CHARTING THOUGHTS: ESSAYS ON ART IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

A new research book has been published by the National Gallery of Singapore. It contains essays on Southeast Asian art by 25 scholars.

I was given the honour by the NGS of being one the contributing scholars.

The book is available from the NGS shop and through their website — click here.

Contents

An Introduction: Low Sze Wee

Address of Art: Vicinity of Region, Horizon of History — Patrick D. Flores

1. When Was Modernism? A Historiography of Singapore Art — Kevin Chua
2. The 19^th-Century “Origins” of Singapore Art — Kwa Chong Guan
3. Colonial Art as a Space of the Asian Modern — John Clark
4. The Javanese Painter Raden Saleh (c. 1811–1880): A Star in the Firmament of Indonesian Modern Visual Art — Marie-Odette Scalliet
5. Towards a History of the Asian Photographer at Home and Abroad: Case Studies of Southeast Asian Pioneers Francis Chit, Kassian Cephas and Yu Chong
   Gael Newton
6. Pre-war (1886–1941) Art Activities of the Chinese Communityin Singapore through a Narrative Framework of Diasporic Bonds — Yeo Mang Thong
7. A “Forgotten” Art World: The Singapore Art Club and its Colonial Women Artists
   Yvonne Low
8. Balinese Modernism — Adrian Vikers
9. The Birth of Tine Art’ in Southeast Asia, 1900–1945 — Ushiroshoji Masahiro
10. Conditions of Freedom, Contingencies of Art — Patrick D. Flores
11. The Transition of Thai Traditional Art to Modern Art in the 1950s and 1960s
    Somporn Rodboon
12. Landscape Painting in Indonesia: Continuity and Change in President Sukarno’s Collection — Susie Protschky
13. Conflict and Denial: The Discourse of Identity in Indonesian Art, 1950s-1980s
    Aminudin TH Siregar
14. Lim Hak Tai Points a Third Way: Towards a Socially Engaged Art by the Nanyang Artists, 1950s-1960s  — Seng Yu Jin
15. The Woman and the Vista: Intimate Revolt of the Cultural Left
    Simon Soon
16. Cultural Wars in Southeast Asia: The Birth of the Critical Exhibition in the 1970s
    Seng Yu Jin
17. Reading Conceptual Art in Southeast Asia: A Beginning — T.K. Sabapathy
18. The Singapore Contemporary and Contemporary Art in Singapore
    C.J.W.-L. Wee
19. Continuity and Change: Vietnamese Art in the Age of Doi Mdi
    Nora A.Taylor
20. Unpacking the Legacy of an Exceptional Artist from Myanmar: Bagyi Aung Soe (1923–1990) — Yin Ker
21. Emergencies: History and the Auto-Ethnographic Impulse in Contemporary Cambodian Art — Ashley Thompson
22. Rhetorical Postures and the Photographic Condition: A Minor Malaysian Detour — Adele Tan
23. Undoing the Global: Contemporary Art of Singapore — June Yap
24. Drafting History: Meditation on Location, Institutions and Myth-Making in Visual Arts in Postcolonial Singapore — Venka Purushothaman
25. Metonym and Metaphor, Islands and Continents: Reflections on Curating Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia  — Lee Weng Choy

Figures 1.1 to 25.5

Notes on the Contributors