21 Century Arts in Asia

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 INTRODUCTION
• 21ST century is a burgeoning field of practice, research and publication
making it an incredibly dynamic field of study. In Asia many important
topic have been resonating in a new century and inspiring new
thinking.
• Art of the 21st century emerges from a vast variety of materials and
means. Every location around the has an artist who respond to the
local geographies and histories as well as the way of global visual
culture.
• 21st century art in Asia, contending that the ideas embodied within
contemporary art global turn can be effectively advance through
modes of regionalism that recognize the contingency of things
 Afghanistan Kabul Arts Project

• Today, many young artists are reflecting on what has happened in

Afghanistan during the past decades and what challenges the country
faces today. But they still contend with widespread mistrust of artistic
expression, especially when practiced by women. 
 OBJECTIVES
• To emphasis the art of every Asian country in 21st century
• To give a brief description on their Arts
• To introduce new ideas on their arts
• To make broad the ideas on their culture
 Afghanistan Modern Sculpture

• to tell people to wake up and fight for their rights. 

• painted or made sculptures about human rights, women’s rights, state

policy or corruption.
 Afghanistan Modern Architecture
• Kerala House Design
 Azerbaijan Modern Paintings

• At the beginning of the twentieth century, popular images by artists

included propaganda posters targeting the Arabic script and
applauding the Latin script as the symbol of progress.
 Azerbaijan Modern Sculpture
• Museum of  Modern Art in Baku is designed as a single organism
combining art and sculpture, design and architecture.
• The author of the museum concept, architecture and design, the
collection and exposition selection is the artist Altay Sadikh-zadeh.
The main idea assumes the following: the halls without an angle,
open passages make the review perspective and multidimensional
and creates the effect of labyrinth; the bending walls in different
angles make an illusion of continuous movement. 
• has long been called Flame Tower For this reason, many flame figures
are being used in this country.

• Flame Tower architecture is the most prominent representative of

flame figures in Azerbaijan. The flame-shaped structure is equipped
with LED screens. It is the tallest building in the country with height of
182 m. The total area of the building is 235,000 square meters. The
Flame Towers
 Chinese Modern Paintings
• Zhong Biao is a contemporary Chinese Neo-Surrealist painter. Born in
Chongqing, China in 1968, Zhong’s work vacillates between the
tension of body, object, and landscape.
• Inspired by a rapidly changing China where the country has grown
economically, culturally, and politically.
 Chinese Modern Sculpture

• Deng Xiaoping introduced capitalist-oriented market reforms. Deng

also removed restrictions on the flow of information in China, which
allowed foreign ideas to flourish.

• Most of this information arrived not via the Internet, of course, but in
the form of books.
 Chinese Modern Architecture
• A booming economy, government housing initiatives, infrastructure
programs, and private real estate speculation have all driven
construction to record levels. New apartment, office, and government
buildings regularly rise up over older neighborhoods, and thousands
have relocated to modern housing complexes.
• The blend of old and new Chinese architecture is ever-present in cities
and villages, as older buildings are torn down and newer ones built at
ever faster rates.
 Indian Modern Paintings

• Maqbool Fida Husain, known as M.F. Husain

• Using freehand drawing and vibrant colour, he depicted Indian subject

matter in the style of contemporary European art movements,
particularly Cubism.
• The three Dynasties and the Traditional Indian Festival
 Indian Modern Sculpture
• Sculptures were now created to cater to the demands of the newly
emerging upper and middle social classes. The innovation of Indian
sculptors can be seen in the intense and exaggerated realism during
this period.

• In a distinctive style, he experimented with unconventional material

such as concrete, gravel and cement, looking to the rural landscape
and tribal communities for subjects.
 Japanese Modern Paintings

• Japanese contemporary artwork translates beautifully into a modern

home. This style of art is often vividly colorful, utterly creative, and
most of all–these paintings make perfect centerpieces in a home.

• This is yet another modern art style that emerged around the turn of
the century. As pop culture became a hit and Japanese artists began
to embrace this new form of entertainment, the art styles began to
shift as well in this new direction.
 Japanese Modern Paintings
• Tomohiro Inaba is a creative sculptor who produces eye-catching
figures that look like they are disintegrating into thin air.
• Each figure offers a duality that lies somewhere between solid
sculpture and three dimensional scribbles.
• Though the fawn is half-way through its disappearing act, the active
deer seems to have only just begun its disintegration process. Using a
dark iron base and topping it with a similar pattern of clear acrylic
resin, Inaba heightens the visual effect of gradual disappearance.
 North Korea Modern Paintings

• a special kind of technique of painting on rice paper showed itself

as a dominant trend and style of production. The distinct kind of
painting with ink on the very fragile sheets of rice paper, called
chosonhwa,

• Art in North Korea best fits the statement that ‘all art is
propaganda’,
 North Korea Modern Paintings
• Discarded wood can be useful, at least that’s what Jae-Hyo Lee thinks
while making his wooden sculptures.
• He uses natural shapes like the globe and the cube, forming them out
of wood.
• However, Lee’s sculptures aren’t solid – the effect is achieved by
using a torch on the insides of the statue.
 Pakistan Modern Paintings

• Sajida Hussain

• Her Paintings are acclaimed worldwide and she has gained popularity
in abstract and figurative paintings. Also, her broad spectrum of work
includes figurative and horse painting in oil on canvas.
Singapore Modern Paintings
• Critically acclaimed Chinese artist,
Ren Zhen Yu has been increasingly
recognised for his distinctive portrait
series of historical and political icons.
Painting figures such as Mahatma
Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Albert
Einstein, Lee Kuan Yew and Mao
Zedong, Ren has managed to transform
the way we usually view these icons.
In his works are a spectrum of colours
that are juxtaposed to create a unique
expressionist interpretation of famous
faces and textures built on layering to
reinforce the portrayal of faces from
dierent perspectives.
 Singapore Modern Paintings

• Chen Wenling

• is a contemporary Chinese Neo-Realist artist. Through a variety of

surreal, often grotesque sculptures—most often executed in a bright
monochrome red—he examines the rapid rise of consumerism in
modern-day China
 Singapore Modern Architecture

• With a strong background of cultural and ethnic diversity, Singapore

architecture is a result of its varied influences.
• Contemporary Singapore architecture has a strong focus on
sustainability, with many examples of vegetative landscapes being
introduced into high-rise buildings.
• Green architecture and ventilation is particularly important for the
architecture in Singapore due to its humid climate.
 Taiwan Modern Paintings

• Sun Pei-Mao’s fantastical neon works fuse the traditional with the
modern.

• while the monochromatic color schemes or odd, limited palettes—

neon greens, ochers, bright yellows—give his scenes a woozy,
hallucinogenic quality. Often, modern characters exist in the forefront
against backgrounds reminiscent of traditional brush paintings,
 Taiwan Modern Sculpture

• the wood sculptures of Hsu Tung Han are dynamically fashioned

pieces of fine art.

• The highlight of Han’s work are the “pixelations” that appear

throughout each figure. Using positive and negative space to great
effect, the wood blocks either push or pull. This gives his figures a
dynamism that seems to set them in motion.
 CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION

• The 21st century is just beginning – issues and ideas are evolving
rapidly and new artists are constantly gaining attention and influence.
• Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts,
and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was
already well underway in the 20th century.
• Anything that produced in the second half of the 20th century or
today is considered the arts of 21st century.