Public Talk: “Power, Politics and the Street: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia after 1970”

When did contemporary art emerge in Southeast Asia, and what characteristics are shared across our diverse region? “Power, Politics and the Street: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia after 1970” (Lund Humphries, 2024) is a comparative history of Southeast Asian contemporary art that critically addresses social issues.

Lenzi examines how, why, and when Southeast Asian artists developed innovative and comparable contemporary artistic languages—which initially developed independently from the 1970s to more recent practices.

The book’s narrative begins with a comparison between F.X. Harsono’s installations and Imelda Cajipe Endaya’s prints from the 1970s. It then reveals intra-regional connections in the works’ aesthetic modes, conceptualization, and circulation, and demonstrates their relationship to local socio-political-cultural contexts. Therefore, the book argues for the distinct identity of Southeast Asian contemporary art within the global contemporary art landscape.