The Geometries of Afro Asia bookcover

The Geometries of Afro Asia

Art Beyond Solidarity

Joan Kee 

(Author)
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
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Description

A groundbreaking method for writing art history, using the language of geometry.

How do we embark on a history of art from the assumption of a global majority, outside of essentializing categories like race or hollow proclamations of solidarity? With this book, Joan Kee presents a framework for understanding the rich and surprisingly understudied relationship between Black and Asian artists and the worlds they initiate through their work.

The Geometries of Afro Asia breaks down this relationship and chronology into points, angles, and trajectories. Spanning North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Kee looks at the relationships that formed between Black and Asian artists at critical historical junctures--from civil rights struggles in the United States and the development of South Korea amid US military occupation in the 1960s and 1970s to debates over multiculturalism and critiques of globalization in the 1990s and 2010s. Through geometry, a language of magnitudes and alignments, Kee opens up new ways of seeing how artworks shape our lives and politics by getting us to commit some of our most valuable resources--time and attention--to one another.

Product Details

PublisherUniversity of California Press
Publish DateApril 18, 2023
Pages320
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9780520392458
Dimensions10.0 X 7.0 X 0.6 inches | 1.6 pounds

About the Author

Joan Kee is Professor in the History of Art at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method and Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post-Sixties America.

Reviews

"Commenting on the disciplinary narrowness of the field, Kee's book takes the reader through different historical and political contexts ranging from the 1960s until the 2010s, in order to question and redefine the fundamental framework of 'global' in art history as it is understood and taught in Eurocentric institutions of art."-- "Visual Studies"
"For Kee to be able to summon so many precise examples from a vast catalogue of cultural production is a feat in itself and testifies to the seemingly infinite potentials of Afro Asia."-- "Art History"
"Wide-ranging and meticulously compiled, the volume examines artworks from the past century that push our conceptions of Afro Asia beyond the confines of identity and regionalism currently in institutional vogue."-- "ArtForum"
"A reformulation in which 'Afro' and 'Asia' are loosed to orbit and collide with one another in new ways, presenting nuanced and timely approaches to exchange. . . . Kee's rich interpretive geometry is a fractal that arcs towards the future."-- "ArtReview"

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