The “biennale culture” now determines much of the art world. Literature on the worldwide dissemination of art assumes nationalism and ethnic identity, but rarely analyzes it. At the same time there is extensive theorizing about globalization in political theory, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, political economy, sociology, and anthropology. Art and Globalization brings political and cultural theorists together with writers and historians concerned specifically with the visual arts in order to test the limits of the conceptualization of the global in art.
Among the major writers on contemporary international art represented in this book are Rasheed Araeen, Joaquín Barriendos, Susan Buck-Morss, John Clark, Iftikhar Dadi, T. J. Demos, Néstor García Canclini, Charles Green, Suman Gupta, Harry Harootunian, Michael Ann Holly, Shigemi Inaga, Fredric Jameson, Caroline Jones, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Anthony D. King, Partha Mitter, Keith Moxey, Saskia Sassen, Ming Tiampo, and C. J. W.-L. Wee.
Art and Globalization is the first book in the Stone Art Theory Institutes Series. The five volumes, each on a different theoretical issue in contemporary art, build on conversations held in intensive, weeklong closed meetings. Each volume begins with edited and annotated transcripts of those meetings, followed by assessments written by a wide community of artists, scholars, historians, theorists, and critics. The result is a series of well-informed, contentious, open-ended dialogues about the most difficult theoretical and philosophical problems we face in rethinking the arts today.
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Review “In our era of biennales and international galleries, contemporary art compels both a new, wider analysis as well as a rethinking of basic forms and definitions. Presented in the form of dialogues, even debates, in transcript, followed by individual responses, Art and Globalization ’s distillation of collective seminar discussions intends to open, rather than to close, its topics: considerations of both the recent history of visual culture toward some guiding theory of globalization and its consequences for art production and consumption across space rather than time. Readers should be alerted that this seminar will surely engage them as participants and partisans, sharpening their own personal responses to the contemporary art world, but without offering consistency, closure, or conclusions.”
—Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania
“This multivoiced volume successfully evokes the vastness of artistic production on a global scale. The conversations, assessments, and programmatic introductions and afterword make it crystal clear that if art is to be understood in global terms, the tasks of conceptual clarification, concept development, and methodological innovation must be taken up with intelligence, honesty, and energy, and in a way that takes thinking about art well beyond the usual parochialisms.”
—Mette Hjort, Chair Professor and Head, Visual Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
“ Art and Globalization makes an important contribution to the diverse critical practices and aesthetic performances that define the global era. The editors have orchestrated a range of perspectives passionately expressed by a roster of talented voices from across the world.”
—Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University
About the Author James Elkins is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Zhivka Valiavicharska is a PhD candidate in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Alice Kim is a PhD candidate in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Political Science
General
Art
Globalization
Front Cover 1
Stone Art Theory Page 3
Title Page 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 6
Series Preface 8
First Introduction 12
Second Introduction 16
The Seminars 20
1. The National Situation 24
2. Translation 34
3. The Prehistory of Globalization 48
4. Hybridity 62
5. Temporality 74
6. Postcolonial Narratives 84
7. Neoliberalism 96
8. Four Failures of the Seminars 108
9. Universality 120
Assessments 138
Globalism/Globalization by Caroline A. Jones 140
Letter on Globalization by Karl Eric Leitzel 149
Letter on Globalization by Rasheed Araeen 151
Hybridization and the Geopolitics of Art by Nestor Garcia Canclini 153
The Oxymoron of Global Art by Blake Gopnik 157
Circulate, But Without Differences! by Marina Grzinic 159
Academic Difficulties with "Convergence": Globalization and Contemporary Art by Jonathan Harris 163
Art, Globalization, and Imperialism by Anthony D. King 169
Narratives of Belonging: On the Relation of the Art Institution and the Changing Nation-State by Nina Montmann 172
Originality, Universality, and Other Modernist Myths by Ming Tiampo 177
Contemporary Art, "Contemporaneity," and World Art History by Reiko Tomii 182
Speaking of Modern and Contemporary Asian Art by C. J. W. -L. Wee 187
A Distant View by John Clark 192
Globalization and Transnational Modernism by Iftikhar Dadi 194
So What Might Be Solved Here? by Tani Barlow 206
Perspectives on Scale: From the Atomic to the Universal by Esther Gabara 211
A Remark on Globalization in (East) Central Europe by Jan Bakos 216
Globalization and (Contemporary) Art by T.J. Demos 220
Thinking Through Shards of China by Chris Berry 225
In and Out of the Local by Hyungmin Pai 229
What's Wrong with Global Art? by Partha Mitter 233
Global Art History and Transcultural Studies by Carolyn Loeb 237
Looking for Something by Suman Gupta 240
Nomadic Territories and Times by Saskia Sassen 248
Dead Parrot Society by Charles Green 252
Geoaesthetic Hierarchies: Geography, Geopolitics, Global Art, and Coloniality by Joaquin Barriendos 256
Afterword 262
Notes on the Contributors 296
Index 302
Back Cover 306
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