Book Review: “Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945–1990”
about 68 months ago (09/13/2018)
Book Review: "Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945–1990" | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 13, 2018 By Reaksmey Yean (950 words, five-minute read) A result of a research collaboration organised by the University of Sydney’s Power Institute in partnership with the Institut Teknologi Bandung and National Gallery Singapore, Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945-1990 is a recently published volume of ten collected essays. It is comparable to an archeological excavation, unearthing and resurfacing forgotten, if not unknown, (hi)stories and memories of arts and artistic development in Southeast Asia in the period caught in the global political cyclone of the Cold War – as suggested by the time frame in the book’s title. The subjects explored in the volume span painting to photography, public monuments to architecture, cultural diplomacy to political trauma, and female to diasporic artists.