New Asian art is challenging and provocative, capable of both staunch traditionalism and dazzling innovation.

Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions, an exhibition organized by the Asia Society, New York City, and presented simultaneously at the Asia Society, the Grey Art Gallery of New York University, and the Queens Museum of Art, features the work of 27 artists--many of whom have not previously exhibited in the United States--from five countries: India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. Their work confronts the preservation or eclipse of tradition, the increasing globalization, the rapid modernization, and the changing relationships with the West and within Asia that are major factors in all contemporary Asian societies. As the subtitle Traditions/Tensions suggests, the art deals with the old and the new, the supposed opposites of the traditional and the contemporary, and how individual artists in Asia today accept, integrate, and/or reject them. Key themes include politics, religion, the environment, and women's issues.

© Grey Art Gallery & Study Center at New York University
All images courtesy of the Asia Society. ©1996