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Letter to a young Cambodian artist

Perhaps we met in Phnom Penh or Battambang. You were delighted that

someone would look seriously at your efforts and work in progress. You werehoping for advice on how to succeed, get exhibited, earn money. We had some

long conversations but the exchange was handicapped by our linguistic differ-

ences (English as a second language for both of us) and more importantly our

different histories. Im going to try to express what I felt more than unde r-

stood in the course of these encounters.

You want to become artists in the sense that this word has developed over lit-

tle more than a century. Artist, that is to say author of a work that is personal,that need not respond to any particular orders (whether from an institutional

or private commission), thus addressed to a non defined public, and requiring

some kind of network or art dealer to reach an audience. This creative auton-

omy is something that differentiates art from craft, from design, from decora-

tion, from illustration, or any other work that must respond to a clients brief.

Art has no other justefication than itself, no other obligation than to be free.

Freedom is so exhilarating that some artists were able to work for years in

complete solitude before being exhibited and finding their public. But no mat-

ter how enjoyable freedom might be, its preservation demands rigor, con-

sistancy, determination. It is always tempting to satisfy a clientele seeking var-

iations on popular, appealing, time-tested, crowd-pleasing themes by produc-

ing nice looking works whose value will be a function of skillful production.

In commercial venues from souvenir shops to the trendiest gallery, in public

exhibitions organized by NGOs and cultural centers I have seen such prefab-

ricated images supposed to represent Cambodia. Among the most popular:

nagas, apsaras, garudas, Angkor skylines a whole chorus line of representa-tions born of French colonialism and reproduced by dictatorial propaganda

machines from Sihanouk to the present. Another motif that is being devel-

opped with similar skill and meets with equal acclaim from tourists: copies of

photographs of Tuol Sleng victime.

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The Angkorian civilization collapsed six centuries ago; and happily all the

Khmer Rouge are dead or well on the way. For over a century in most places

on the globe, in China, India, the Levant, in Africa, Latin America as well as

Europe and North America, artistic creation generally opposes itself to the cul-

ture in place: either an outright rejection or an attitude of distance, criticismand irony used to focus on the present. Cambodia has plenty of other subjects

which are more interesting than its traditions. All you need to do is look

around. There is contemporary life in the cities and the countryside; people

move and behave as individuals not motifs from bas-reliefs; storefronts, street

vendors, businesses large and small all bear witness to social transformation.

Im not trying to say that art should imitate or reproduce this life realistically,

nor do I mean that it is necessary to show society by being a social militant.

But reality is complex, full of contradictions, and raises more questions thancan be answered by simplified images suggested by the iconography of tradi-

tion. In its process as in its results, art is always involved in raising questions;

it leaves the answers to blabbermouths, posturers and idealogues.

If creativity feeds on the present, the artists in particular, it is also enriched

through its dialogue with art from the past. In its solitude, art needs compan-

ionship; originality is part of a current, a heritage from which it can choose to

neglect certain aspects and develop others through modification. Thus Pich

Sopheaps bamboo and rattan pieces are descendants of numerous sculptural

icons in the modern theme of hollow sculpture. But he has brought his per-

sonal innovation: a new transparency and light sensitivity.

This doesnt mean, however, that Western art, which has long claimed the best

place in the market and filled museums, should be the only possible reference

as many of you seem to think under the influence of the critics. curators and

art dealers who visit Cambodia full of preconceived ideas about this place and

its people. In order to achieve notoriety, it is not necessary to have an inter-mediary. History is full of examples of artist-organized exhibitions in the

streets or out in nature, and of events outside of galleries, cultural centers or

museums. The world is not limited to New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris,

Berlin, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, that is to say the market, specula-

tion, money, boorishness. Bangkok is a few hours by bus from Battambang ;

Phnom Penh, from H Chi Minh City. Cambodia is not an island isolated from

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its neighbors, whose history is more parallel than you seem to want to admit

here, despite all the ancient antagonisms.

To have an open and curious mind, to let go of prejudices, to call oneself into

question: these are the moral principles of the artist. The road may not be easyto find, but you must set out. Doubts must be strengths; failures are stepping

stones. The artists main quality is perseverance. Nothing need get in the way

creating a body of work that stands on its own and waiting for the public who

will support it. There are always other ways to make a living. There is nothing

dishonorable about making art with one hand and a living with another. Most

successful artists have held jobs to pay the rent. In any case, art is a long, per-

manent solitude. Success is an illusion. Such is the teaching of Buddha.