Pursuing a new and timely line of research in world art studies, Humor in Global Contemporary Art is the first edited collection to examine the role of culturally specific humor in contemporary art from a global perspective.
Since the 1960s, increasing numbers of artists from around the world have applied humor as a tool for observation, critique, transformation, and debate. Exploring how humorous art produced over the past six decades is anchored in local sociopolitical contexts and translated or misconstrued when exhibited abroad, this book opens new conversations regarding the functioning of humor and the ways in which art travels across the globe. With contributions by an impressive array of internationally based scholars covering six major continental regions, the book is organized into four distinct geographical sections: Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, South and North America, and Europe. This structure highlights the cultural specificity of each region while the book as a whole offers a critical perspective on the postcolonial, globalized art network.
Reflecting on present-day processes of globalization and biennialization, which confront viewers with humorous art from a variety of cultures and countries, this book will provide readers with a culturally sensitive understanding of how humor has become vital to many contemporary artists working in an unprecedentedly interconnected world.
Upping the antics of funny scholarship, this timely anthology offers a uniquely wide-angled perspective; from Pakistan and Palestine to Asia and Aotoroa/New Zealand; on formations of global, national, regional and local humor. Traveling outside the Freudian slipstream, this volume tracks how comedy plays out in border conflicts, stereotypes, activism and community and identity formations. It leavens, sublimates and jousts with, even ameliorates, our whole earth catalogue of woes.