatre raisons sous-jacentes au rôle central que joue la documentation dans ces pratiques. Tout d’abord il faut dire que la première rencontre que peut avoir les artistes cambodgiens avec la performance sur la scène internationale se fait le plus souvent à travers des enregistrements et non en direct ; ensuite, la documentation rend la performance lisible en tant qu’oeuvre plastique pour
un public cambodgien ; troisièmement l’enregistrement photographique et vidéo rentre dans les moeurs quotidiens des citadins ayant accès aux technologies; enfin, la forme même d’une performance peut se définir en fonction du travail d’enregistrement. L’article conclut que toute caractérisation de
la contemporanéité au Cambodge doit prendre en considération l’éventail des arts du spectacle au Cambodge, des arts de la scène proprement dits à la performance chez les plasticiens.

សង្ខេប
“Performance គឺបច្ចុប្បន្ន” ៖ ការសម្តែងនិងការរៀបចំឯកសារទស្សន៍សិល្បៈ
នៅកម្ពុជា
Roger Nelson
សំណេរនេះជាការសិក្សាទៅលើការសមែង្ត និងលទ្ធភាពសម្តែងកុ្នងទស្សន៍សិល្បៈនៅកមុ្ពជា។ ខុំ្ញហ៊ាននិយាយថា ការសមែ្តងលើឆាកច្រើនតែផ្អែកទៅលើប្រពៃណីសម្តែងដែលធ្លាប់មានមក ហើយមិនយូរមិនឆាប់តងែ តបែ ងតើ្ក ជាទមប្លា ម់ យួ ដលែ អណំ ើះតទៅគនេ ងឹ ធតាើ្វ មគ ្នារឯី ការសមងែ្ត (Performance) នៅកងុ្ន ទសស្ ន៍ សិល្បៈវិញ មិនសូវយកចិត្តទុកដាក់ទៅប្រពៃណី ឬទម្លាប់នៃការសម្តែងឡើយ គឺតែងតែផ្អែកទៅលើក្បួនច្បាប់នៃ ទស្សន៍សិល្បៈនោះតែម្តង ជាពិសេសបើនិយាយពីរូបថត។ ក្រោយពីការពិនិត្យល្អិតល្អន់ទៅលើការសម្តែង
នៃខ្វៃ សំណាង, លឹម សុខចាន់លីណា, Amy Lee Sanford និង អានីដា យើុ អាលី មក ខ្ញុំឃើញថាឯកសារមាន សារសំខាន់លើសលុបទៅលើការសម្តែងនៃ សិល្បករក្នុងវិស័យនេះ ហើយម៉្យាងទៀតការសម្តែងឲ្យ ទស្សនា ផ្ទាល់ឬដោយមានការផ្សាយផ្ទាល់ផង ក៏ទទួលនិងជះឥទ្ធិពលទៅវិញទៅមកដែរជាមួយឯកសារ។ ខ្ញុំឃើញថាមានគន្លឹះឬចំណុច៤សំខាន់។ ទី១គឺសិល្បករខ្មែរច្រើនតែឃើញការសម្តែងនានានៃបរទេសតាមរយៈឯកសារពោលគឺពុំមែនតាមការទស្សនាផ្ទាល់ប៉ុន្មានទេ។ ទី២ ឯកសារទាំងនោះជួយជម្រុញឲ្យអ្នកទស្សនាងាយយល់ការសម្តែងក្នុងក្រប ខណ្ឌនៃទស្សន៍សិល្បៈនាបច្ចុប្បន្ននេះ។ ទី៣ ការរៀបចំឯកសាររូបថត, ខ្សែវីដេអូ ជាការ
ដែលគេនិយមបំផុតនៅកម្ពុជា។ ទី៤ គឺរបៀបរបប, លំដាប់, ខ្នាតនៃការសម្តែងខ្លះកើតឡើង ដោយបត់បែនទៅតាមប្រព័ន្ធនិងបរិក្ខារប្រើប្រាស់ក្នុងការរៀបចំឯកសារ។ ខ្ញុំសន្និដ្នានដោយស្នើថា ដើម្បីយល់ពីបច្ចុប្បន្នភាពនៃសិល្បៈនៅប្រទេសម្ពុជាឲ្យបានពេញលេញ គេត្រូវតែយកការសម្តែងគ្រប់បែបយ៉ាងដែលមានមកជាគំនិត
ពិចារណា។

Published in "Art Journal" 81:4 (2022): 146-149. Review of Pamela N. Corey, "The City in Time: Contemporary Art and Urban Form in Vietnam and Cambodia" (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021) and Viêt Lê, "Return Engagements: Contemporary Art’s Traumas of Modernity and History in Sài Gòn and Phnom Penh (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021).

"Translation is Collaboration. Collaboration is Translation?" in a roundtable with contributions from: Brian Curtin, Juthamas Tangsantikul, Carlos Quijon Jr., Gary Carsley, Unchalee Anantawat, Zoe Butt, Green Papaya Art Projects, Qinyi Lim, Henry Tan, Suzann Victor, Anuthin Wongsunkakon, Nanthana Boonla-or, Woranooch Chuenrudeemol,
Siddharta Perez, Hendri Yulius Wijaya, Piyaluk Benjadol, Kanoknuch Sillapawisawakul, Nontawat Numbenchapol, Pinaree Sanpitak, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Moses Tan, Roger Nelson, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

This chapter considers how art and literature overlap and rendezvous in Southeast Asia. The chapter comprises two parts. The first discusses the approximately contemporaneous historical emergence of modern painting and modern prose fiction during the twentieth and nineteenth centuries; the second analyses some artworks by two contemporary artists which offer powerfully poetic insights into the kinship between the literary and visual arts. The first part of the chapter argues that because western-style representational easel painting and vernacular novels appeared within a few years or decades of each other, the two phenomena are closely related to each other and to modernity. The second part of the chapter addresses artworks by Chulayarnnon Siriphol (b. 1985, Thailand) and Fyerool Darma (b. 1987, Singapore) and his collaborators. Chulayarnnon’s artworks are made in dialogue with the canonical 1938 Thai novel, Behind the Painting, by Siburapha (1905–1974). Fyerool’s artworks are a response to the canonical Bahasa Melayu verse form, pantun, which transformed and was appropriated as pantoum during the nineteenth century. Combining image and text, humor and rigor, Chulayarnnon and Fyerool reveal the enduring relevance and significance of early examples of regional modern literature for Southeast Asia and its contemporary artists today.

Appears in: The Routledge Companion to Literature and Art, edited by Neil Murphy, W. Michelle Wang, Cheryl Julia Lee

"Phnom Penh's Independence Monument and Vientiane's Patuxai: Complex Symbols of Postcolonial Nationhood in Cold War-Era Southeast Asia," by Roger Nelson. In "Monument Culture: International Perspectives on the Future of Monuments in a Changing World," edited by Laura A. Macaluso (London: Rowman & Littlefield), 35-48.

Chapter in "Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945-1990," edited by Stephen H Whiteman, Sarena Abdullah, Yvonne Low, Phoebe Scott (Singapore and Sydney: National Gallery Singapore and Power Publications, 2018). Blind peer-reviewed publication.

https://shop.powerpublications.com.au/products/ambitious-alignments-new-histories-of-southeast-asian-art-1945-1990

Introduction, co-authored with Charlotte Huddleston, in:
"FIELDS: An Itinerant Inquiry Across the Kingdom of Cambodia"
Published 2015 by ST PAUL St Gallery, AUT University, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand and Sa Sa Bassac, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
In English and Khmer
Edited by: Charlotte Huddleston and Roger Nelson
Contributors: Charlotte HUDDLESTON, Roger NELSON, Vera MEY, Chhoeung MEY, TITH Kanitha, Arin Rungjang, Janita P N Craw, Erin GLEESON, Lim Sokchanlina, Julia MORITZ, Khvay Samnang, SOTH Polin, Tue GREENFORT, Alex Monteith, Albert SAMRETH, Fang-Tze Hsu, Amy Lee SANFORD, Luke Willis THOMPSON, Sarah Munro
From a project curated by Erin Gleeson and Vera Mey
Publication made possible by a grant from Creative New Zealand
Translation by Sok Leang and Sum Sithen; Proofreading by Tith Kanitha
ISBN: 978-0-9922463-1-0

Chapter in:
"FIELDS: An Itinerant Inquiry Across the Kingdom of Cambodia"
Published 2015 by ST PAUL St Gallery, AUT University, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand and Sa Sa Bassac, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
In English and Khmer
Edited by: Charlotte Huddleston and Roger Nelson
Contributors: Charlotte HUDDLESTON, Roger NELSON, Vera MEY, Chhoeung MEY, TITH Kanitha, Arin Rungjang, Janita P N Craw, Erin GLEESON, Lim Sokchanlina, Julia MORITZ, Khvay Samnang, SOTH Polin, Tue GREENFORT, Alex Monteith, Albert SAMRETH, Fang-Tze Hsu, Amy Lee SANFORD, Luke Willis THOMPSON, Sarah Munro
From a project curated by Erin Gleeson and Vera Mey
Publication made possible by a grant from Creative New Zealand
Translation by Sok Leang and Sum Sithen; Proofreading by Tith Kanitha
ISBN: 978-0-9922463-1-0

Catalogue essay for a publication to accompany the solo exhibition "Exit - Entrance" by Orawan Arunrak at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany, 2017. Also included in the catalogue is an interview by Yvette Mutumba, in conversation with Orawan Arunrak.
Bibliographic details:
Roger Nelson, "A House is Inside Me: Meandering and Slowness in the Work of Orawan Arunrak," in "Orawan Arunrak: Exit - Entrance," exh. cat., edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, published by Verlag Kettler, Dortmund, 2017.

Giles Ryder is an artist born in Brisbane, educated in Brisbane, Sydney, Edinburgh and Berlin, and now based in Bangkok. In August 2015 he presents two solo exhibitions simultaneously in Thailand, at H Gallery’s Project Space in Bangkok and at H Gallery in Chiang Mai. Titled Tropical Malice and Hardcore Still Lives, the exhibitions are accompanied by a full-colour catalogue, for which I was invited to contribute an essay.

Artists:  KHVAY Samnang, Llawella LEWIS, LIM Sokchanlina, Tai SNAITH
Curated by: Roger Nelson

ការអភិវឌ្បន៍ Developments presents four artists’ views of their changing urban environments. Comprising photography, video, installation, sculpture and drawing, the exhibition includes artists from Melbourne, Australia and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Their overlapping yet divergent perspectives on the transforming space of the city range from celebration, through ambivalence, to lament. Seen together, the artists in ការអភិវឌ្បន៍ Developments thus reveal local specificities of place, as well as perhaps surprising commonalities across experiences of the contemporary.

Artists: Alfredo & Isabel AQUILIZAN, KHVAY Samnang, Clare MCCRACKEN, Drew PETTIFER, Amy Lee SANFORD, SVAY Ken, SVAY Sareth, Christian THOMPSON
Curated by: Roger Nelson

The artworks and objects in new artefacts have been “left over” from their proper place in each artist’s practice or working process, and strategically removed from their original contexts. The exhibited objects include working materials, notes, documents and sketches while the exhibited artworks include pieces that, while finished, did not fit within a series, or were edited out in a selection process, or were not included in an exhibition.
new artefacts celebrates the physicality and aesthetic of each ‘artefact’ while engaging audiences with the conceptual directions to which they point. Each work is intended to provide departures for conversations and dialogues about the contestable boundaries between process and “product”, documentation and the “real” work, and about the range and overlap of ideas with which the artists engage.
new artefacts was supported by the Australian Embassy, Phnom Penh and Institut Français, Cambodge.

Artists included: KHVAY Samnang, LE Thua Tien, LEANG Seckon, Sopheap PICH

An exhibition curated from the permanent collection of Meta House. Works were gathered into groups of two and three, in order to suggest possible connections between them. Eighteen artists were included, ten of whom are Cambodian.

"Artists: Jessica BRENT, Stephanie HICKS, Heidi HOLMES, Daniel JENATSCH, Clare MCCRACKEN
Curated by: Roger Nelson

In CONTAINMENT STRUCTURE, five artists present works made through processes involving a purposeful and conscious surrender to an array of challenges and constraints.  Their practice nudges at the edges of what can arise from the deliberately limited sets of possibilities these artists each allow themselves.

Supported by an Arts Projects grant from the City of Melbourne."

This  panel  considers  urban  spaces  and  forms  in  Southeast  Asia’s  modern  mid-century:  a historical  moment  defined  by  nation-building  projects,  generally  in  the  aftermath  of decolonisation.  How  were  Southeast  Asian  cities  formed  at  this  time?  And  in  what  ways  was modernity enacted in built forms and urban spaces within these cities? These questions will be considered  from  diverse  disciplinary  perspectives,  in  relation  to  case  studies  from  Bangkok, Kuala  Lumpur,  and  Phnom  Penh.  Grand,  centrally  planned  projects  will  be  compared  with smaller-scale  urban  forms  and  spaces,  facilitating  plural  views  of  the  contested  ideologies  at play within mid-century modern cities.
Speakers:
Thanavi Chotpradit (Silpakorn University, Bangkok)
Chomchon Fusinpaiboon (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok)
Pen Sereypagna (Vann Molyvann Project, Phnom Penh)
Simon Soon (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur)
Convened by Roger Nelson (University of Melbourne)
As part of the conference "The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban Asia)" at the Nanyang Technological University Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore
To coincide with the exhibition "Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Critical Spatial Practice"
25-26 November 2016
http://ntu.ccasingapore.org/events/conference-impossibility-mapping-urban-asia/

Paper presented at "Regions of the Contemporary: Transnational Art Festivals and Exhibitions in 1990s Southeast Asia," co-organized by Afterall and the School of Culture & Communication, University of Melbourne. 5-7 November 2016
http://afterall.org/events/regions-of-the-contemporary

[Presented at National Gallery Singapore at "Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art" conference. Session chaired by Dr Phoebe Scott]
This project considers the relationship between realist paintings of landscapes and women, and notions of the “modern” in “Cambodia,” as enacted in the work of Nhek Dim (1934–78), the most prominent visual “artist” of the post-independence period here. Building on previous studies in English and Khmer, through archival research in the US, France and Cambodia as well as interviews, the project aims to contribute to closer studies of the artist’s work and his world.
The project focuses on certain historical episodes, as well as elements within the paintings, that have hitherto been overlooked or underexplored. It traces shifts in the ideological meanings invested in the imaged landscape, and maps the period of Nhek Dim’s study in the US (1963-67) onto the tumultuous political situation in Cambodia at the time, including riots attacking United States Information Service exhibition facilities, which resulted in the destruction of 400 paintings by Cambodian artists.
Particular attention is paid to ways in which Nhek Dim engaged with various ideological discourses of modernity in Cambodia, in his representations of women and landscapes, and his participation in cultural activities organised by the US. Nhek Dim’s paintings are also considered in light of songs to which he contributed, and the mediated settings in which his works reached their audiences. In short, the artist and his context are taken to be mutually illuminating.

Public talk at the Young Art Historians' Forum, LASALLE College of the Arts, MA Asian Art Histories programme, September 2015.
Abstract:
After being forbidden in French Cambodge, representational painting was introduced by a Japanese teacher following the Japanese occupation in 1945. Sentimental images depicting the Cambodian landscape quickly boomed in popularity, and representational drawing and painting became synonymous with artistic modernism in the years following independence in 1953. Its growth was aided by intensive involvement in cultural affairs by the United States, as part of their attempt to influence “neutralist” Cambodia in the “Cold War” context of war in neighbouring Vietnam. This paper explores how the Cambodian “modern” is articulated in the work of the most prominent visual artist of the period, Nhek Dim (1934-78). Drawing on research in the archives of the United States government, particular attention is paid to the intersections between Nhek Dim’s paintings and the cultural activities of the United States, who organized numerous exhibitions in Cambodia in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and sponsored the artist’s study in the US from 1964-67. This paper will argue that Nhek Dim’s work embodies the possibility of nationalism amidst a policy of non-aligned neutralism: a balance that was endorsed by the US and became defining of the modern in this context.

Presented as part of the panel "Art Collectives and the Contemporary World," convened by Brianne Cohen and Robert Bailey

Convenor's Abstract for Panel:
This panel will explore a burgeoning area of contemporary art scholarship concerning artistic-social collaboration through a concrete examination of collective art practices arising at moments of crisis around the globe. Numerous examples of creative, collaborative resistance exist, for example, following the violence of the post-‘68 neoliberal military state in Mexico; the economic and cultural opening-up and subsequent censorship of expression in China and Korea in the 1980s; changes in conceptions of socialism before and after the dissolution of the USSR; the construction of postcolonial states and civil societies in Senegal during the 1990s and 2000s; or more broadly, the crisis of global climate change and threats to Earth’s ecological sustainability. What different forms have art collectives taken in the contemporary world? How do such practices relate (or not) to recent scholarship concerning art’s social efficacy (Grant Kester, Claire Bishop, etc.)? What other recent strands of theoretical inquiry — Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, Gayatri Spivak’s planetarity, Catherine Malabou’s plasticity — offer insights into such diverse artistic formations?
Since the publication in 2007 of Gregory Sholette and Blake Stimson’s edited volume Collectivism After Modernism, the study of art collectives has become key to understanding contemporary art. Our panel aims to develop this subfield further by continuing to move beyond an established canon of Euroamerican groups in order to interrogate the expansion of globalized social imaginaries since the 1970s. Our focus is not on various participatory and relational tendencies in contemporary art that have arisen largely to advance the social outreach of art-world institutions, but rather collectively produced art in the contemporary world that stakes claims to agency by negotiating between the demands of specific localities and large-scale historical processes. What kind of symbolic solidarities have artistic collective formations been able to offer or create during moments of sociopolitical, economic, or ecological urgency? Papers could examine generative moments of artistic-cultural action that arose through collectivity, theoretical issues regarding collectivism, or the histories of specific art collectives such as Huit Facettes, Laboratoire Agit-Art, los grupos, certain networks within the ’85 movement in China, minjung art, Collective Actions, Desire Machine Collective, among many more examples. We are particularly concerned with how analysis of locally- and regionally-specific collective practices offers a better grasp of the poetics as well as the politics of expanding processes of global awareness today.

Born in 1984, artist Chan Dany has exhibited nationally since 2003 and internationally since 2008. His practice is consistently based in Khmer kbach forms: this is unusual among exhibiting contemporary artists in Cambodia, particularly of Chan’s generation.

In this paper, I will offer a view of Chan’s work that focuses on his use of kbach, as well as his method of composition, and his choice of materials including pencil shavings and imported laces and beads. I will suggest some ways in which Chan’s practice reflects the hybrid nature of contemporary Cambodia, including the coevality (and the insufficiencies of a binary view) of old and new, and the comingling of local and global. I will ask what Chan’s method of composition—which is derived from drawing from life—reveals of the continuing legacy of the colonially introduced system of art education. I will posit that Chan’s practice, specifically his use of Khmer kbach, might illuminate not only contemporary Cambodia’s complexities, but also suggest ways of thinking (both art historically and ontologically) about the nature of contemporaneity as a necessarily global concept that resists progressivist teleological narratives.

Presented at: "Contemporary Art in Cambodia: A Historical Inquiry"
Convened by: Cornell University and the Center for Khmer Studies
As part of: Season of Cambodia festival, New York

A significantly revised and expanded version of this paper will be published in "Udaya: Journal of Khmer Studies" in 2014.

A small yet influential strain of independent contemporary curatorial practice has emerged in Southeast Asia, which is performing (expanded) art historical functions. This mode of independent curating now constitutes an important base for exciting new research—making use of diverse archives as well as other methodologies—to study the often little-known histories of the region's modern arts, including its architecture, cinema, and photography. That such research is taking place in the context of independent contemporary curatorial practice is significant because it locates modern art history largely outside of large and state-funded institutions, including museums and universities, thus enabling the development and proliferation of art historical research in areas of Southeast Asia, including its mainland sub-regions, which have comparatively little funding and official infrastructure for the arts. This article explores the emerging practice of independent curating as (expanded) ...