Top 14 books on Southeast Asian art by Adeline Ooi

ART BOOKS INDONESIA MALAYSIA SINGAPORE PHILIPPINES THAILAND

This primer reading list has been selected by Adeline Ooi of Kuala Lumpur-based Rogue Art, an art consultancy group specialising in the management of art projects, exhibitions, collections and publications. Adeline will be speaking about Southeast Asian art at the Asia Art Forum to be held in Hong Kong in May 2009.

This list was first published on Arteri, a new and what looks to be a very promising blog on Malaysian and Southeast Asian art and is republished with permission from Adeline here. As Arteri explains, so much of what curators and experts know

“is acquired through fieldwork, contacts, long hours spent talking to artists, curators, historians, critics. So little of this knowledge (gossips, legends, histories, theories) has yet to be documented and written down, analysed and most importantly shared. Yet, what little that’s already published out there is really worth looking at.”

Books available on Amazon are linked. The list in chronological order:

Indonesian Contemporary Art Now
By Marc Bollansee and Enin Supriyanto
SNP Editions, 2007
ISBN-13: 9789812481429

Between Generations: 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia
Beverly Yong and Hasnul J Saidon (editors)
Universiti Malaya Press, Universiti Sains Malaya Press & Valentine Willie Fine Art, 2007
ISBN: 983861348

Contemporary Art in Singapore
With Essays by Russell Storer, Gunalan Nadarajan and Eugene Tan
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore, 2007
ISBN-13: 9789810564612
(Note: ICA Singapore is a part of LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts)

Telah Terbit (Out Now): Southeast Asian Contemporary Art Practices during the 1970s
Ahmad Mashadi
Singapore Art Museum, 2006
(Note: This is an exhibition guide and does not qualify as a book but the introduction essay for this show is insightful and really worth the read)

Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific
Caroline Turner (editor)
Pandanus Press, 2005
ISBN-10: 1740760468

Protest: Revolutionary Art in the Philippines, 1970-1990
By Alice Guillermo
University of Philippines Press, 2005
ISBN-10: 9715421679

Exploring Modern Indonesian Art: The Collection of Dr. Oei Hong Djien
By Helena Spanjaard & Oei Hong Djien
SNP Editions, 2004
ISBN-13: 9789812480101

Flavours Thai Contemporary Art

 

Flavours: Thai Contemporary Art
By Steven Pettifor
Thavibu Gallery, 2003
ISBN-10: 9749173767

Image to Meaning: essays on Philippine Art
By Alice Guillermo
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2001
ISBN: 9715503764

Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions, Tensions
Essays by by Apinan Poshyananda, Thomas McEveilley, Geeta Kapur, Jim Supangkat, Marian Pastor Roces, Jae-Ryung Roe
Asia Society, 1997
ISBN-10: 0878480838

Modern Asian Art
By John Clark
University of Hawaii Press, 1998
ISBN-10: 9057040417

Southeast Asian Art Today

 

Southeast Asian Art Today
Joyce Fenema (editor)
Roeder Publications, 1996
ISBN-10: 9810060025

Modern Art in Thailand: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
By Apinan Poshyananda
Oxford University Press, 1992
ISBN-13: 9780195885620

Vision and Idea – Relooking Modern Malaysian Art

T.K Sabapathy (editor)

National Art Gallery (Malaysia) 1994

ISBN: 983957201

(out of print)

Related posts:

• Overview Indonesian art – Mar 2009
• Who are the emerging generation Y artists from Asia? The New Museum selects – Mar 2009
• 5 Contemporary Cambodian artists in historic show Forever Until Now – Mar 2009
• Book: Chinese contemporary art: 7 Things you should know – Melissa Chiu – Oct 2008
• Top 5 books on Chinese art by Pippa Dennis – Oct 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for information sources and resources on art in Asia

Advertisement