Summary

The remarkable phenomenon of the twenty-first-century art world is contemporary Asian art. Fueled by a newfound openness in the East, and by an economic boom that has promoted a vibrant cultural confidence, art made in Asia or by Asian artists since the 1990s has become dynamic and exciting, acknowledged and appreciated by collectors, critics, and curators. This authoritative, wide-ranging volume surveys the contemporary art of Asia, examining key issues and themes: artrs"s relationship to history and tradition, its engagement with politics, society, and the state, its exploration of consumerism and popular culture, and its interplay with the urban environment. Artists range from the established-Nam June Paik, On Kawara, Yoko Ono, Cai Guo-Qiang, Takashi Murakami-to the emerging-Indonesian cartoon artist Wedhar Riyadi, Mongolian site-specific artist Chaolun Baatar, Pakistani graffiti artist Naiza Khan, Vietnamese-American photo artist Dinh Q. Le, and many more. Together, these artists represent the range of Asian countries, from Indonesia to Japan, Uzbekistan to South Korea, Iran to China. More than 230 sumptuous illustrations capture the full scope of the artistsrs" practice, from calligraphy, painting, sculpture, and photography to performance, installation, video, and Internet art. Complete with comprehensive biographies,Asian Art Nowis both a superb critical overview and the consummate visual reference.

Author Biography

Melissa Chiu is director of the Asia Society Museum, New York. She has organized more than thirty exhibitions of Asian art and is the author of several catalogs and books on modern and contemporary Asian art.

Benjamin Genocchio is a widely published art critic and author. Currently an art critic for the New York Times, he has published five books on art and artists, and has taught global art history at many universities in the United States.

Introduction

Chapter 1
Rethinking Tradition

Chapter 2
Politics, Society and the State

Chapter 3
Asian Pop, Consumerism and Stereotypes

Chapter 4
Urban Nature

Epilogue
A Glimpse into the Future

Artist Biographies

Notes
Bibliography
List of Museums and Galleries
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Index

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

From: Introduction

Much as global political and cultural dominance by the United States prompted frequent reference to the twentieth century as ‘the American Century’, so the phrase ‘the Asian Century’ – associated with an historic 1988 meeting between Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi – signifies a belief that the twenty-first century will be dominated by Asia. To some extent, the implied promise contained in this phrase has already been fulfilled. In the past decade, the balance of geo-political, economic and even military power has shifted away from America and Europe towards Asia. Japan, Taiwan and Korea are at the cutting edge of technological trends, while China and India have re-emerged as international powers. The Chinese economy has enjoyed decades of record growth; India, too, continues to undergo unprecedented social and economic transformation. Both countries are nuclear powers, and in 2003 China became only the third nation to achieve a manned space flight.

The international art world has mirrored these geopolitical changes. In museums and art galleries around the world, observers of contemporary art today will more than likely confront pieces by Asian artists, some of them working in their home countries, others living in art-world centres such as New York, London and Berlin. It is hardly possible to overstate the growing visibility of Asian artists. The fame of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami (b. 1962) has extended well beyond the art world since his 2002 collaboration with the luxury brand Louis Vuitton on the production of limited-edition handbags; in 2008 he was voted one ofTimemagazine’s one hundred most influential people. In that same year, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957) had a retrospective at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Asian artists are now fixtures at world-survey exhibitions such as Documenta and the Venice Biennale. In this sense, then, contemporary Asian art is not restricted to Asia but is a global phenomenon.

Contemporary Asian art is also an emerging scholarly field. Along with magazine and journal articles and books that have documented this new sphere of study, there have been a growing number of major pan-Asian periodic exhibitions devoted to Asian artists, including the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art begun in 1993 at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, and the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale begun in 1999 at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan. An increasing number of important international shows have also taken place, complete with catalogues. These include ‘Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions’ in New York, Vancouver, Perth and Taipei (1996), and ‘Cities on the Move’ in Vienna, Bordeaux, Copenhagen, London, New York and Bangkok (1997–99). Courses have been founded at universities, and to a lesser extent museums have assembled collections of contemporary Asian art, notably the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, the Singapore Art Museum, the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia and the Asia Society Museum in New York. There are also several major private collections in Europe, Australia and America. Whereas not long ago critics and historians either dismissed Asian artists as feeble imitators of their international peers, or were obsessed with revealing an ‘authentic’ culture devoid of Western or any other influences, there now exists a growing appreciation for the specific cultural circumstances and references that shape and distinguish contemporary Asian art.

What, then, is it that distinguishes a work of art by a contemporary Asian artist? How is the work understood by viewers in and outside the region? What is its status and relationship to more traditional modes of Asian art? How can we assess its merits in an international or global art-world context? These are some of the questions underlying this b