With artwork pullouts, plays on page sizes and surprise inserts of text printed on yellow notebook paper, the dynamic design of this first-ever monograph of Roberto Chabet (1937–2013) is fitting for the Philippines’ most celebrated conceptual artist. This fastidious tribute begins in the 1960s, when Chabet entered the art scene with his abstract paintings and works on paper that responded to the WWII-incurred devastation in Manila. These drawings evolved into three-dimensional forms as he experimented with space, eventually maturing into the unconventional transformations of everyday objects and found materials for which he is now known. A wealth of artwork images, exhibition views and newspaper clippings accompanies textual reflections—by Filipino artists and curators—that contextualize Chabet’s contributions to contemporary art, many of which paint a personal portrait of the revered teacher and mentor.
Almost a decade after the first edition, User’s Manual 2.0 starts 11 years earlier and ends nine years later, profiling 101 artists from Turkey in this massive tome edited by artist Halil Altındere and writer Süreyyya Evren. While each artist gets two spreads of glossy images representing their practice, the front third of the volume contains 16 bilingual (Turkish-English) texts—some reprised from the first edition, others newly commissioned—surveying the development of contemporary art and its ecosystem amid Turkey’s economic and political opening to the world. New contributions primarily come from past Istanbul Biennial curators (such as Fulya Erdemci, Charles Esche, Hou Hanru and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev), and also include Ahu Antmen’s survey of gender constructs in late 20th-century Turkey and Osman Erden’s overview of the last 15 years, packing maximum information about a nation’s art scene into a single tome.
(Left) 3 PARALLEL ARTWORLDS: 100 ART THINGS FROM CHINESE MODERN HISTORY, Published by Asia One Books and Hanart Projects. Edited by Chang Tsong-zung, Gao Shiming and Valerie C. Doran. (Right) DISSONANT ARCHIVES: CONTEMPOARY VISUAL CULTURE AND CONTESTED NARRATIVES IN THE MIDDLE EAST, Published by I.B. Tauris. Edited by Anthony Downey. Photo by Jen Kwok for ArtAsiaPacific.
In 2014, Hong Kong art patron and dealer Chang Tsong-zung’s Hanart TZ Gallery celebrated its 30th anniversary with “Hanart 100: Idiosyncrasies,” a symposium and non-sale showcase of works from Chang’s collection of modern and contemporary Chinese art. Expanding on that landmark event, the 483-page super-catalogue 3 Parallel Artworlds: 100 Art Things from Chinese Modern History posits that three concurrent “worlds”—the literati tradition, the socialist state and globalized capitalism—are the basis for parsing 20th century Chinese art. Essays by 14 of Chang’s coterie, including curator Gao Shiming and conceptual artist Qiu Zhijie, are followed by a section highlighting the gallery’s game-changing projects, like “China’s New Art, Post-1989” (1993–97). Lovingly crafted inside and out, it is a worthy contribution to the archive of scholarly books on China’s most tumultuous century.
The very first monograph on Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen investigates the genesis of a body of work that consistently comprises used clothing, cement, suitcases or combinations thereof, as metaphors for memory, demolition and globalization. One of three main contributors, art historian Wu Hung delves into these thematic “threads,” discoursing on the artist’s sculptures, installations and public interventions as bearers of lived experiences, odes to cities metamorphized in the name of progress and critiques of power structures—in worlds of commerce or international relations—that homogenize local and global spaces and communities. Yin’s voice is heard regularly throughout the book, whether in interviews, copious quotes embedded in essays or her own—previously unpublished—writings on specific projects. Husband and fellow artist Song Dong’s photo tour around her studio and an illustrated chronology of past exhibitions dating back to 1994 round off the steady survey.