Asian Modernities: Chinese and Thai Art Compared, 1980 to 1999

Winner of the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand's Best Book prize.

Asian Modernities is a groundbreaking comparison of two contemporary Asian art cultures. This is the first analysis that defines a space for Asian modernity without direct reference to Euroamerica. Based on John Clark’s extensive primary research using vernacular written and interview materials in Chinese and Thai, Asian Modernities also develops theoretical perspectives on genealogies of modernity, and the twin phenomena of globalisation and transnational artistic identity. This highly illustrated book combines institutional examination with a close attention to art works and to the way artists have positioned themselves through them at home and abroad.

Asian Modernities is part of the four-book series Australian Studies in Art and Art Theory and is published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation and the Nelson Meers Foundation.