Th Century Southeast Asian Art Interactions Refractions

AY2024/2025 Semester 2

This course examines the emergences of modern art in Southeast Asia during the long 19th century (that is, from around the late 1700s to around the early 1900s). In the course, we will study the historical development of modern art in the region, with a special focus on the plural interactions that fuelled transformations in artistic expression during this period, and the ways in which art selectively adapted and refracted aesthetics, techniques and ideas found in art from other parts of the world. The interactions include intra-regional exchanges, for example between Islamic communities in Southeast Asia; as well as extra-regional exchanges, including with East and South Asia, the Arab World, and also with the colonial powers of Western Europe and North America. Together, we will critically examine competing narratives about the development of modern art in Southeast Asia. The course is an intermediate-level course which lays a basis for your further studies and professional endeavours in fields related to modern art (including, for example: contemporary art, curatorial studies, museum studies, art criticism and art history). Building on your knowledge of premodern Western and Asian art, this course seeks to introduce you to key artistic expressions of modernity and modernism in Southeast Asia, and to the interactions between modernity and colonialism as expressed in and shaped by art. In the course you will be engaged in thinking critically about competing narratives of the development of modern art in Southeast Asia.