Asian Art debate at the Saatchi Gallery

The most groundbreaking contemporary art is from the East

11 Nov 2010

This event took place on Thursday November 11th. Full video of this debate is now available for our Premium Members.

You can listen to full audio coverage of the debate on the player below, or on the IQ² podcast page.

Event information:

Since the 1990s, New York galleries have witnessed an unprecedented 78% increase in exhibitions of Asian art, the bulk of it contemporary. Precipitated by the circumstances of their rapidly expanding economies, daily life for many in the East is undergoing something of a revolution. Contemporary art is part of this revolution. It realises the East’s rapidly evolving tastes, aspirations, and categories of consciousness, whilst articulating the accompanying anxieties about loss of identity and cultural specificity. Contemporary Art from the East both grapples with, and typifies, the problems of globalised modernity. Should we see this new cultural outpouring as the spoils or the victim of rapid globalisation?

Speakers for the motion

Alexandra Munroe

Senior Curator of Asian Art, Guggenheim Museum
Sara Raza

Independent Curator and Editor for West and Central Asia, Art Asia Pacific Magazine
Dr Iain Robertson

Head of Art Business at Sotheby's Institute of Art

Chair

Tim Marlow

Arts broadcaster and director of exhibitions at White Cube gallery

Speakers against the motion

Kenny Schachter

Curator, critic and dealer who deals in international art from impressionism and modernism to the art and design of today.
Sarah Kent

Freelance lecturer, broadcaster and writer and former Visual Arts Editor of Time Out.
Richard Wentworth

One of Britain’s leading sculptors and Professor and Head of the Royal College of Art's Sculpture Department.