In from the Cold

EDITOR'S LETTER

In the lead-up to this year’s Venice Biennale and Documenta, I was reading a 1979 edition of the art journal Black Phoenix. Discussed within the pages of this dense, 31-page issue was the question of barriers raised by the art world establishment at the time against both experimental art and artists from non-European or American geographies. “Marginal” was the word commonly applied to artists who were engaged in practices including performance, participatory and kinetic art, and those hailing from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Fast-forward 38 years. Christine Macel, the director of the 57th Venice Biennale, intends to upend the current status quo—in which exhibition-making has become politicized, commercialized or driven by certain dominant personalities—through a simple but elegant gesture: to give prominence to artists and the transnational spirit of the creative process. In the May/June issue of ArtAsiaPacific, the editors spotlight many no-longer-marginal artists from around the world who will show their art—often not fit for the marketplace—at one of the two prestigious, and now truly international, exhibitions.