Contemporary Art: World Currents is the first comprehensive worldwide survey of contemporary art from the 1980s to the present day.   Author Terry Smith argues that, in recent decades, a global shift from modern to contemporary art has occurred: artists everywhere have embraced the contemporary world’s teeming multiplicity, its proliferating differences and its challenging complexities and new technologies. Alongside more than 350 carefully selected color images of key works, Terry Smith offers the first account of these changes, from their historical beginnings to the present day. Exploring key works by both well known and little-known artists, the author shows how contemporary art achieved definitive force in the markets and museums of the major art centres during the 1980s and then became a global phenomenon as artworlds everywhere began to connect more closely: new communicative technologies and expanding social media are now shaping the future of art.   Contemporary Art: World Currents breaks new ground in tracing how modern, traditional and indigenous art became contemporary in each cultural region of the world, ranging across Western, East and Central Europe, North and South America and the Caribbean, Oceania, Africa, and the Middle East. Terry Smith lays the groundwork for a new comparative approach to contemporary art, emphasizing its relationships to all aspects of contemporary life. He argues that it is cultural diversity and individual artistic inventiveness, not a convergence towards sameness, which makes today’s art contemporary.   Contemporary Art: World Currents brings the subject right up-todate, highlighting the concerns of contemporary artists while giving the reader an invaluable insight to art today.   Teaching and Learning Experience   Improve Critical Thinking- Explore how contemporary art has become a global, connected phenomenon   Engage Students- Looks at the work of contemporary artists from across the world.   Support Instructors- Image PowerPoints slides are available for Contemporary Art: World Currents.  

Table of Contents:
IN THIS SECTION: 1.) BRIEF 2.) COMPREHENSIVE   BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS:   Part I: Becoming Contemporary in Euro America Chapter 1: Late Modern Art Becomes Contemporary Chapter 2: The Contemporary Art Boom   Part II: The Transnational Transition Chapter 3: Russia and (East of) Europe Chapter 4: South and Central America, the Carribean Chapter 5: China and East Asia Chapter 6: India, South and Southeast Asia Chapter 7: Oceania Chapter 8: Africa Chapter 9: West Asia   Part III: Contemporary Concerns Chapter 10: World Pictures: Making Art Politically Chapter 11: Climate Change: Art and Ecology Chapter 12: Social Media: Affects of Time Chapter 13: Coda: Permanent Transition COMPREHENSIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS:   Acknowledgments General Introduction: Contemporary Art in Transition From Late Modern Art to Now   Part I: Becoming Contemporary in Euro America Chapter 1: Late Modern Art Becomes Contemporary Transformations in Late Modern Art: Its Contemporary Aspects   Chapter 2: The Contemporary Art Boom The Postmodern Return to Figuration Retro-Sensationalist Art Remodernism in Sculpture and Photography Spectacle Architecture as Contemporary Art Contemporary Art Becomes a Style   Part II: The Transnational Transition   Chapter 3: Russia and (East of) Europe Russia Late Cold War Modern Art Elsewhere (East of) Europe After the Fall: Post-Communist Art? Beyond “Eastern” and “Central” versus “Western” Europe Translating the European Ideal   Chapter 4: South and Central America, the Carribean South America Cuba Elsewhere in the Caribbean Seeing the World’s Currents   Chapter 5: China and East Asia China Taiwan Korea   Chapter 6: India, South and Southeast Asia India Pakistan Thailand Indonesia The Phillippines   Chapter 7: Oceania Papua New Guinea Aotearoa/New Zealand Australia   Chapter 8: Africa Modern Art in Africa South Africa Under Apartheid Popular Painting and Sculpture in Central Africa Commercial to Art Photography South Africa after Apartheid African Art Enters the International Circuit   Chapter 9: West Asia Iraq Jordan Iran Palestine Israel From Hurufiyah to Contemporary Cosmopolitanism   Part III: Contemporary Concerns   Chapter 10: World Pictures: Making Art Politically One World Global Networks Intervening Critically Profiles in Shadowland Bare Labor   Chapter 11: Climate Change: Art and Ecology Art and Environmentalism Crisis and Catastrophe Collective Actions, Sustainable Solutions Designs for Living Experimental Geography Imaging the Future Dystopia Eco-Chic, Greenwashing, Spectable   Chapter 12: Social Media: Affects of Time Mediation, Immersion, Intervention, Agency To Be with Time is All We Ask   Chapter 13: Coda: Permanent Transition   Notes Select Bibliography A Directory of Selected Contemporary Art Websites Index Picture Credits Note of Thanks