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“Painting
History”
Opening
reception, May 8, 1999
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The
first two exhibitions at Situations presented groups of artists framed
by underlying themes. Our third exhibition presents a single artist
who has prepared new paintings specifically for this show. These five
canvases by Pech Song aim to recollect each of the regimes of the
last thirty years under which he has lived and painted. To prepare
such an exhibition has proved difficult since few painters working
in Cambodia today are economically able or willing to prepare a complete
body of paintings following a coherent line of thought. Most painters
are compelled to work on commission for a tourist market which encourages
the production of a few canonical repeated images rather than individual
explorations of present lived experience. Our hope in preparing this
exhibition is that we help in the process of developing more coherent
and complex bodies of work.
As
a first step in this direction, the exhibition raises more questions
than it answers. How can a painted surface contain all the richness
and complexity of lived history? What does it mean to use styles associated
with propaganda and popular culture when representing real historical
events? How do representations reconcile official historical accounts
with individual memories, especially when official pictures are so
dominantly cited and recycled? The challenge of making such paintings
is to avoid polemic and political posturing while giving the recent
past the visual presence that it deserves. Because of its ability
to 'recreate reality', painting serves as an important channel through
which historical facts can be opened to their emotional, psychological
and individual dimensions. This raises larger questions. What place
is there for a painter and his/her work in Cambodia today? What critical
attitudes and answers can be provided through art work? What roles
and what duties should contemporary art have in relation to the problems
and challenges facing Cambodia today?
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