On the Coevalities of the Contemporary in Cambodia

A review of visual artist Chan Dany’s solo exhibition Sampot: The Collection of Small Things, held at SA SA BASSAC gallery in Phnom Penh from May 23 to July 28, 2013, incorporating some reflections on contemporaneity in Cambodia.

historical epochs, and also to attitudes and approaches toward the experience of the present time. Defining contemporaneity is a particularly complex task, which may explain why so many critics and scholars use the term without any attempt at explanation. I offer this short sentence as a gesture at minimizing misunderstanding, while also recognizing that-in the words of Geeta Kapur-"The term contemporary gives a definitional ambiguity to the present." Geeta Kapur, When Was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2007[2000), 276.
3 For a discussion of the importance of the testimony of the artist in settings that largely lack written archives, see: Nora A. Taylor, "The Southeast Asian Art Historian as Ethnographer?", Third Text 25, no. 4 (2011): 475-488. Institute. As will be discussed below, this education provided Chan with a locally unique opportunity to explore a variety of styles including Cambodian traditions, drawing from life, and "free" experimentation. In neighboring Vietnam and Thailand, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia and Asia more broadly, contemporary artists-including of Chan's generation-regularly draw on inherited visual languages and traditions. 5 The comparative rarity of such practices in Cambodia is a rich site for future discussion, beyond the scope of this essay. The unusual nature of colonial policies in Cambodia (as compared to elsewhere in former Indochina), as well as more recent ruptures in the narrative of modernity (most notably Pol Pot's declaration of "year zero" in 1975), are surely key contributors to this comparative rarity, as is the nature of systems of patronage that have developed in recent decades, both for practices termed "contemporary art" and for those deemed "traditional crafts."

Figure 1
Chan Dany that operates on both a non-profit and commercial basis. 7 Nine works hung in portrait orientation along the gallery walls, and one lay flat on a low platform on the floor (Fig. 1). As suggested by the exhibition's title, the works were based on the form of the sampot, a rectangular cloth worn by men and women throughout much of South and Southeast Asia.
According to a short catalogue produced by the gallery for the exhibition, the "common sampot hol has over 200 codified patterns, which vary by region in terms of their geometric and organic lines, lattices, stars and dots, flora and fauna motifs." 8 A sampot is always more intricately patterned along its bottom edge, nearest to the wearer's feet. With this in mind, Chan has embellished the lower section of each of the ten works exhibited. The sole horizontally oriented piece, Sampot: The Collection of Small Things (Diamond in the Flower) (2013), is decorated along its longer edge: the artist explains that it can thus be thought of as a kind of short skirt, of the style he observes are now worn by more "modern" (ទំនើប tomnerb) young women (Fig. 2).
Chan's interest in habits of dress is symptomatic of a larger issue: the coevality of ancient and new cultural forms. 9 In contemporary Cambodia, most young men and women tend to dress in what they generally refer to as "foreign/Western" (!"ំ ង barang) or "modern" styles of clothing, except for at special occasions such as weddings. Many older women, though, continue to wear the sampot daily (as well as other traditional garments, such as the krama checkered scarf). This concurrence of old and new ways of dressing is a small but revealing example of the multiplicity of experiences comprising contemporaneity in Cambodia. 10 The convergence of influences is complicated by the relationship between older generations and those born after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, as well as by the marked divide between urban and rural lifestyles, and the growing gap between rich and poor. In inviting his audiences to look closely at and think deeply about the sampot, Chan prompts a meditation on clothing as an emblem of shifting attitudes and aesthetics, which in turn will lead some viewers to ponder the larger changes to which it points. 11 Of course, the artist is also proudly celebrating the rich tradition of textile designs in his country, which continues to be a source of pride for young people, and of inspiration for the country's fast-growing fashion industry. 12 7 An eleventh work was created for the series, but not included in the exhibition. Its title is Sampot: The Born in the aftermath of war, many have experienced a recent and rapid increase in access to new products and technologies, as well as disposable income, engendering myriad cultural changes in Cambodia's cities that are closely watched by many young artists. 13 While many artists are roundly critical of transformations in urban environments, in conversation Chan prefers to stress that "in many cases, new development is a positive thing;" an enthusiasm seemingly shared by many of his age in Phnom Penh. 14 13 Little sustained scholarly attention has been paid to this phenomenon to date, despite a growing body of  The use of fabrics and embroidery in Sampot: The Collection of Small Things marks a shift from Chan's prior solo exhibition-consisting of small gouache paintings on paper-and also from his ongoing use of pencil shavings pasted on wood as a medium for kbach designs ( Fig. 3). 15 Chan's pause from working with pencil shavings was prompted in part by a problem with supply. He prefers to use pencils with flat-edged wooden cylinders, as the shavings from these form an agreeably crinkled pattern. But for several months during 2012, Chan's preferred kind of pencils was not available anywhere in Phnom Penh. This is a common predicament. Although large supermarkets and malls have become more prevalent in the last half-decade or so, offering an unprecedented array of consumer items sourced from all over the world, Chan's temporary inability to find quality hexagonal pencils is somehow still unsurprising. 16 Cambodia lacks a dedicated supplier of fine art materials, delivery of mail is often unreliable, and supply of specialty items is unpredictable. Although contemporary Cambodia's participation in the neoliberal global economy is unmistakably increasing, its integration into international markets remains partial and inconsistent, a situation that is reflected in the materials available for Chan to use. 15 One of the only published reviews of Chan's work has suggested that the artist's use of pencil shavings was an "idea…born [sic] of thrift" (Rebecca Catching, "Earth, Water and Fire," review of Accumulations, a group exhibition curated by Erin Gleeson, Art Slant, November 18, 2009. <http://www.artslant.com/ew/articles/show/11594>). In conversation with me, the artist has insisted that in fact his use of pencil shavings was an idea borne of a desire to innovate, and thereby to please his teachers at the Reyum Institute.

Figure 4
Chan Dany Contemporary Cambodia (like countless other places, but perhaps more so than many) is caught between at times sharply opposing interests. Chan's use of newly available imported fabrics-including synthetic versions of European-style lace (Fig. 4) Chan's exhibition displays further connections with the colonial era in the artist's method of composition. The artist plans each work in its totality, as a whole image, before then filling in the often intricate detailing within the frame. Because he is working with industrially produced materials, many of which have their own pre-existing patterning, the final form of Chan's works is ultimately determined by the interplay between the artist's initial design, and the patterning on the fabrics he is using. Crucially, Chan explains that this mode of composition is derived not from the codified traditions for working with Khmer kbach, but rather from his classes in "modern drawing" (គំ នូ រេមើ លេឃើ ញ komnuu merl-khern, as it was termed at his school 24 ): that is, drawing from life. And so, Chan is using a compositional method that he regards as "modern" and "Western"-derived from drawing from life-in order to create an artwork that uses both new and ancient design forms from Cambodian and other sources. This is a quintessentially hybrid mode of practice. Drawing from life is a compositional method that was first introduced to Cambodia by the French, who also strictly controlled its use by Cambodian artists, in a manner that sharply distinguished Cambodia from the rest of Indochina under colonial rule. This dynamic is detailed in the late Ingrid Muan's rich study of the establishment of formal art education during the colonial period. The French authorities displayed a marked anxiety about the "destruction" of "traditional" Cambodian art by introduced forms, and as such forbade their intermixing. 25 Chan's use of a colonially introduced method of composition to plan an image based on ancient Khmer kbach forms can thus be read as constituting both a deep link with and an implicit challenge to the colonial art education system in Cambodia. In planning his works as he was taught to plan a drawing from life, and then filling in details with forms he was taught in classes on kbach, Chan's hybrid approach transgresses the rules established by the French colonizers and still often enforced in the Cambodian university system today.
The implied continuity between the colonial era and the present, discernable in Chan's use of "modern drawing" compositional techniques for working with kbach forms, is noteworthy in two ways. Firstly, it serves as a counter to the pervasive tendency to regard the contemporary as having emerged either from Euro-American modernism or else almost out of nowhere, or to blindly accept that-in the at once truistic and arguably ahistorical have been chosen)-"things really are different than they were before." 26 It should be noted that elsewhere Smith argues convincingly for a more nuanced sense of the multiplicity of the contemporary, noting the persistence of modes of being from the past, and suggesting that "distinctive temporalities coexist in their distinctive otherness." 27 The apparent incongruity between these two attitudes-one of sweeping generalization, and the other of sensitivity to difference-is by no means limited to Smith. Indeed, he is far more alert to the continuing presence and importance of the past within the present than many commentators on contemporaneity. But the notion that the present is somehow so radically novel as to be disconnected from the past is insidiously rife in experiences of and commentary on contemporary life and contemporary art. It is a notion that Chan's exhibition elegantly unsettles.
Careful attention to important but overlooked historical continuities can mitigate against this sense of rupture. More specifically, though, to discern a suppressed continuity between the colonial and the contemporary eras is of particular significance in Cambodia, given the near-complete annihilation of known culture during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 regime. It is widely believed that 90 per cent of all artists and intellectuals were killed or exiled during those years. This throws into stark relief the latent progressivist Eurocentrism of Smith's repeated assertion that "the shift…from modern to contemporary art" was "nascent during the 1950s, emergent in the 1960s, contested during the 1970s, but unmistakable since the 1980s." 28 Such a statement elides the significant extent to which the experience of those decades was radically different in different parts of the world. The 1970s in Cambodia were "contested" in a tragically singular manner. And despite the global economy's "unmistakable" incursions during the 1990s and 2000s, there is much in Cambodian art and culture that remains unchanged, alongside and in inter-animating relationship with those "things" that "really are different than they were before." The serious flaws in Smith's periodization when applied to Cambodia (and many other locations in the "postcolonial constellation") suggest that the relationship of the modern to the contemporary is more usefully conceived in paradigmatic terms. 29 Indeed, Smith himself has elsewhere succinctly observed that the "worldwide shift from modern to contemporary" has definitively not "occurred in the same way, much less at the same time, in each cultural region and in each art-producing locality across the world," arguing instead that this shift "occurred-and continues to occur-in different ways and to varying degrees." 30 Such a conception is infinitely preferable to Smith's sweeping periodization, quoted above. Notably, in the article in which Smith proposes this more modulated view that emphasizes "different ways and . . . varying degrees," he also modifies his periodization. In this article, he argues that the "worldwide shift from modern to contemporary . modern art during the 1950s, took definitive shape in the 1980s and . . . continues to unfold through the present." 31 The addition of the qualifying determiner "some" is small but significant, and allows for a more discursive and less linear understanding of contemporaneity, one in which Chan's work, with its commingling of old and new (as well as specifically Khmer as well as transnational forms) can more comfortably be accommodated.
So, contemporaneity is more helpfully conceived of as an attitude rather than an epoch.
When not proposing broad periodizations, Smith generally shares this paradigmatic view. He has insightfully proposed that "an alertness to contemporaneity" has been "always available to art and often taken up…with show-stopping brilliance;" 32 with this in mind, we might imagine that Chan's discernment of the present-ness of kbach can also be found in earlier usages of the Khmer ornamentation, including during Cambodia's colonial period. Indeed, in many parts of Southeast Asia the modern and the contemporary have been imagined to be coexisting; moreover Peter Osborne has controversially proposed that it is in fact only from the vantage point of the contemporary that the notion of multiple modernities can be conceived. 33 Chan's exhibition may be a Collection of Small Things but those "small things"including a sustained consideration of dress, of the marketplace, and of compositional techniques derived from the colonial era-point to very big issues in Cambodian contemporaneity indeed.
Chan's method of composition is sometimes evident in faint pencil lines visible on the image surface, which the artist has used in plotting the position of the various components.
These sketch marks resemble those made during a drawing from life: notably, they demonstrate that these works were composed without the aid of a grid. Chan embellishes some sketch marks with sequins, at once obscuring and drawing attention to these features.
The gallery catalogue for the exhibition perceptively observes that Chan's "Attention to detail is both obvious and questionable" since "Sketch marks are present, straight lines seem unachievable, complete and incomplete sections of embroidery are juxtaposed." The catalogue author proposes that these qualities "encourag[e] reflection on perfection and imperfection." 34 I would add that this aspect of Chan's work invites a reconsideration of the connections between contemporary art-making practices and colonial art education structures, again suggesting a suppressed continuity in Cambodian art and art education.
Chan's school, unlike the Royal University of Fine Arts established by the French, was a nurturing place that encouraged experimentation and included art history classes. By contrast, the Royal University of Fine Arts curriculum in 2014 remains almost wholly unchanged from that implemented by the French. There is no schooling in new media or art history, and experimentation is strictly proscribed within media and disciplines. 35 That Chan was able (and indeed encouraged) to study kbach as well as drawing from life, and also the more experimental activities that were called "free drawing," is an historical novelty in Cambodia that did not exist in any systematic sense before the establishment of the Reyum Institute, and has not existed since the discontinuation of classes there.
According to Chan Vitharin and Preap Chanmara's authoritative study on kbach, "students trying to learn kbach tend to simply copy from these examples, replicating complex ornaments without understanding the system through which they are formed." As a result, the authors contend, these students "generally do not have the ability to create new compositions of ornaments, or to use the existing ornamental language for their own purposes." 36 Common techniques of reproduction compound this situation. The use of the grid to aid in copying, introduced by the French and identified by Muan as endemic ever since, is one contributing factor. Another is the growing use of molds and concrete to make kbach forms for architectural purposes, replacing more laborious carving techniques. Chan's innovative treatment of kbach forms is unusual, and is the aspect of his work most commonly remared on by local audiences.
In Sampot: The Collection of Small Things (More Dok Chan Flowers), (2013) (Fig. 6), twelve kbach dok chan (ក" #ច់ ដកច័ ន) forms (also called kbach pkaa chan ក" #ច់ !" ច័ ន), all pink in color, are spread across a red background. Although the name of this kbach design means "chan flower," the form is in fact derived from the skin of a fruit-not a flower. The chan is a soft, round fruit, and must be peeled to be eaten. After the sweet flesh has been scooped out, the skin resembles the shape of a flower: hence the kbach design is named "chan flower." The artist plays on the origin of this design by surrounding each large kbach dok chan design with many smaller flowers, all of them prefabricated by the producers of the fabric he has used. Other works from the exhibition exhibit a similar playfulness, using the form of the kbach chakachan (ក" #ច់ ច័ ក$ ច័ ន). This design form is based on the shape of a glutinous rice dessert called the chakachan cake, which is served in diamond-shaped pieces.