This book investigates the meanings of Malaysian modern and postmodern art through the understanding of social and political conditions that shape the emerging middle class in which Malaysian artists belong by exploring how Malaysian artists’ preoccupation has shifted from Malay/Islamic-centric artistic tendencies to a scare postmodern outlook. Malaysian art that is presumed to be postmodern can either be one that evokes a conscious racial or religious identity, art that manifests or highlights class interests, or art that loses its locality and inheres a sense of cosmopolitanism as it the artistic themes and subject matter crosses national border,. Drawing from the fields of art history, cultural history, sociology and Malaysian Studies in particular, this book investigates the forms of postmodernity in Malaysian art, discussing the shift from modern to postmodern outlook in the context of situasi percamoden, or Malaysia’s “postmodern situation.”

-From the back cover