Recent, new, and commissioned works by artists from mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are showcased in the exhibition Past in Reverse: Contemporary Art of East Asia, organized by the San Diego Museum of Art. The exhibition’s curator, Betti-Sue Hertz, aims to explore how such art references the past. As the idea of the “past” can mean many things, her thematic focus poses an unusual challenge for the viewer who may lack the requisite knowledge of the region known as East Asia. An illustrated catalogue with essays by the curator and other scholars and critics from mainland China, Japan, and South Korea helps to shed light on the larger historical context. Biographies and analyses of individual works, also included in the catalogue, provide essential information concerning artists and art groups that are not widely known in the West. East Asia comprises distinct communities and nation-states with shifting hegemonies and disparate economic and political realities. Complicating the situation is each region’s interactions with the West. Japan has the longest history of westernization, industrialization, and modernization since the Meiji Restoration (1868) and has emerged after the Second World War as an economic superpower. In mainland China (i.e., the People’s...