Discrepant Abstraction is hybrid and partial, elusive and repetitive, obstinate and strange: it includes almost everything that does not neatly fit into the institutional narrative of abstract art as a monolithic quest for artistic ‘purity’. Exploring cross-cultural scenarios in 20th century art, this groundbreaking collection alters the understanding of abstract art as a signifier of modernity by revealing the multiple directions it has taken in diverse international contexts.

Impure, imperfect and incomplete, the version of abstraction that emerges from this global journey – from Hong Kong and Islamic regions to Canada, Australia, Europe and the United States – shows how the formal ingenuity of abstract art has been cross-fertilised, from abstract expressionism onwards, by creative discrepancies that arise when disparate visual languages are brought into dialogue.

Discrepant Abstraction is the second volume in the Annotating Art’s Histories series. Other titles in the series are Cosmopolitan Modernisms, Pop Art and Vernacular Cultures and Exiles, Diasporas & Strangers .