Introduction Contemporary Southeast Asian Art

Towards an End of New Beginnings: A Historiographical Exegesis of T.K. Sabapathy's 'Regionalist Perspectives'

“…As the cultural exchange arm of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japan Foundation regularly supported and organised exhibitions and research publications on art from Southeast Asia through the Foundation's ASEAN Cultural Centre (which was reorganised in 1995 into the Asia Centre with an expanded regional scope). 60 This points to a keen interest in promoting regional framings of Southeast Asia, perhaps as a subset of Asian regionalism. Similarly, despite SAM being a national museum, it has positioned itself as a 'Southeast Asian art museum' which boasts one of the world's largest collections of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art.…”

Global Contemporary Art in the Philippines: A Vantage Point

“…It is also noteworthy that to be able to establish Singapore as the center of contemporary Southeast Asian art, the government invested substantial money to construct the Singapore Art Museum wherein contemporary Southeast Asian art was made historical. The Singapore Biennale was also instituted in 2006 (Kee, 2011).…”

“…Global art is described as "a universal forum where artists with diverse origins, and hence, with equally diverse perspectives, thematize their working conditions and their personal experiences with the problem of a globalized world" by the curators of the exhibition 'The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989' (Winking, 2012, p.622). This may be considered as a newly-found awareness of the "outside" world as observed from the "inside" or the previously interpreted international art world (Kee, 2011).…”

Making art public in Singapore: performativity, communication, and archiving Tang Da Wu's practice (1979 to 1995)

“…After spending decades studying artists, their communities, and practices in Vietnam and the region, Taylor highlights the importance of person-to-person contact, collaborations, and the creation of 'networks' amongst artists as important functions of 'artistic exchange'. Through the close regional networks and exchanges, artists and artists collectives, curators, art scholars, researchers, critics, and writers have over the decades built up the complex ecology of contemporary Southeast Asian art, where each has contributed to greater visibility of regional art on the global stage (Antoinette, 2020(Antoinette, , 2012Bauer, 2016Bauer, , 2020Bauer, , 2021Kee, 2011;Lenzi, 2011Lenzi, , 2017Lenzi, , 2020Low, 2014;Mashadi, 2006Mashadi, , 2011Sabapathy, 2018;Seng, 2010Seng, , 2017Seng, , 2019Taylor, 2012Taylor, , 2016Taylor, , 2022Yap, 2014). Contemporary art in Southeast Asia is a rapidly changing field of study where art critics, curators, and art historians have in the last two decades, opened new ways of understanding the region's contemporary 'art worlds', 'art publics' and 'art exhibitions'.…”