Re-imagining Western Art History in an Age of Globalization: Finding Blind Spots and Shifting Frontiers

Abstract

Nowadays art biennials are organized in the farthest corners of the world. Everywhere in Europe and America we see surveys emerging that include art works stemming from countries that were formerly excluded from the modern art scene: in addition to art from Europe and the United States we see contemporary art from China, Africa, India, the Middle East and Brazil. This globalization of the art world also manifests itself at the Venice Biennial and at Documenta in Kassel, the most prestigious international exhibitions of contemporary art. Never before have so many countries taken part with their own independent exhibition. The amount of art works exposed to the public has in this way increased worldwide, with new paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs and videos becoming visible to an international audience for the first time. In short: art is becoming more and more international, more extensive and more diverse. The artists of all these different countries belong to a class of so-called ‘art nomads’, who participate in the international avant-garde circuit. Because of this unstoppable development of global art and the global art market, the conceptual notion of contemporary art as used by the western world is gradually changing. In the west this concept was not only related to modernity, but also to particular avant-garde and innovatory attitudes, with every period inventing its own visual and conceptual manifestation of this modernity. But since recently, modernity has loosened itself from its inextricable bond with innovation and originality and is moving towards the embrace of a plurality of western and non-western artistic concepts, blended with important elements of local culture and tradition. Now that the world in this Information Age and Open Source Society is getting smaller all the time (let’s say, a global village), artists of non-western countries have become well aware of western art history and art theories. This syncretical art approach, expressed in a wide range of different styles, is what we’ve recently started to define as contemporary art. This is also the reason why the western art world is starting to ask itself the question if the all-encompassing western interpretation models, that is to say Modernism, Avant-garde and Postmodernism, are still topical and to the point. Over the past twenty years this development has caused an ongoing debate between cultural anthropologists and art historians about the way non-western art should be interpreted and judged and in what way it can take part of the western art world. Globalization in the art world mainly affects three areas: contemporary art, institutions and collections and academics. In this article I will focus on how globalization affects the discipline of art history. New challenges, issues and problems accompanying globalization demand new approaches and perspectives in the field. Within this discourse two problems need to be tackled. The first is the way the field should deal with the formation of a global history of art; the second is how to respond to contemporary art of non-western artists that is made in a globalized world. The generation of art historians that grew up after the Second World War are generally only acquainted with the development of western art from the Egyptians until now. In most art history books non-western art was only mentioned when it was considered an important source of inspiration for western art. Now that the postmodern acknowledgement of a plurality of narratives is accepted as common sense, we can see that some major art historical textbooks have taken the first step toward a more global approach towards art history. A short overview is given of the main art historical surveys of the last few years that have incorporated non-western art. In addition to these surveys, over the past five years we can see an explosion of discussions and writings about the way the art historical discipline should adapt its perspectives and approaches to the new global thinking. In this discourse we can find two main approaches: the contextual approach, that tries to view and understand art in its original context, and the universal approach, that departs from the assumption of the universality of the intrinsic values of art. The discourse about the re-evaluation or even transformation of the art historical discipline is dominated by the western sense of guilt towards non-western cultures. Western art history is seen as paternalistic, authoritarian, Euro-American centred, denigrating, and yes, neo-colonialist. The main point of critique is that the dominance of the occidental gaze seems to be the only fundament of the analytical apparatus of art scholarship. The time has come to differentiate this post-colonial stance: instead of thinking in terms of offender and victim we should build a constructive dialogue. In the first three decades of the twentieth century the interest in non-western art and cultures didn’t only manifest itself in cultural anthropology and art history, but also progressive artists let themselves get inspired by the otherness and strangeness of these cultures. The majority of the visual arts in the twentieth century can be characterized by a search to escape the former rules and values that had been previously imposed upon. Mostly this was found in artistic expressions that didn’t conform to the accepted western standard: non-western cultures and work by psychiatric patients and children. In the west we call this mentality ‘primitivism’; the term alone is of course an indication of the western internalization of the superiority of the western culture. The merging of western and non-western art in the twentieth century is identifiable in many different ways. It occurred to me that in the discussions about the formation of world art history all non-western art is treated alike. This obscures the arguments, because it so happens it’s of essential importance to make a clear distinction between the contemporary global non-western art and the non-western art that is solely rooted in local traditions. The last category contains ethnographic artefacts that played, or sometimes are still playing, a ritual and religious role in these societies and therefore they can’t possibly be compared in any way with the contemporary global art, both made by a western or non-western artist. The difference between western modern art and non-western contemporary art is on the contrary not so big at all, because here we can find a considerable influence of western ideas. Since the 1990’s a growing number of non-western artists started to focus on western art and western aesthetics. So western art is now for a change in a way a source of inspiration for non-western artists. Through the exchange of knowledge new hybrid art works emerge with a mixture of local and western views; a phenomenon we call glocal art. The globalization of the art world has been going on for quite a long time, but up until recently, the west had been blind for it. The difference with the previous period however, is that it’s now taking place on a much larger scale. This is the outcome of an increase of multicultural societies, the growing intercultural communication through internet and through the world wide spread of capitalism and liberal democracies – especially after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. One is almost tempted to conclude that it’s just a question of time before the different global art works will be accepted and appreciated automatically in their countries of origin and the west alike. Certain developments are simply inevitable and irreversible. Finally, another important factor in the globalization of the art world is of course the huge influence of the global art market. It has caused a rather paradoxical situation in the art world. It has given a growing number of non-western artists the opportunity to take part in the global avant-garde circuit. But it can also result in the dominance of only one type of art form or style, the new mainstream. Still, the ever-expanding world of contemporary global art will, hopefully, in the long run function as an antidote for the homogenization of the commercial art world.