New Books in Art

Exploring the work of established and emerging artists in Indonesia’s vibrant art world, Artists and the People: Ideologies of Art in Indonesia (NUS Press, 2022) examines why so many artists in the world’s largest archipelagic nation choose to work directly with people and in the studio. While the social dimension of Indonesian art makes it distinctive in the globalised world of contemporary art, Elly Kent is the first to explore this engagement in Indonesian terms. What are the historical, political and social conditions that lie beneath these polyvalent practices? How do formal and informal institutions, communities and artist-run-initiatives contribute to the practices and discourses behind socially-engaged art in Indonesia? What do artists do when they locate their practice in a broader social milieu, and what tensions arise when artists integrate communities, governments, politics, history and people into their practice?

Drawing on interviews with artists, translations of archival material, visual analyses and participation in artists’ projects, this book presents a unique, interdisciplinary examination of ideologies of art in Indonesia. It portrays the ways art practice and theory are understood within Indonesia and inside Indonesian-language discourse. Indonesia's artists have continued to explore, resist and draw on the methodologies and discourses of social responsibility and artistic autonomy generated by Indonesian arts practitioners through their early 20th-century encounters with modernity and the founding of the nation state. This book brings contemporary practice into conversation with art history in Indonesia.

Dr Elly Kent is a visual artist, translator, researcher and educator with 20 years of experience working in academia and the arts in Indonesia and Australia. Elly is Deputy Director of the ANU Indonesia Institute and Sub-dean of Languages in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She convenes the Year in Asia program and is Treasurer of the Indonesia Council, Australia’s peak body for Indonesian studies.
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Karl Whittington joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe (Pennsylvania State University Press,
2025). What role does desire play in the making of art objects? Art
historians typically answer this question by referring to historical
evidence about an artist's sexual identity or to particular kinds of
imagery. But what about anonymous artists? Or works whose subject matter
is mainstream? We know little about the identities and personalities of
most premodern artists, but this should not hold us back from thinking
about their embodied experience. In this book, Karl Whittington contends
that we can "queer" the works of anonymous makers by thinking about
their embodied experiences creating art. Considering issues of touch,
pressure, and gesture across substances such as wood, stone, ivory, wax,
cloth, paint, and metal, Whittington argues for an erotics of artisanal
labor, in which the actions of hand, body, and breath interact in
intimate ways with materials. Whittington takes seriously the agency of
materials and technical processes, arguing that they necessarily placed
the bodies of artists and artisans into physical situations and
psychological states that can be read through the lens of desire.
Combining historical evidence with speculative description, this
evocative set of essays broadens our understanding of the motivations
and experiences of premodern artists. It will appeal to scholars and
students of art history, medieval studies, gender studies, queer
studies, and anthropology.
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Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain
(Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Lewis Ryder examines John
Hilditch (1872-1930), a notorious collector of Chinese art who lied,
hoaxed and manipulated in his struggle against museum experts to become a
cultural authority. Previously overlooked as a pest with a dubious
collection, this book uses Hilditch to interrogate how far the
monumental social, cultural
and political changes of the early twentieth century unsettled social
and cultural hierarchies and how these hierarchies were remade. It shows
how the cultural elites were forced to engage with the public and
re-draw the boundaries of citizenship, expertise and high and low
culture in response to unprecedented social mobility, the
democratisation of culture and politics, as well as the effects of
British imperialism which brought ordinary Britons access to antiquities
as well as confidence to claim expertise over foreign cultures. The
book will interest social and cultural historians of Modern Britain,
museum scholars and art historians.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Is food porn a vibrant and democratic new expression of modern food culture or a superficial addition to an image-saturated world? Tracing its origins from the 1970s to today, this timely book examines the evolution of food porn as a desire-inducing aesthetic practice and a visually extravagant food spectacle.

Through discussions on class, gender, sexuality and national identities, Food Porn: Food Aesthetics in a Digital Age (Bristol University Press, 2026) by Dr. Jonatan Leer & Dr. Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager questions whether food porn reinforces social hierarchies or empowers individuals. Also exploring anti-food porn aesthetics, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the deeper social implications of food’s digital allure.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Art-Science Undisciplined invites us into a collaborative journey grounded in mutual exploration and transformation. Moving beyond transactional exchanges of expertise, artist Janani Balasubramanian and astrophysicist Natalie Gosnell draw on their own experiences, as well as stories from other art-science collaborators, to offer an imaginative guide for developing a values-based and joyful undisciplined practice.

This playbook offers practical and conceptual tools for co-creation that foster new, powerful alliances among artists, scientists, and their supporters. While attentive to the everyday reality of busy schedules and institutional demands, Balasubramanian and Gosnell illuminate strategies to change our current ways of working and dare us to imagine a more expansive future. The projects, potentials, and possibilities resulting from undisciplined creation will reshape not only the practitioners but their worlds altogether.

Janani Balasubramanian is an artist, director, and founder based at Stanford University.

Natalie Gosnell is an astrophysicist, artist, and Associate Professor of Physics at Colorado College.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of New Books Network.
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