Discrepant Abstraction

For anyone who thinks the question of abstract art is settled, this book will come as a surprise. Discrepant abstraction is hybrid and partial, elusive and repetitive, obstinate and strange. It includes almost everything that does not neatly fit into the institutional narrative of abstract art as a monolithic quest for artistic purity. Exploring cross-cultural scenarios in twentieth-century art, this second volume in the Annotating Art's Histories series alters our understanding of abstract art as a signifier of modernity by revealing the multiple directions it has taken in wide-ranging international contexts. Impure, imperfect, and incomplete, the version of abstraction that emerges from this global journey--from Hong Kong and Islamic regions to Canada, Australia, Europe, and the United States--shows how the formal ingenuity of abstract art has been cross-fertilized, from abstract expressionism onwards, by creative discrepancies that arise when disparate visual languages are brought into dialogue. Discrepant Abstractionis essential reading for students, practitioners and anyone curious about cross-cultural interaction in the visual arts. Copublished with inIVA/Institute of International Visual Arts, LondonMercer, Kobena is the author of 'Discrepant Abstraction', published 2006 under ISBN 9780262633376 and ISBN 026263337X.