Introduction Part 1 - Critical Themes, Geopolitical Change and Global Contexts in Contemporary Asian Art

This book explores cultural connections and intersections that are related to the dynamic changes in art in Asia in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It derives from an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research project (Turner and Antoinette 2010–2013) examining new cultural networks in contemporary Asian art in the twenty-first century with a central theme of ‘connectivities’, from which this volume of essays takes its title.1 The four key themes of this book, which are outlined below, are drawn from this research. The focus of our research is contemporary Asian art, broadly defined as the art of the last 25 years. The essays in this volume provide significant new insights into contemporary art and institutions in the Asian region and into unfolding discourses in Asian art. A number of the essays are by Asian authors, thus providing important perspectives from the region, and the contributors include curators as well as scholars undertaking research in the areas of art history and contemporary visual culture.