Modern Art Asia was founded to address the need within art history and art journalism for a space dedicated to the arts of Asia from the eighteenth century through today. For the rising generation of Asian art scholars, these works exist in a globalized interdisciplinary context at the intersection of scholarship, criticism, and the market. Modern Art Asia reflects this discourse with a combination of peer-reviewed postgraduate articles, insightful commentary, and international exhibition reviews to encourage a broader vision of art produced throughout Asia after 1700. Contemporary Asian art provides an active chronological boundary for this definition, challenging past trajectories even as it continues those traditions established centuries before with innovations inspired by globalization.
Our second issue presents a diverse range of articles on art and artists from Thailand, China, Japan and Pakistan. Firstly, Frank Feltens produces an original and politically-engaged reassessment of Domon Ken's acclaimed photographs documenting the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, by reconstructing Domon's ideological aims and citing the photographs within their contemporary art historical context. Kiu-Wai Chu's paper on the incorporation of ruins into Chinese photography and cinema presents an interesting thematic overview of a range of contemporary Chinese art practices, giving proper attention to the dynamic context of their production and representing an innovative attempt to forge new aesthetic categories with which to discuss contemporary art. Continuing this focus on contemporary practice, we are pleased to present a profile of the witty and provocative work of the Gao brothers, and a portfolio of new installation pieces by the Thai artist Sarawut Chutiwongpeti. This issue's reviews cover works produced by Chinese, Japanese and Pakistani artists and performers at events held in London and across north America.
Our second issue presents a diverse range of articles on art and artists from Thailand, China, Japan and Pakistan. Firstly, Frank Feltens produces an original and politically-engaged reassessment of Domon Ken's acclaimed photographs documenting the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, by reconstructing Domon's ideological aims and citing the photographs within their contemporary art historical context. Kiu-Wai Chu's paper on the incorporation of ruins into Chinese photography and cinema presents an interesting thematic overview of a range of contemporary Chinese art practices, giving proper attention to the dynamic context of their production and representing an innovative attempt to forge new aesthetic categories with which to discuss contemporary art. Continuing this focus on contemporary practice, we are pleased to present a profile of the witty and provocative work of the Gao brothers, and a portfolio of new installation pieces by the Thai artist Sarawut Chutiwongpeti. This issue's reviews cover works produced by Chinese, Japanese and Pakistani artists and performers at events held in London and across north America.
CONSTRUCTING COLLECTIVE VICTIMS
DOMON KEN AND TOMATSU SHOMEI: TWO JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Frank Feltens
Feltens juxtaposes Domon Ken's renowned Hirohsima series with Tomatsu Shomei's documentation of the Nagasaki bombings to argue that, while both photographers deal with the atomic bombs’ aftermath in very individually charged ways, both pursue a similar goal: that of collectively victimizing the Japanese people. These photographs give suffering a face, which is crucial to creating a collective consciousness. The pain is not merely anonymous, but connected to concrete persons. Acting as symbols, the individuals portrayed are made to stand as representations for many nameless others, in order to bond them with the collective group of 'Japan'.
DOMON KEN AND TOMATSU SHOMEI: TWO JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Frank Feltens
Feltens juxtaposes Domon Ken's renowned Hirohsima series with Tomatsu Shomei's documentation of the Nagasaki bombings to argue that, while both photographers deal with the atomic bombs’ aftermath in very individually charged ways, both pursue a similar goal: that of collectively victimizing the Japanese people. These photographs give suffering a face, which is crucial to creating a collective consciousness. The pain is not merely anonymous, but connected to concrete persons. Acting as symbols, the individuals portrayed are made to stand as representations for many nameless others, in order to bond them with the collective group of 'Japan'.
Domon Ken, Hiroshima, 1957. © Domon Ken. Reproduced with the permission of the Domon Ken Photography Museum, Sakata, Japan.
CONSTRUCTING RUINS: NEW URBAN AESTHETICS IN CHINESE ART AND CINEMA
Kiu-Wai Chu
Kiu-Wai Chu discusses the social, philosophical and aesthetic significance of modern ruins, and conceptualizes ruin aesthetics with examples taken from a selection of contemporary Chinese photographic art works and films. By contrasting modern, uncanny ruin aesthetics with classical Chinese landscape aesthetics, this paper focuses on examining changing aesthetics in modern Chinese art and cinema, and suggests a shift in the way Chinese people perceive the world, and the relationship between human beings and the environment; from focusing on the pursuit of man-nature unity to exposing disunity, disorder and disintegration in the modern world.
Kiu-Wai Chu
Kiu-Wai Chu discusses the social, philosophical and aesthetic significance of modern ruins, and conceptualizes ruin aesthetics with examples taken from a selection of contemporary Chinese photographic art works and films. By contrasting modern, uncanny ruin aesthetics with classical Chinese landscape aesthetics, this paper focuses on examining changing aesthetics in modern Chinese art and cinema, and suggests a shift in the way Chinese people perceive the world, and the relationship between human beings and the environment; from focusing on the pursuit of man-nature unity to exposing disunity, disorder and disintegration in the modern world.
FAZIA BUTT IN THE STATE OF THINGS: RECENT ART FROM PAKISTAN
AICON GALLERY, LONDON, 4th DECEMBER 2009-9th JANUARY, 2010
Kavita Ramdya
AICON GALLERY, LONDON, 4th DECEMBER 2009-9th JANUARY, 2010
Kavita Ramdya
REVIEWS
PAPERS
Lanwei 5/Big Business, Anothermountainman, 2006, Guangzhou, China.
Faiza Butt, Untitled, 2008. Image courtesy Aicon Gallery.
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Suda Yoshihiro (b.1969, Japan), Magnolia, 2009, painted wood, image courtesy of the artist, D’Amelio Terras, New York, and Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo.
PROFILES
The Gao Brothers with their piece The Execution of Christ.
From the series Untitled 1997 (Utopia), Art Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand