The Global Contemporary Art World

The final installment in the critically-acclaimed trilogy on globalization and art explores the growing dominance of Asian centers of art

This book takes readers on a fascinating journey around five Asian centers of contemporary art and its myriad institutions, agents, forms, materials, and languages, while posing vital questions about the political economy of culture and the power of visual art in a multi-polar world. He analyzes the financial powerhouse of Art Basel Hong Kong, new media art in South Korea, the place of the Kochi Biennale within contemporary art in India, transnational art and art education in China, and the geo-politics of art patronage in Palestine, and he develops a highly original synthesis of theoretical perspectives and empirical research.

Drawing on detailed case studies and personal insights gained from his extensive experience of the contemporary art scene in Asia, Professor Harris examines the evolving relationship between the western centers of art practice, collection, and validation and the emerging "peripheries" of Asian Tiger societies with burgeoning art centers. And he arrives at the somewhat controversial conclusion that dominance of the art world is rapidly slipping away from Europe and North America.

The Global Contemporary Art World is essential reading for undergraduates and postgraduate students in modern and contemporary art, art history, art theory and criticism, cultural studies, the sociology of culture, and globalization studies. It is also a vital resource for research students, academics, and professionals in the art world.

Autorentext
JONATHAN HARRIS is Head of Birmingham School of Art at Birmingham City University, UK. He has taught and lectured on modern and contemporary art at universities, museums and galleries worldwide for over thirty years. His The New Art History: A Critical Introduction (2001) remains a classic text, and he has published twenty books as editor, author and co-author, including Globalization and Contemporary Art and The Utopian Globalists (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011 and 2013).

Inhalt

About the Author vii Introduction: "Global," "Contemporary," "Art," "World" 1 Entering the Maze 1 Modernity, Contemporary Art and Globalization 7 Five Asian Centers Within the Global Contemporary Art World 15 Global Crash, Crises and the Art World 20 Contemporary Art in the Friezer 25 1 Doing the Business: Producing Consumption in the Hong Kong Art World 35 Hong Kong Gets the Art Basel Treatment 35 Offshore Art Business in the Global Neoliberal Capitalist Economy 39 Combined and Uneven Development in the Hong Kong Art World 45 Hong Kong's Art World Inside and Outside China 52 2 New Media Art and Cultural Globalism in South Korea 65 The Chic of Global "New Media Art" 65 Contemporary Art as Global Cultural Diplomacy 69 "Glocal Video": Conventions and Critiques 73 Culture, Contemporaneity and the Postcolonial Artwork 76 The "Real DMZ Project": Conflict Art in the Korean Peninsula 80 Contemporary Art Across Global Asia 85 3 Globalizing Indian Contemporary Art: The Biennial as Rhetorical Form 95 The Kochi Biennale Big Sell 96 Kochi as a Global Venue 99 Art at Kochi: Liberal Pluralism Versus Social Engagement with Globalization? 102 The Highs and Lows of Art, Media and Kochi Biennale Capital 108 Utopian Rhetoric in Contemporary Art at the Kochi Biennale 113 4 Social Reproduction of Contemporary Art in the People's Republic of China: Higher Education and the Branding of "Contemporary Chinese Art" 127 Art and Design Education as a Globalization Process 127 Changing Identifications in Art and Design Education in China 132 Contemporary Chinese Art Marketed for Global Consumption 136 Chinese Art and the World Art System 141 5 Contemporary Art and Post?-National Identities in the State of Palestine 155 "Palestine is Open for Business"! 155 Grounding the Culture Industry in Palestine 158 Palestinian Museums?-of?-art?-in?-waiting 162 The "NGO?-ization" of the Contemporary Art World in the State of Palestine 167 Concrete into Dust 172 6 Conclusion: Motifs of Global Fracture in the Art Of Bashir Makhoul and Wang Guofeng 181 Re?-Entering the Maze 181 In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni 185 Utopian Photo?-Mythologies 188 Aesthetic and Social Implications of Digital Photography 191 Aesthetic and Social Implications of Digital Technology 194 Selected Bibliography 201 Index 217