'The geography of the visual arts changed with the end of the Cold War. Contemporary art was no longer defined, exhibited, interpreted, and acquired according to a blueprint drawn up in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin. The art world distributed itself into art worlds. With the emergence of new art scenes in Asia and the Middle East and the explosion of biennials, the visual arts have become globalized as surely as the world economy has. This book offers a new map of contemporary art's new worlds and documents the globalization of the visual arts and the rise of the contemporary over the last twenty years.' (back cover)

'With the upheavals coming in the wake of globalization and its attendant movements over the past twenty years, the era that witnessed the prevalence of Western canons in art history has come to a close. A global, contemporary art of diverse origins has now taken its place. But what are the implications for museums? According to what guidelines will they function in the future, and what roles are they to play? These are some among the opening questions posed by the "Global Art and the Museum" research project initiated a good five years ago at the ZKM ǀ Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, and which has recently culminated in a large-scale exhibition The Global Contemporary Art. Art Worlds after 1989 followed by the present publication The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds.’ (excerpt from preface)

Includes artist biographies of participating artists, index of exhibited works, biographies of contributing authors, and select colour reproductions of exhibited works.