How can we reconfigure our picture of modern art after the postcolonial turn without simply adding regional art histories to the Eurocentric canon? Transmodern examines the global dimension of modern art by tracing the crossroads of different modernisms in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Featuring case studies in Indian modernism, the Harlem Renaissance and post-war abstraction, it demonstrates the significance of transcultural contacts between artists from both sides of the colonial divide. The book argues for the need to study non-western avant-gardes and Black avant-gardes within the west as transmodern counter-currents to mainstream modernism. It situates transcultural art practices from the 1920s to the 1960s within the framework of anti-colonial movements and in relation to contemporary transcultural thinking that challenged colonial concepts of race and culture with notions of syncretism and hybridity.
By:
Christian Kravagna
Translated by:
in2words
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 24mm
Weight: 599g
ISBN: 9781526160362
ISBN 10: 1526160366
Series: Rethinking Art's Histories
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 05 July 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
ELT Advanced
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 1 Toward a postcolonial art history of contact 2 In the shade of tall mango trees: art education and transcultural modernism in the context of the Indian independence movement 3 Transcultural beginnings: decolonisation, transculturalism and the overcoming of race 4 Trees of knowledge: anthropology, art and politics. Melville J. Herskovits and Zora Neale Hurston – Harlem circa 1930 5 The migrant as catalyst: Winold Reiss and the Harlem Renaissance 6 Encounters with masks: counter-primitivisms in Black modernism 7 Purity of art in a transcultural age: modernist art theory and the culture of decolonisation 8 Painting the global history of art: Hale Woodruff’s The Art of the Negro Index -- .
Christian Kravagna is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna -- .
Reviews for Transmodern: An Art History of Contact, 1920–60
This book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on global modernism. Enriched by wide research spanning a wide geographical area, this subtle, scholarly work, well-grounded in deep research, will become an essential textbook at educational institutions as well as provide a benchmark in future discussions on questions of global art. Partha Mitter -- .
