Resistance blooms where violence blows - encapsulated in the 3-word title of this well-researched book about contemporary art in Southeast Asia after 1970. To untangle the subject matter in all its complexity, Iola Lenzi mapped, compared and analysed the power dynamics between covert expressions and censorship, between artists and audience, and between high and low art in each individual country in the region, against their respective socio-political challenges over the last 3 decades. The result is not just an overarching account of what had happened creatively as a whole, but an articulated presentation of the interconnectedness and unique sensibilities across different generations of artistic practices, in the face of regional and international influence.

As an art historian, curator and lecturer of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art based in Singapore, Lenzi leverages her easy access to neighboring countries, her multi-lingual skill, and her extensive academic knowledge to reflect the binary theoretical approach at a time when the art world is finally starting to look outside of the prism of conventional collecting categories. Although the contemporary Southeast Asian auction market witnessed a 19.8% decline last year¹, Lenzi reminds the reader that much of the regional art is intrinsically linked to social life and individual agency, using ready-mades and image-semantic constructions, installations and performance in public space to democratise critical thinking and the act of defiance. Unlike Euro-American artists from the same period, the medium of choice by contemporary Southeast Asian artists serves as a site of conversation, not commodification, which often requires contextual reading and participation from the audience to ‘complete’ the work. It is not an enviable task to explain the systemic oppressions (religion, gender, ethnicity, class) embedded in the visual language to those who are not familiar with the history of and social environment in Southeast Asia. Yet, the author eloquently chronicles the background and trajectory alongside images of surveyed artwork to make the topic digestible to both seasoned and general readers.

‘New art confronting new realities was built from home’, Lenzi writes. So is this insightful book about the part of contemporary art history that has long been overlooked. Few European critics had attempted to discuss the discourse through the lens of Western movements. On that note, the author responds with a convincing case that regional perspectives can lend a global outlook to foreign spectators, more so now than before. After all, aren’t we all facing similar threats and hostilities, from the political, economical, environmental and technological point of view?

^{1 ArtTactic Global Art Market Outlook 2025 Report p.23}