This book intervenes in current debates on global art history and modernism. Taking a postcolonial perspective, it responds to the challenges of developing a post-Eurocentric art history by providing a study of the transcultural in artistic practice, theory, and anti-colonial liberation movements from the 1920s to the 1960s.
During the first half of the twentieth century, a transcultural modernism emerged in many places around the globe. At the same time, Western concepts of race and culture began to be subjected to theoretical critique. Transmodern adopts the motif of contact developed by anthropologists and sociologists, extending it to cover exchanges and collaborations between artists across colonial boundaries. Through case studies from Indian modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and post-war abstraction, the book presents methodological considerations for a postcolonial history of modern art. In doing so, it interprets the diversity of global modernisms not merely as regional effects of cultural globalisation, but as intentional and political responses to the coloniality of Western modernity. Theoretically acute and richly illustrated, Transmodern will be essential reading for students and scholars of art history, transcultural studies, and postcolonial studies.