PANORAMA: Recent Art from Contemporary Asia - 24 additional works on display at SAM in Singapore September 28, 2012

Contemporary art is often a dialogue with the social, economic and cultural issues of the present. Since 2000, the explosion of Asian art can be seen as a window to the epochal changes around us.

Cultures melt into each other, while urbanisation has transformed once familiar landscapes beyond recognition. At the same time, local communities and localities have responded to these homogenising forces with re-assertions of local identity and distinctiveness. Debates and discussions take place across the globe, and at fibre-optic speeds via the Internet. We can thus no longer live in isolated silos.

PANORAMA offers a wide lens to examine our world, and chart some of the issues pervading contemporary art-making in Asia today – the negotiation over values, social and political change, escalating urbanisation and the subsequent pressures on nature. Drawn entirely from SAM’s contemporary art collection, PANORAMA features 41 artists from 10 Asian countries working in painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, video and installation.