The contemporary art world is increasingly global, with a larger population, wider territory, and greater number of nationalities than ever before. Its prevailing conversation, however, has yet to catch up. Art Cities of the Future: 21st Century Avant-Gardes uncovers twelve distinct avant-gardes that have surfaced in recent decades, exploring their artistic heritage, cultural climate, and contemporary milieu. The book's format is simple: for each of the twelve cities - Beirut, Bogotá, Cluj, Delhi, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Lagos, San Juan, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore and Vancouver - a curator selected eight artists to represent the contemporary avant-garde. Though the artists work in a variety of media, including photography, painting, sculpture, installation, video, and performance art, all share two distinct qualities: a commitment to experimental art and a dedication to their local landscape. Lively, thought-provoking, comprehensive, and packed with more than 500 images, Art Cities of the Future is sure to widen the historical narrative, allowing us to imagine a future of diverse aesthetics and shared concerns in the common language of contemporary art.

Art Cities of the Future: 21st-Century Avant-Gardes

Arts & Photography

Kapur, Geeta

Wilson-Goldie, Kaelen

Shier, Reid

History & Criticism

Phaidon Press

Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions, the catalogue of a traveling exhibition organized by the Asia Society Galleries, New York City, features the work of 27 artists from five countries. Focusing on India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand, this book gives a transnational assessment of a broad theme in art from five countries chosen to represent different mixes of history and postmodernity. As the subtitle Traditions/Tensions suggest, the art deals with the old and the new, the supposed opposites of the traditional and the contemporary, and how individual artists in Asia today accept, integrate, and/or reject them. Key themes include politics, religion, the environment, and women's issues. The text comprises seven essays, with Apinan Poshyananda, an internationally renowned expert on contemporary Asian art and curator of the exhibition, providing a general overview. Five essays by recognized critics discuss current issues in the five countries: Geeta Kapur writes on India, Jim Supangkat on Indonesia, Marian Pastor Roces on the Philippines, Jae-Ryung Roe on South Korea, and Apinan Poshyananda on Thailand. Thomas McEvilley gives a view from North America. Biographies of the artists, chronologies of recent events in the five countries, and a bibliography round out the picture, making this volume a valuable resource for collectors, scholars, and students of contemporary art.

Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions, Tensions

Poshyananda, Apinan

McEveilley, Thomas

Supangkat, Jim

Roces, Marian Pastor

Roe, Jae-Ryung

Asia Society

The second installment in Afterall's Exhibition Histories series, Making Art Global, Part 1 focuses on the third Havana Biennial, which took place in 1989. In the core essay, Rachel Weiss examines the ways in which this exhibition extended the global territory of contemporary art and redefined the biennial model. Gerardo Mosquera, a key member of the curatorial team, contributes a reflection on the project, and its constituent exhibitions and events are documented photographically. The book also includes a paper delivered by Geeta Kapur at the Biennial conference and republishes reviews of the Biennial by Coco Fusco and Luis Camnitzer. It opens with an introduction by Charles Esche and brings together recent interviews with participating artists Alex Ángeles, José Bedia, Alfredo Márquez and Lázaro Saavedra. Key texts from the time are complemented by new material.

Making Art Global (Part 1): The Third Havana Biennial 1989, Exhibition Histories Vol. 2

Weiss, Rachel

Fusco, Coco

Esche, Charles

Camnitzer, Luis

Afterall Books

Histories of photography, as presented through books or exhibitions in the twentieth century, have been dominated by Europe and America. This publication and the exhibition it accompanies, articulate the untold story of an equally significant history, as rich and as formally innovative, yet embedded in the culture and politics of South Asia. Where Three Dreams Cross traces the characteristics of contemporary photography through its historical precedents, revealing the roots of the medium's development over the past 150 years. Its starting point is the crucial moment when the power to hold a camera, frame and capture images was no longer exclusively the preserve of colonial or European photographers. Both the major upheavals of politics and technology and the quotidian events of family, culture and ritual have been captured through the lens of some 80 artists. Their work also demonstrates formal experimentation and aesthetic lines of enquiry that are indigenous yet of universal interest. With essays by Sabeena Gadihoke, Geeta Kapur and Christopher Pinney, among others.

Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh / 150 Jahre Fotografie aus Indien, Pakistan und Bangladesch (English and German Edition)

Pinney, Christopher

Gadihoke, Sabeena

Photography & Video

Steidl

When Was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India

A commitment to modernity is the underlying theme of this volume. The essays range from interpretive prose-pieces to theoretical expositions, the author seeks to situate the modern and contemporary cultural practice. The essays here formalize polemical options that emerge from concerns developed across the book and are divided into three sections - Artists and Art Work, Film/Narratives and the last section, Frames of Reference, deals with broader cultural issues.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

TULIKA

A commitment to modernity is the underlying theme of this volume. Through essays that are interpretive and theoretical, the author seeks to situate the modern in contemporary cultural practice. The essays divide into three sections. The first two sections, Artists and Artworks and Film/Narratives, raise questions of authorship, genre and contemporary features of national culture that materialize into an aesthetic in the Indian context. The last section―Frames of Reference―formalizes the polemical options developed across the book. The essays here propose resistance to the depoliticization of narratives, and affirm an open-ended engagement with the avant-garde. They explore the possibility of art practice finding its own signifying space that is still a space for radical transformation.

Tulika Books

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Books by Kapur, Geeta