Search Results
Author:
Abstract
The growing disjuncture between the diversity of art practices and the narrow focus of canonical art histories has prompted art historians to pronounce the death of art history. And yet very little has changed because the modernist canon still dominates global art. The western avant-garde continues to be a closed discourse, writing the art of Asia, Africa and Latin America out of art history. Marginalization of non-western art is explained in terms of its ‘derivativeness’. And yet there have been significant developments in non-western art since the 20th century, many of its artists engaged in creating vital modernist expressions of cultural resistance to colonialism. We need to probe more closely the epistemological framework that fuels the ‘universalist’ claims of the western canon. Even though western avant-garde has inspired the rest of the world, it is still dominated by the universalism that creates asymmetrical relations between the centre and the peripheries, which is not one of geography but of power and authority, with modernism creating its own tacit exclusions and inclusions. Hence borrowings of primitive art by western artists such as Picasso are judged as mere affinities, unlike the use of the syntax of cubism by non-western artists, which is seen as the influence of the West. This paper proposes certain strategies for ‘decentring’ the dominant canon. An inflected narrative of global modernity offers us a possible way of restoring the artist’s agency in the context of colonial empires, by analysing art practices and reception as a cultural document that is historically situated.
Author:
Abstract
The growing disjuncture between the diversity of art practices and the narrow focus of canonical art histories has prompted art historians to pronounce the death of art history. And yet very little has changed because the modernist canon still dominates global art. The western avant-garde continues to be a closed discourse, writing the art of Asia, Africa and Latin America out of art history. Marginalization of non-western art is explained in terms of its ‘derivativeness’. And yet there have been significant developments in non-western art since the 20th century, many of its artists engaged in creating vital modernist expressions of cultural resistance to colonialism. We need to probe more closely the epistemological framework that fuels the ‘universalist’ claims of the western canon. Even though western avant-garde has inspired the rest of the world, it is still dominated by the universalism that creates asymmetrical relations between the centre and the peripheries, which is not one of geography but of power and authority, with modernism creating its own tacit exclusions and inclusions. Hence borrowings of primitive art by western artists such as Picasso are judged as mere affinities, unlike the use of the syntax of cubism by non-western artists, which is seen as the influence of the West. This paper proposes certain strategies for ‘decentring’ the dominant canon. An inflected narrative of global modernity offers us a possible way of restoring the artist’s agency in the context of colonial empires, by analysing art practices and reception as a cultural document that is historically situated.
Narratives, Concepts, and Practices at work, 20th and 21st Centuries
Series:
Berliner Schriften zur Kunst
Contributors:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , and
Based on the papers presented at an international conference at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2013, the publication focuses on problems and challenges of art history’s epistemic frameworks. Following four guiding themes – narrations, venues, concepts and practice – the contributions address the aspect of mobility of aesthetic objects and their contextualisation from different analytical perspectives.
The essays examine complex processes of transcultural negotiations that are set in motion by »travelling« objects, artists, ideas and institutions in order to trace and analyse historical conditions that generated specific frameworks with their respective art historical narratives and artistic production.
The essays examine complex processes of transcultural negotiations that are set in motion by »travelling« objects, artists, ideas and institutions in order to trace and analyse historical conditions that generated specific frameworks with their respective art historical narratives and artistic production.
Narratives, Concepts, and Practices at work, 20th and 21st Centuries
Series:
Berliner Schriften zur Kunst
Based on the papers presented at an international conference at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2013, the publication focuses on problems and challenges of art history’s epistemic frameworks. Following four guiding themes – narrations, venues, concepts and practice – the contributions address the aspect of mobility of aesthetic objects and their contextualisation from different analytical perspectives.
The essays examine complex processes of transcultural negotiations that are set in motion by »travelling« objects, artists, ideas and institutions in order to trace and analyse historical conditions that generated specific frameworks with their respective art historical narratives and artistic production.
The essays examine complex processes of transcultural negotiations that are set in motion by »travelling« objects, artists, ideas and institutions in order to trace and analyse historical conditions that generated specific frameworks with their respective art historical narratives and artistic production.