Association of Art Historians 33rd Annual Conference: CONTESTATIONS 12-14 April 2007

University of Ulster, Belfast

CALL FOR PAPERS

Having been dominant in the global economy in the twenty-first century, the Asia-Pacific region has attracted the world’s attention on its contemporary artistic presentation. In the past twenty years, many cities in the Asia-Pacific region have been at the centre of both economic growth and cultural re-examination. Globalisation has brought the Asian metropolis to deconstruct its own cultural heritage and urbanisation has created an urgent question to its people to re-consider development, competition, modernised cultures and values.

In recent years, there have been several biennales and triennials held in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Busan Biennale, Fukuoka Triennial, Guangzhou Triennial, Gwangju Biennale, Hong Kong Art Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Singapore Biennale, Taipei Biennale, Triennial of Chinese Contemporary Art etc, which have created kinds of phenomena which specifically appeared in this region. During these exhibitions, the artists have often combined their own cultural languages with high technology, re-interpreted their traditional aesthetics and re-defined their traditional materials, by which they have declared their national identity and represented their post-colonial discourse.

This session encourages papers that focus on, but are not limited to, the questions: How have the curators’ strategies helped contemporary Asian art to be understood and which concepts have been revealed and discussed? How do the artists hybridise their artistic language within a modern ideology? How have the appearances of new contemporary Asian art been created? How do the artists and curators find the balance between nationalism and globalisation?

This session invites art historians, artists, theorists, cultural and media analysts to submit an abstract in English (250 words maximum) with your name, organisation affiliation (if any), contact details, and a short CV by 10th Nov 2006.

Email materials or enquiries to Session Organiser:

Ming-Hui Chen, Loughborough University School of Art and Design, UK.

More details about the conference can be found at:

http://www.aah.org.uk/conference/2007session09.php