Table of Contents

Introduction 2
Part I: Transgressing the borders of Western Art History
Recent developments in globalizing Western Art History 5
The Western sense of guilt towards non-Western art and culture 8
Earlier attempts to develop World Art History (1880-1930) 10
The fascination of the avant-garde artist for non-Western art 12
Best of both worlds 16

Part II: New perspectives on global contemporary art

The incompatibility of the cyclic and progressive approach
of time and art 19
Western and non-Western art come together 22
The emergence of the transnational art world 26
The global art market and the danger of homogenization of art 30
Conclusion 33
Notes 35
Bibliography 40
Summary 43

1
Introduction

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. 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.
Together with 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 recently, modernity has
loosened itself from its inextricable bond with innovation and originality and is
moving toward the embrace of a plurality of Western and non-Western artistic
concepts, blended with important elements of local culture and tradition. A category
of non-Western artists responds deliberately to the issue of globalization by
criticizing the dominance of the Western art concept or the exotic way their work is
being interpreted (Jimmy Durham, Roy Villevoy). Another effect is the hybridization
of contemporary art, which originates from the mutual influences that contemporary
artists from different cultural backgrounds have on each other's work (Shirin Neshat,
Yinka Shonibare, Ai Wei Wei, Meshac Gaba, Chris Ofili ). Now that the world in this
Information Age and Open Source Society is getting smaller all the time - a global
village -, artists of non-Western countries have become well aware of Western art
history and art theories. This syncretic art approach, expressed in a wide range of
2
different styles, is what we’ve recently started to define as contemporary global art or
cross-cultural modernism.1 This so-called global turn or transnational turn has
questioned the validity of the all-encompassing Western interpretation models and
vocabulary, that is to say Modernism, Avant-garde and Postmodernism. The interest
in contemporary non-Western art can actually be seen as another aspect of the
continuing process of the disappearance of the hierarchic art system since 1960’s. It’s
not a coincidence however that this runs parallel with the growing criticism on
modernist dogmas (feminist art theory, institutional critique, poststructuralist theory,
post-colonial theory). From that time on it has become less apparent what belongs to
the centre of high culture and what to the periphery.
Globalization in the art world mainly affects three areas: contemporary art,
institutions and collections and academics. I will focus on how globalization affects
this last area, specifically within the discipline of Art History.
On closer inspection the essence of this whole issue is the key-question what art is
and who has the authority to determine it. The all-inclusiveness of this question,
which touches upon historical and art philosophical aspects, makes this debate so
complex and indefinite. It’s not my intention to provide here an exhaustive overview
of the existing definitions and origins of the concept art, but it’s important to bear in
mind that this plays a dominant but often hidden role in this discourse.
A large part of the debate about the new challenges, issues and problems
accompanying globalization has been taking place in academia since the middle of
the nineties of the twentieth century, and strategies developed here can turn out to be
useful in other areas as well.2 Within this discourse two problems need to be tackled.
The first is the way the field can deal with the formation of a World Art History: is
there a need to rewrite the history of art when we include non-Western art (or
artefacts) made before the large scale globalization of the last 25 years and how can
this be done? This problem I will discuss in part one and in part two I will delve into
the second issue, which is how to respond as art historians to contemporary art made
by non-Western artists in a globalized world. It’s important to make a clear
distinction between these two problems, because over the past 25 years the issues
3
involved with the international manifestation of non-Western art appear to fade away
slowly but surely. Awareness of this ongoing process of mutual influences is even
one of the promising developments in the present global art world. It goes without
saying that non-Western art theorists/historians can have a rather different viewpoint.
My hope is that by learning from each other’s approaches we can develop satisfactory
solutions.

4
Part I: Transgressing the borders of Western Art History
Recent developments in globalizing Western Art History

Confronted with a vast amount of art and artefacts from other countries, all with their
corresponding histories and traditions, a growing number of art historians in the West
no longer feel comfortable with the existing art historical methods and theories,
which largely stem from a Euro-American nineteenth century tradition. 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. A revealing example is
the most influential survey The Story of Art (1950) – originally written as an
educational art book for children – by the famous art historian E.H. Gombrich. His
description of the evolutionary development toward realism, and its subsequent
decline, has until recently been illustrative for the art historical discipline. In this
narrative (clearly the only narrative, otherwise he would have called it A Story of Art)
there is only one chapter about non-Western art: chapter 7 Looking eastward, Islam,
China, second to thirteenth century.3
The growing interest in questioning the paradigms of Western art history didn’t of
course start with the recent interest to incorporate non-Western art in one way or
another, but already started in the 1970’s when art theorists used deconstructivist
strategies to unmask the modernist parameters of Western art history. Especially
feminist art historians and later postcolonial theory have contributed significantly to
the unmasking of the modernist narrative. 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 toward art history.
One of the pioneers in this reconsideration of the art historical discipline in a global
context is the American art historian James Elkins. With his Stories of Art (2002) he

5
demonstrates his interest of thinking outside the Gombrich box.4 By telling non-
Western art histories, Elkins criticizes the standard Western narrative, which is
largely limited to the story of the rise and fall of naturalism in Western art. Another
example of rejecting the biased Occidental Gaze is Hugh Honour’s and John
Fleming’s decision to change the title of their The World History of Art (1982) into A
World History of Art in 1999.5 The addition of the chapter ‘Contemporary Art and
Globalization’ in the most recent edition of the widely read survey History of Modern
Art (2010) by H.H. Arnason and Elizabeth Mansfield is another clear example of the
inevitability to deal with the global art production.6 The survey Art History (2010) by
Marilyn Stokstad, where, in a chapter titled ‘The International Scene since 1950’,
globalization is described as the most important and influential development in the
21st century.7 Finally, I mention the recently published survey Exploring Art. A
Global, Thematic Approach, written by M. Lazzari and D. Schlesier. 8 As their point
of departure they take the stance that there isn’t just one universal definition of art,
but that this definition fluctuates according to place and time. With this starting-point
they present a survey of art in all ages and cultures on the basis of themes that can be
traced in all artistic expressions.
Besides these attempt to adapt the Western art historical narrative by injecting her
with other narratives, there is another group striving to complete renewal of the
theoretical apparatus of conventional art history: In Mirror of the World, a new
history of Art (2007) Julian Bell tried to survey the development of the visual arts
across time, space and the artificial boundaries of tribes, nations and religious sects; 9
John Onians attempted in Atlas of World Art to develop a new framework based on a
interdisciplinary approach with a collaboration of specialists from disciplines such as
art history, anthropology and archaeology.10 Philosopher and art historian David
Carrier has written A World Art History and its Objects, in which he explores the
major questions in a philosophical fashion11; and David Summers’ Real Spaces:
World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism (2003) discards all the
previous methodologies, even the most recent ones: 'formalist, contextual and post-
structural approaches to art cannot provide the basis for a truly global and
6
intercultural art history'.12 In a way these alternative art histories can’t escape the use
of certain criteria, sometimes even rather subjective, to select and interpret artworks.
In addition to these surveys, over the past ten years we can see an explosion of
discussions and writings about the way the art historical discipline should adapt its
perspectives and approaches to new global thinking. Some of the most important
books in this light are Is Art History Global? (2007) by James Elkins,13 World Art
Studies: Exploring Concepts and Approaches (2008) partly written and edited by
Kitty Zijlmans and Wilfried van Damme, Changing Perspectives. Dealing with
Globalization in the Presentation and Collection of Contemporary Art and Art
History in the wake of the Global Turn.14 These books have contributed in an
important way to the exploration of the possibilities and impossibilities of a global art
history. Universities are also increasingly conscious of the problems connected to
globalization and have founded special programmes. In the United Kingdom the
University of East Anglia is a pioneer in this respect: they founded the School of
World Art Studies and Museology in 1992.15John Onians, one of the leading figures
in these debates and involved in shaping the East Anglia Programme, wrote an article
in 1996 in which he as one of the first proposed the development of ‘World Art
Studies’.16
In this discourse we can find two main approaches: the contextual approach, which
tries to view and understand art in its original context, and the universal approach,
which departs from the assumption of the universality of the intrinsic values of art.
By using these approaches as a frame of reference, and comparing them while
examining related issues, they both function as a soundboard and as a means to detect
problematic areas and pitfalls. Many debates are still ongoing and problems still need
to be solved. Or perhaps we should in some cases admit that there is not one solution
and that some issues tend to be in fact a ‘self-imposed aporie’.17

7
The Western sense of guilt towards non-Western art and culture

It occurred to me that 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. There seems to be a consensus – although the arguments can differ
– that the Western approach towards non-Western art should be disapproved.
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. Again and again we can read that Western art history is full of blind
spots, dogmatic in its points of departure and that it operates from a reductionist view
of the concept of art.18 If Western art history incorporates non-Western art in the
existing surveys, it is accused of ‘appropriation’ of non-Western art and of lack of
respect for the specificity of these art forms.
The West is accused of Western neo-imperialism: the West continues to perceive
itself as the main supplier of art and art theories.19
If on the other hand non-Western art is interpreted from the anthropological
viewpoint, that is to say in its social-cultural and religious context, we would
inherently refuse to acknowledge it as ‘real art’. The West is by definition the bad
guy.
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. How can we
overcome this impasse? This collective attack on the own historiography and its
methods tends to be rather masochistic and therefore not a very fruitful way to solve
the problems from an objective point of view. What’s the use of blaming the Western
developments in history, art, art theories and aesthetics? Instead of discarding our
own thinking and tradition we should think of meaningful changes and adaptations to
the new global constellation. Another reason why the West shouldn’t be too hard on
itself is that the effort to give non-Western art a place in the world history of art is
initiated by, indeed, the West. Even the most idealistic observer can’t deny that most
8
non-Western countries don’t have art historical surveys of their own history of art and
the few that are written are based on Western approaches. James Elkins (again), who
thoroughly explored the worldwide practices of art history, found out that there are
no “conceptually independent national or regional traditions of art historical writing
outside the West”.20 It seems to me that the whole debate about the new global
methodology of art history comes in a different light when the sheer fact that there is
no non-Western tradition of art history is taken into account, that is to say a tradition
with its own theoretical frames and viewpoints.
One could also look at this issue from quite a different perspective. Why should the
West write the non-Western art history? A real neutral and objective way to do this,
where the ‘contamination’ of Western thoughts is banned, would be to let every
country and culture write about their own history of art, based on their own methods
and aesthetics. But in this time of globalization – if we are honest, for a large part a
euphemism for Westernization - this seems a rather naïve and superseded mission.
The best way to define a new art history is not by imposing radical solutions, but by
gradually introducing new valuable changes, that follow from an open and critical
mind. This proposal doesn’t seem very sensational and even less revolutionary, but it
does have more viability than constructing a complete new and universal framework
that will release the discipline of art history from its problems in one stroke like a
deus ex machina.

9
Earlier attempts to develop World Art History (1880-1930)

Authors like David Summers and John Onians don’t agree with such a step-by-step
approach. Ironically, their aim to invent a totally new art history, freed from Western
concepts, can be seen as a logic continuation of the Western tradition of the urge for
innovation, not only in art but also in art theory an art history. They let us believe,
after all, that they are the pioneers of a totally new art history by discarding all the
former concepts and methods. Without doubt these studies are prominently erudite
and innovative, but they lack methodological coherence and clear focus.21
Moreover, on closer inspection, these approaches are not entirely new. Ulrich
Pfisterer, who delved into the origin of the art history discipline in Germany in the
period 1880-1930, revealed that the strive for a world art history and the
accompanying theoretical discourse were already core business back then.22 In order
to relieve our current brooding on the subject, it’s very clarifying and instructive to
know about the debates that were going on during that time.
In the period 1880-1930 a large amount of world art history books were published,
especially in Germany. Since the 1930s this global approach of art history had fallen
into oblivion and non-Western art disappeared in the surveys. One of the main
reasons for this is that after World War II this kind of historiography was considered
an expression of colonial thinking. Of course it can’t be denied that the expeditions to
the colonies brought the West in direct contact with the original non-Western
artefacts; this was even one of the important impulses for the development of a new
academic discipline: cultural anthropology. However, Pfisterer proves convincingly
that there are certainly also more philosophical and methodological considerations
that can explain the large interest in the formation of a world art history.23 When we
compare the present enterprise to write a world art history with these first attempts,
the similarities are remarkable. In the first period we can equally speak of two
tendencies concerning the theoretical points of departure for the discipline of art
history: Kunstgeschichte (art history) took as starting point the teleological concept of
the history of art and was striving to fit non-Western art into this development. This
10
endeavour was hugely inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution. It wasn’t taken into
account that many non-Western cultures didn’t have any historical consciousness and
weren’t familiar with the Western concept of art. The so-called Kunstwissenschaft
(art science) on the other hand was more positivistic and believed in the possibility to
design holistic models and laws from the conviction that creativity is an innate human
feature.24 They were not so much interested in the historical development itself, but
more in the psychology of the creative man and even races (Völkerpsychologie)
across time and place.25 The human psyche is in essence always the same, but its
manifestation changes through time, place and cultural traditions. Consequently they
didn’t believe in the existence of a single canon of aesthetic norms, that is to say, the
Western canon. The universality of art made it realistic – following the natural
sciences – to reach an overarching global framework in the study of art. By focusing
on what was essentially artistic and visual, they even thought Kunstwissenschaft
could become one of the leading ‘human sciences’ of the future.26 After World War II
when cultural anthropology and art history had become two strictly separated
disciplines, art history started to exclude the non-Western art in favour of Western
art. The breakthrough of modernism and modernity also accelerated this process of
Westernization of art history. So Western modernism with its idea of autonomy and
self-reflexivity became the specific and dominant narrative in the history of Western
art.

11
The fascination of the avant-garde artist for non-Western art

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
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
imposed. 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.27 In the West we call this mentality ‘primitivism’; this term alone is of
course an indication of the Western internalization of the superiority of Western
culture. The merging of Western and non-Western art in the twentieth century is
identifiable in many different ways. Before World War II even the majority of the art
movements and styles are clearly influenced – especially or even in most cases
exclusively, in a stylistic way - by non-Western art: Japonism, expressionism,
cubism, dada and surrealism. But also after the war primitivistic tendencies can be
found. A clear example is Joseph Beuys who considered himself a shaman and The
Wiener Aktionisten who performed primitivistic Dionysian rituals with naked bodies
and blood. The Western artists were mainly attracted by the innocence and purity
they felt to be the essence of non-Western artefacts. By integrating the stylistic
features of non-Western work the visual language of Western art expanded
considerably. This integration of non-Western elements didn’t mean however that the
Western aesthetic views were abandoned. On the contrary: the search for purity and
the rejection of former styles was another expression of the urge for originality and
authenticity.28
Not only artists were interested in the aesthetic power of non-Western objects, also
the way ethnological and art museums started to show this work reflects this same
fascination. An important impetus was the book Negerplastik, written by the German
cultural anthropologist Carl Einstein that appeared in1915. This book presented for
the first time a rich overview of the visual African culture through the 119
12
photographs of African sculptures. Next to these examples his opinion that no one
was entitled to discard these works - despite the strange and often disturbing
character of these works - as non-art contributed to this aesthetic attitude. The
rearrangement and the foundation of ethnological museums is a clear sign of this
interest. In 1926 the ethnological museum in München was reorganized and in 1928
The Trocadéromuseum (renamed in Musée de L’homme in 1937). This tendency was
continued after The Second World War. In 1957 The Museum of Primitive Art in
New York opened its doors (Robert Goldwater, famous for his book Primitivism in
Modern Art (1938) was the first director) and in 1960 the Musée des Colonies in
Paris was redesigned and renamed in the Musée des Art Africains et Océaniens.
In addition to this there were organized numerous exhibitions in the thirties in the
Trocadéromuseum (by Paul Rivet and Henri Rivière) of non-Western objects, with a
clear focus on their artistic features. But also museums of modern art paid attention
before and after the war to so called primitive art: in 1935 Negro African Art and in
1946 Art of the Pacific Ocean in the MOMA and in 1954 Masterpieces of African Art
in the Brooklyn Museum in New York. 29
The exhibition Modern Art New and Old in 1955 in the Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam should be mentioned in this respect. For the first time Western and non-
Western objects were shown in one exhibition, an approach that was considered as
remarkably innovative in the exhibition Magiciens de la terre in the Centre
Pompidou in Paris in 1989. The organizers of Modern Art New and Old, the director
Willem Sandberg and curator Hans Jaffé, were inspired by the exhibition 40.000
Years of Modern Art in London in 1948. Herbert Read and Roland Penrose intended
with this exhibition to demonstrate the universalistic character of art and the
permanent presence of artistic features that are now considered as modern.
In these post-war years the book Le Musée Imaginaire written in 1947 by André
Malraux highly influenced this attitude. To Malraux it was impossible to trace the
original meaning of artworks and the only thing we really have is the experience in
the here and the now. Furthermore, by photographing artworks and displaying them
in museums the works are taken out of their context, whereby exclusively the stylistic
13
characteristics remain. This makes it possible to make a personal and associative
combination of different works without taking into account their cultural
background.30 A contemporary example of such an attitude is the emplacement of the
Robert and Lisa Sainsbury collection in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, that is
associated with the University of East Anglia in Norwich. It’s of course no
coincidence that this is the University where John Onians wrote his keywork, the
above mentioned Atlas of World Art (2004). A new impulse to the debate concerning
the relation between modern art and non-Western art was given by the ambitious
exhibition Primitivism in 20th Century Art, Affinities of the Modern and Tribal in
1984 at MOMA in New York, organized by William Rubin and Kirk Varnedoe.31
This exhibition, where for the first time an overview was presented of all Western art
movements and artists that were influenced by non-Western art, demonstrated an
explicit modernist perspective by focusing exclusively on formal aspects. Artefacts
and tribal objects were solely shown as formal sources of inspiration for modern
masterpieces, without providing the socio-historical context of these objects.
However, one of the most remarkable outcomes of this exhibition and research is the
clear omnipresence of the influence of non-Western art on 20th century Western art,
be it in material or immaterial sense. Primitivism in 20th Century Art may have been
the first large-scale overview on this theme, but at the same time it ushered in the era
of postcolonial thinking; the exhibition was sharply criticised for its formalist
approach that didn’t do justice to the singularity of non-Western art. Five years later
Jean-Hubert Martin tried to correct the former ‘colonist’ and modernist mentality
with the highly original exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at Centre Pompidou in
Paris. Martin’s intention was to present an equal juxtaposition of Western and non-
Western art. He avoided the word art because of its problematic connotations in
different cultures and he replaced it by the concept magic. All artists were so to say
magiciens. But a striking similarity with Primitivism in 20th century art was the
absence of any cultural and anthropological clarification. Despite his endeavour to
treat all participating artists equally, Martin too was accused of cultural imperialism.
The main criticisms were directed at his pretention to be able as a white connoisseur
14
to select non-Western artists and his lack of sensitivity toward the unequal economic
and power relations between the West and the rest of the world. The result was that
the exhibition in a way was still divided in a section with rather stereotypical non-
Western art and a section with sophisticated conceptually-based Western art. Rasheed
Araeen lucidly criticized the exhibition exactly for its lack of theoretical and
conceptual framework to link the different art works stemming from different
cultures. He pointed out that Martin used different criteria for non-Western art and
Western art: ’While African and Asian artists are identified by their own cultural
roots (Martin speaks of art without ‘Western contamination’, H.B), Western artists
are recognized by their concern for cultures other than their own.’ Araeen’s question
was why Martin not also looked for folk or traditional art in Western culture.32
Even though the non-Western art was presented in a decontextualized manner, this
exhibition is generally seen as a landmark in the changing Western mentality towards
non-Western art.33 The exhibition actually functions as an early example of the
universalistic view on art, with its interest in art’s intrinsic qualities (beauty, balance,
imagination, power of expression).34 The innovative aspect of Les Magiciens de la
Terre was not so much the combination of Western and non-Western art, but the fact
that for the first time contemporary non-Western art was displayed next to
contemporary Western art: a first sign that non-Western contemporary art was taken
seriously by the Western art world.

15
Best of both worlds

The embrace of non-Western art by Western artists and art historians before World
War II tells us something about the affinity that was felt. Recognition at least, of the
uncorrupted purity, call it the essence of art, they thought to find in non-Western art.
In a way, in this interest lies a hidden belief in the universality of art. This doesn’t
mean necessarily that art always looks the same. The essence manifests itself in
different guises, dependent on time, place and tradition. I wonder what fruit it would
bare to deny that a comprehensive understanding of the intentions and meanings of
certain art forms can be achieved without the study of the culture it arose from. To
me it seems one can choose for the best of both worlds: a complementary mixture of
the contextual approach and the universalist approach. What is the sense of excluding
one or the other? It is good to note that when I refer to the universalist approach I’m
certainly not referring to the now popular Darwinian aesthetics that seeks to explain
the art-making impulse in evolutionary psychological and biological terms. Within
this method the existence and origin of human creativity is reduced by two main
Darwinian paradigms: natural and sexual selection and survival of the fittest. These
neurobiological explanations seem to me quite predictable and simplistic and
furthermore they never get specific.35 Closest to my ideal of combining these
seemingly oppositional approaches comes intercultural studies.36
Intercultural studies takes as its starting point that it should be possible to develop a
conceptual apparatus that is ‘culturally neutral’. One of the main notions is therefore
that the capacity to transform visual media in order to attract the beholders attention
through shape, colour and line as well as through subjects and meanings is something
human and universal. This endeavour to discover the fundamentals of human artistic
behaviour also explains the renewed interest for the study of the origins of art over
the last decade.
This intercultural comparative analysis is most fruitful when a clear starting point is
defined, the so-called tertium comparationis. All sorts of themes and issues, ranging
from pure tangible and material to the conceptual can be brought into the comparison.
16
The intercultural study will increase transcultural understanding by highlighting both
the differences as well as the discovered universal patterns. I sympathise with the
view of Wilfried van Damme, who states that this method may open up a whole
range of fundamental questions concerning the place and role of the visual arts in
human existence: ‘…studying traditions’ artistic and aesthetic vocabularies and the
conceptual frames in which they are embedded may provide a fascinating entry into
other cultural worlds, throwing a unique light on the creation, use, and experience of
the visual arts in varying semantic and affective universes’.37 On the one hand we
should expand our study of the different non-Western cultures and on the other hand
a multidisciplinary approach, including disciplines as sociology, psychology,
semiotics, anthropology and neurosciences, will increase a mutual understanding of
each other’s art.38
Still, I’m convinced this can’t be done by discarding the Western concept of art
completely. It seems to me even rather naïve to think it’s possible to fully discard
your own frame of reference. Without this framework it will be sheer impossible to
make a selection of the objects we consider worth investigating. Though, this doesn’t
want to say that the art historical canon is static and carved in stone for ever, because
history has demonstrated that this is constantly expanded and interpreted from
different perspectives. This already started in the 60’s and 70’s when the feminist
movement managed to include more women in the canon. This was followed in the
80’s by the unmasking of modernist dogmas from postmodernist and poststructuralist
viewpoints. And lastly, from the nineties on there is an ongoing debate how to fit in
non-Western artists in the canon.
Marlite Halbertsma has a point by stating that although the art historical discipline is
being attacked from all sides and the Great Narratives have worn out, the Great
Masters, old ánd new, remain. So the search for art works that represent in a certain
way an irrefutable standard (the literal translation of canon), that can be a source of
inspiration and model for others is still vital. So notwithstanding the current non-
hierarchical and pluralistic palette of movements, styles and artistic intentions, the art
historical practice is in a way still rooted in canonical thinking- be it often in an
17
unconscious way. She shows in her overview of the origin and development of the
concept canon (Pliny the Elder was the first to mention the idea of canon in Naturalis
Historia, AD 77) that there were from the start of the 19th century on two often
interconnected approaches of what the canon stood for: the classical and the romantic
canon. The classical canon is based on the belief in the existence of objective quality
that can be determined and appreciated by everybody and in all times. The romantic
approach criticized this Western-oriented idea of culture that was directed towards
linear progression and perfection. Also non-Western people reflect in their artistic
expressions the norms and values of a certain culture.39 It doesn’t seem too far-
fetched to suggest that especially in this globalized world these two perspectives are
playing their role: the art historical theoretical framework is becoming a mixture of
defining a more or less objective quality and the acknowledgement this isn’t confined
to a specific culture.
The restrictions of the Western perspective can be overcome by getting a hold over
its own assumptions, blind spots and preoccupations. Through a critical and
conscious attitude towards the own position and the acquaintance with other cultures
and the way they are studied, the existing scholarly practices can be adapted.

18
Part II: New Perspectives on Global Contemporary Art
The incompatibility of the cyclic and progressive approach of time and
art

As I mentioned in the introduction the influence of globalization doesn’t only affect

the academic Art History discipline, but has clearly changed current global art
practices. In the following I want to share some thoughts about the way we can look
upon the contemporary art (world). It occurred to me that in discussions about the
formation of world art history all non-Western art is treated alike. This obscures the
differences between contemporary global non-Western art and non-Western
ethnographic artefacts that is solely rooted in local traditions. The latter category
contains ethnographic artefacts that played, or sometimes still play, a ritual and
religious role in societies and therefore they can’t possibly be compared in any way
with contemporary global art, made by either Western or non-Western artists.
Actually, absolutely the same can be said for the way Western art before the romantic
period relates to modern and contemporary art. Like is the case with traditional non-
Western art, the art concept as we know it from eighteenth century Enlightenment
didn’t exist as such. In that period for the first time a clear distinction was made
between the fine arts and other artistic activities like craft and popular entertainment.
At the end of that age this resulted in the romantic notion of art, which until this day
provides the fundament for our explicit or implicit criteria for art making and art
reception. The artist was not defined by his or her abilities as a skilled craftsman but
above all the artist was defined by his or her originality, individualistic, autonomous
and innovative nature. From that time on the belief in progress and individualism
have been the main reference points of Western culture: originality, innovation and
change have been so strongly internalized that another approach is considered
incomplete and obsolete.
Most traditional non-Western artefacts have on the other hand hardly changed in
time, because these artists were following the example of their predecessors. In most

19
non-Western cultures time isn’t considered evolutionary and progressive but cyclic.
In the West excellence in technical skills and a capacity for making impeccable
imitations are not so much considered an expression of artistic quality, but more as an
acquired capacity. It’s true, the producers of these objects don’t see themselves so
much as artists, they originally weren’t even familiar with the concept of art, but as
artisans. In the West these works are therefore largely shown in ethnographic
museum or as inspiring examples for the Western masters in museums of modern art.
Of course this doesn’t mean that people before that time and outside the influence of
the Western notion of art were not making art, they were simply not conscious of it.
It goes without saying that imagination, skill, creativity and aesthetic taste weren’t
invented in the eighteenth century. It’s of course no coincidence that the history of
Western art is mainly focussed on artists (think of among others Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Raphaël, Rembrandt, Vélazquez, Titian, Vermeer) who demonstrate
exactly these characteristics rooted in the Romantic concept of art and the artist.40
One should therefore think that it isn’t impossible to write a history of art (of the
past) that comprises the non-Western world. In both hemispheres the concept of art as
we know it now didn’t exist yet. Of course it would be quite inappropriate to hold on
to the division between the modern and dynamic West and the traditional static non-
Western world, the so-called ´other´.
In the twentieth century, and especially during the 1960’s, the conceptual character of
art became extremely dominant, even to the point that the actual making of the work
was seen as irrelevant. It’s not an exaggeration to say that since then Western art
started to become quite similar to philosophy.41 Western modern art is disturbing,
critical, questions social injustices and, in its most reflective form, poses questions
about its own identity. This autonomous and conceptual approach to art doesn’t seem
to have any connection whatsoever to traditional non-Western cultures, which are
based on the continuation of traditions and handicraft, as I already stated. The two art
concepts are so fundamentally different that they can’t be interpreted and appreciated
on the same theoretical and contextual basis. More interesting is the question if, and

20
if so, how the criteria to value contemporary artworks with a non-Western
background should be adapted - or changed completely.

21
Now Western and non-Western art come together

For the invention of a better quality assessment, we should first specify how non-
Western art manifests itself. A distinction can be made of three different attitudes
towards the Western culture. The group of artists that is almost completely under the
radar are those that hold on completely to their own traditional culture without any
Western influence. They don’t take part whatsoever of the international art-circuit
and are only locally known. This category will diminish and most probably will cease
to exist at all by the inescapable influence of the West. This work will still mainly be
interpreted in an anthropological way by focusing on the social, ritualistic and
religious context of the work.
The largest group however exists of artists who incorporate in a conscious way the
artistic Western aesthetics without at the same time denying their own culture. In that
sensee I don’t think this problem is so urgent anymore. The difference between
Western and non-Western contemporary art is namely getting smaller and smaller,
because of the interconnectedness of images, ideas and theories worldwide. Since the
1990’s a growing number of non-Western artists started to discover Western art and
Western aesthetics. Through the exchange of knowledge and images new hybrid art
works emerged with a mixture of local and Western views; a phenomenon we call
glocal art. These different glocal art forms are now also often referred to as ‘other
modernities’. A lot of non-Western artists are even opposed to their own traditional
culture, and are distancing themselves from these ethnological artefacts. This ‘post-
ethnic’ movement shows that the need to adapt and adopt Western art concepts and
art manifestations is not so much imposed upon, but stems from the artists
themselves. Of course the academic world invented a new name for that too: self-
colonization.
It’s the post-colonial thinker Homi Bhabha who in his book The Location of Culture,
published in 1994, stated that cultures are not static, but constantly changing by
multiple exchanges. In other words, cultures are and always were by definition
hybrid. But he also wants to point out that the colonial oppression has caused several
22
mutual cultural stereotypes. This has led in his view to a fundamental inequality in
the sense that the West expects the non-Western artist to stay the enigmatic and
exotic ‘other’. But on the other hand, to be noticed at all and truly appreciated the
non-Western artist should also adapt himself to the Western taste and rules. The
complete assimilation is to his mind even experienced by the Westerner as a threat of
his dominant position. This opinion resembles what Edward Said already posed in his
influential book Orientalism, that appeared in 1978 and is considered as the starting-
point of Post-colonial theory. Said criticized the West for romanticizing the Eastern
culture (Africa, Asia and the Middle-East) and by doing so at the same time
guaranteeing its social, economic and cultural hegemony. Whereas Homi Bhabha
believes in the cross-fertilization of cultures, Said sticks to the strict dichotomy
between the paternalizing West and the subordinate East.42 These theories about
‘otherizing’ and ‘orientalizing’ the non-Western artist have certainly affected the
Western approach on non-Western art since the nineties. It seems to me noteworthy
that the non-Western background of artists in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s who took part of
the international art world (that was then completely Western-centred) was hardly
taken notice of as an essential element of their work. One can think here of renowned
artists like Nam June Paik (South-Korea), Yoko Ono (Japan), Yayoi Kusama (Japan),
Ana Mendieta (Cuba) and Marlène Dumas (South-Africa). In hindsight this work
could be interpreted as hybrid and glocal as well, but these notions were not part of
the modernistic jargon.
However, the incredible complexity of the whole process of globalization is
additionally illustrated by the simultaneous increase of the emergence of a patchwork
of different views and images rooted in an indigenous context. This third group of
contemporary non-Western artists are in a way already rediscovering their local
cultures and traditions, which are considered as a fertile ground for their production
of art works. But at the same time – at least somewhere in the background – the
global perspective on art can be seen to influence the creative process. A fruitful way
to understand this kind of work is to not only to assess the autonomous artistic
qualities of this work, but also take into account how this work relates to its societal,
23
historical and cultural context. We should approach these artists with an open mind
by not denying them their urge to be individualistic and make highly autonomous art,
but at the same by not imposing upon them this originally Western attitude. For the
simple reason that not all non-Western artists have the same mind set. 43
It’s by the way interesting to realize that glocal art isn’t a phenomenon that arose
over the past 25 years, but in fact had a significant longer incubation period. Recent
art-historical research demonstrates that in the former colonies before World War II,
we can see a tremendous influence of Western modernism, which has been adapted to
local tradition.44 These artists had gone to the West for their art education, or they had
become acquainted with Western art through magazines, books and art collections.
Also after World War II we can observe the influence of modernism in non-Western
countries (except for communist countries such as China, the USSR, Eastern-Europe
and North-Korea). One could say that modernism was the first real relatively global
movement.45 Post-colonial theorists consider the proliferation of modernism as
nothing more than cultural colonization. This denies to my mind the need that
colonized people themselves felt to become modern and to profit from the
technological, scientific and cultural innovations.46
That modernism had been an international phenomenon for a long time was clearly
revealed at Documenta 2 (2007), curated by Roger Buergel and Ruth Noack. Here, to
the surprise of many visitors, works from movements such as Conceptual Art,
Minimal Art, Performance Art, Earth Art and Feminist Art from the 1950’s, 1960’s
and 1970’s were presented, all originating from Africa, South-America, India, South-
East-Asia and Eastern Europe.
According to Hans Belting the exclusion of most non-Western modernist movements
from official Western art history is not caused by ignorance, but rather by a conscious
choice to keep the image of modernism as a Western invention pure. The history of
modernism is in his view based on a double exclusion. In the first place making art
was equated with making modern art, which by definition was reserved for Western
art. This implied the second exclusion: Those who made modern art outside the
Western world were not included.47 Therefore he typifies the notion of ‘modern’ as a
24
historical definition that has lost its authority as a universal model. Because of this
loss of a so-called universal historical narrative, he coins this globalized world as
post-historical, that is to say the definite end of the occidental self-universalization.
But at the same time he also perceives the waning of the belief in the existence of
authentic, ethnic cultures: thereby entering a post-ethnic stage.48

25
The emergence of the transnational art world

In other words, the globalization of the art world has been going on for quite a long
time, but up until recently, the West had been blind to it - or rather - not interested in
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 the increase of multicultural societies, the
growing intercultural communication over the internet and through the world-wide
spread of capitalism and liberal democracies – especially after the collapse of the
Berlin wall in 1989.49 In Europe and America we see a large increase of non-Western
students at the academies. In fact, these students swiftly familiarize themselves, at an
amazing speed, with art practices and theories that developed slowly in the West for
over two centuries. In this way, Western art students come into direct contact with a
large diversity of different artistic views and traditions of other unknown cultures. All
in all, in comparison with the largest part of the twentieth century, the current
exchange of cultures is not only much larger in scale, but also much more equal. We
can now really speak of a two-way process of artistic exchange. This equality
manifests itself among others in the fact that these non-Western artists are now shown
in museums of modern art, and no longer exclusively in ethnographic museums. In a
way, this is comparable with the Hellenistic period, in which a merging of Greek and
eastern elements took place on a very large scale. In this day and age artists from all
over the world have an inexhaustible arsenal of images, modes of expressions and art
theories at their disposal.
The recent unprecedented degree of cross-fertilization has created a unified
transnational institution of art. Artists from all over the world take part in the
transnational network of museums, galleries, biennales, art fairs and art manifestas.
The emergence of curators who are constantly in search of new, preferably non-
Western, artists has been a major factor as well in the vast construction of this
cosmopolitan art world.
Not only the considerable growth of possibilities of communication and distribution
(e-mails, social media, dvd,You Tube etc.) have contributed to the interconnectedness
26
of the art world, but also the media contemporary artists are working with today make
a global distribution easier and cheaper. Most art works shown at important
international exhibitions are video, film, photography, installation pieces (often
multimedia), pertaining to Conceptual Art, (video recordings of) Performance Art,
Relational Art, Digital art and Internet Art. Painting and sculpture are proportionately
a clearly observable minority. These mechanically and electronically reproducible
media are easily exhibited without major costs of transportation and insurances, and
the works can even often be shown at several places at once.
Transnational art can not only be recognized by its vast and easy distribution and the
appropriation of new media and technologies, but also - and perhaps even more
importantly - by a shared idiom and discourse. Artists, curators, critics and art lovers
have the same artistic framework in mind, enabling coherent conversations and a
shared code to deciphering the works. One of the remarkable recurring concerns and
preoccupations in this new republic of art is progressive politics, like post-
colonialism, feminism, LGBT-liberation, global inequality, the oppression of free
expression, identity politics and general anti-establishmentarianism. The overarching
critique is of course directed against the capitalist system, which after 1989 seems to
triumph worldwide. So the politically-engaged subject matter has turned global as
well, particularly in the urban centres, where similar problems and conflicts are
experienced across the global board. But not only the themes are part of this
transnational art family, also the formal strategies that are used seem to evolve in a
certain transnational vocabulary. To name a few of these formal devices:
juxtaposition of opposite or incongruent images (for example high and low art, local
and modernist features), defamiliarization and decontextualization of objects and
images, documentary iconography and more generally, the interest to communicate
and activate the viewer -or rather participant ‘citizen’. This shared vocabulary and
mentality doesn’t necessarily create one cohesive global art language. In contrast to
the universalist strivings of modernism, in this time we see that local and traditional
elements are not excluded, on the contrary these ‘new’ contributions are very much
appreciated.50
27
The French curator and art theorist Nicolas Bourriaud doesn’t see an opposition
between the global (that is imbued with Western ideas and forms) and ‘the other’ that
is represented by non-Western artists. He discerns two main consequences of
globalization: the tolerance toward a uniform culture on the one hand and a claim of
origins and descent on the other: 'I think we are arriving at a historical moment where
artists no longer start with their specific culture, but with a culture that is already
globalized. The work is more about starting from this globalized culture and arriving
at the specifics than working from one’s identity of origins, which leads the artist to
become the logo for his own culture.'51
Bourriaud connects this to the concept of ‘altermodernism’, a neologism that he
coined in association with the Tate Triennial (London) in 2009, which he curated. An
altermodern artist in his view can be understood as being nomadic. This can be in the
literal sense of the word, or it can mean a certain 'mental nomadism'. The point of
departure is always global culture.
Hans Belting clarifies this new situation with the metaphor of the Internet: 'both
(internet and global art) are global in the sense that it is used everywhere, but this
doesn’t mean that it is universal in content or message. Like internet there is the
possibility for free access and for a personal reaction and viewpoint.'52 He goes on
with an excellent analysis of global art of the present by stating that we now live in a
paradoxical situation. On the one hand globalization causes a loss of context because
the entire world has become accessible, while on the other hand this access provides a
new context: the whole planet. This decontextualization of art causes the final and
definite break with modernism, which claims to have developed a universal art
language.
Five years after the prediction of Bourriaud and Belting that the local and traditional
culture won’t play an essential role anymore in favour of a globalized culture we can
say they were only partly right. Because it so seems that these days artists from non-
Western origin once more start to focus on their indigenous culture as a way to stay
true to themselves and to escape conforming to a prevailing art world fashion.

28
Ethnological museums also show this interest in contemporary ‘indigenous’ art by
inviting non-Western artists to produce work that connects with the collection. A new
development is that the artistic aspects of this work are considered as important as its
local function. So we see in this sense a blurring of the borders between ethnological
museums and museums for contemporary art.53
Furthermore, more in general it occurs to me that the reason why it’s now still more
difficult for a non-Western artist to enter the transnational art world is not because
there is no interest in this work, but this is primarily due to the defective artistic
infrastructure in those countries. In many cases the development of institutions for art
education, museums, art history and art criticism and an art market have only just
started recently. This situation is not only historically grown, but also has everything
to do with the lack of financial means.

29
The global art market and the danger of homogenization of art.

This expansion of the art world sounds very positive, but the emergence of a
transnational art language can also be seen as the cause for homogenization of the
world cultures. Particularly the immense influence of the global art market,
dominated by a couple of super rich collectors, tempts non-Western artists to adapt
themselves to the mainstream of the Western art world. Only work by Western artists
or fully integrated artists from non-Western background is seen as prestigious and is
being purchased.54
There’s still one important factor in the globalization of the art world that forces itself
on this debate: 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, as I already
pointed out before.55 But it can also result in the dominance of only one type of art
form or style, the new mainstream. This process has been going on for quite some
time now. If we look at the most wanted and bought artists, they evoke the so-feared
image of homogenization of art; a kind of cultural Esperanto without any reference
to the authentic culture. It’s now quite normal to describe the present art world as the
MacDonaldization of culture. 56
The art sociologist Diana Crane has shown this convincingly with her elaborate
research on the implications of the global art market on culture.57 She concludes that
the global art market has accelerated the process that art works are less evaluated by
aesthetic elements and more and more by their high prices and the resulting notoriety.
Could it be a coincidence that this is happening exactly in a time in which the fusion
of cultural value systems has made the determination of artistic quality rather
precarious?
Until the 1990’s the financial value of an artwork was of less importance than her
consecration by the official high art world, that is to say the prestigious museums and
galleries. The sheer existence of this coherent and elite art world implied a consensus
about what was considered good art. This closed circuit even opened itself for new
30
groups of artists with different artistic criteria. These avant-garde movements offered
the very welcome additions to the existing artistic mores. By contrast, in the last two
decades auction markets, international art fairs and biennials seem to now determine
which art trend and which artist belongs to the avant-garde. Museums don’t strictly
follow the international market, but at the same time they lack the financial means to
purchase important contemporary art works. In fact, the global art market is now
centred around an extremely restricted circuit: four major international art fairs (The
Armory Show, New York, Frieze Art, London, Art Basel, Basel and Art Miami
Basel, Miami), three auction markets (Sotheby’s, Christie’s London and Hotel
Drouot, Paris) and of course let’s not forget the booming biennials (there are now 112
biennials for contemporary art in cities around the world).
A decisive factor for this is the increase of an enormous amount of disposable wealth
that is being created in the global economy, much of which is concentrated in the
hands of a small group of businessmen and entrepreneurs. The very wealthy
collectors belong to this new class, the super-rich. The taste of the global art market is
in this way determined by these mega-collectors, who generally haven’t got much
knowledge about art. For this type of collectors, art works are seen as luxury items
comparable with jewels, yachts, fancy cars and haute couture. They are said to
represent 80% of recent buyers of contemporary art. In the period before the 1990’s
collectors didn’t belong to the business elite, but they were psychiatrists and lawyers,
who established long-term relationships with dealers. Today’s mega collectors tend to
purchase art works very rapidly, often without having seen more than a digital
version. They can also afford to finance galleries and invest in the production of art
works by leading artists. To compensate their lack of knowledge and acquired taste,
they often have teams of experts and advisors who assist them with their purchases
and sometimes they even build museums to house their own collections. A
remarkable new development is that the amount of collectors who come from non-
Western countries is growing, especially from China, Russia and the Middle-East.
A returning subject in the art works that are purchased by these mega-collectors is the
presence of popular images. In these works we find a magical fusion of entertainment
31
and art, an art that Pop artists (Warhol) mastered so well. Damien Hirst and Jeff
Koons are examples par excellence of this attitude. Hirst’s work ‘For the love of
God’ (2007), the skull covered with diamonds, has been sold for 78 million pounds
and is the most expensive artwork in the world. Koons, who is called ‘the superstar
of kitsch’, presents his gigantic reproductions of toys and naked women from
Playboy. This type of successful artists does not so much belong to the avant-garde
(let alone to experimental art), but are actually more related to entrepreneurs who are
capable of running a healthy business on the global market. Another example is the
Japanese artist Takashi Marakami, who just like Hirst and Koons has his own
company with around 100 assistants producing the actual works. Many artists don’t
even possess the technical skills that their works ask for. Damien Hirst himself
admits he’s not preoccupied with being original, but all the more he’s interested in
branding his works that represent a ‘trademark’ style.
A striking example of this new tendency is the collecting policy of sheikha Al-
Mayassa of the oil-state Qatar. According to the Power 100 list edited by the
American art magazine Art Review she is the most influential art person in the
globalized art world. The main focus of her purchases is on the usual suspects in the
Western art world: Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

32
Conclusion

Despite of this last trend one is still almost tempted to conclude that it’s just a
question of time before the different global artworks will be accepted and appreciated
automatically in their countries of origin and the West alike. It seems as if the
Western artists are once more inspired by non-Western art. These mechanisms of
cross-fertilization appear inevitable and irreversible; they seem futile to resist. I
strongly feel that history is repeating itself here: the art of ‘the other’ is once again
capable to breathe new life into our own culture and fills a certain void by offering
interesting new images and refreshing viewpoints.58
Many non-Western artists stand out for their honest urgency to express themselves
about social and political abuses. In the West social engagement often gives the
impression of being brought into play to compensate for art’s incapacity to be
meaningful, with engaged art serving as an artificial refuge to fill up the artistic
emptiness. After all, the overwhelming excess of artistic possibilities that the
postmodern artist can choose from without obligations, it seems as if the decadence
of the art business has become one of the main subjects of art. Another reason why
most non-Western artists are so appreciated is because their work really can have a
direct impact on society. In the West provocative artists are immediately welcomed in
the art system and thereby rendered harmless. In many non-Western countries art
hasn’t got the meaning of l’art pour l’art , but is inextricably connected with society
and its religious and political rituals. For this reason art is taken much more seriously,
entailing restrictive consequences such as censorship and sometimes even physical
capture. The example par excellence is Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who became
world famous for his artistic protests against the Chinese regime. The Chinese
government considers him a threat to the social and political stability and tries to
eliminate his expression in all kinds of ways. The Western artist in a way sees the
realization of the avant-gardist ideal to connect art and life in the role that art plays in
these undemocratically-governed countries.

33
I can’t help noticing that, ironically enough, in the West we valorise the
contemporary non-Western artist for his or her input of original imagery, honesty and
true social and political engagement. In a nutshell the aesthetic criteria of modernism.
One of the most obstinate obstacles to invent or rethink a new concept of art in the
West is that the internalization of the whole set of characteristics involved with the
art concept is such that any kind of change would be experienced as an Umwertung
aller Werten. Although there‘s a growing awareness that our idea of art is no more
than a historically-grown construction, it almost seems impossible to discard criteria
like originality, innovation, authenticity, self-criticism, conceptuality as obsolete.
This perhaps also explains why despite the manifold convictions that the West should
expand its theoretical framework; that there should be a dialogue; that originality and
modernity are relative notions and that there are different simultaneous canons, that it
has proven to be very hard to find convincing solutions. So it seems to follow that
only corrections and no alternatives are offered. One could also ask the question
whether this search for new models is in essence a new phenomenon. Can’t we speak
of a constant search, especially from the Romantic period onward, for new artistic
solutions? The multiple artistic approaches and solutions in the nineteenth and
twentieth century show clearly that art can have different faces.
Like I said before the problem will probably solve itself: the already ongoing
appearance of non-Western art in the global art world makes a forced redefinition of
art superfluous, because the adaption will happen quite naturally and organically.

34
Notes

1
Belting, H. 2007. Contemporary Art and the Museum in the Global Age, in Contemporary Art and The
Museum. A Global Perspective, edited by Belting, H., P. Weibel & A. Buddensieg. Ostfildern : Hatje Cantz
Verlag.

Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg and Peter Weibel have edited from 2007 on four important books about
the globalization of the art world and its influence on art, the art market, museums and audiences:

Belting, H., Buddensieg, A. and Weibel. P. 2009. The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets and Museums.
Ostfidern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.

Belting, H, Birken, J., Buddensieg, A. and Weibel, P. 2011. Global Studies. Mapping Contemporary Art and
Culture. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.

Belting, H., Buddensieg, A. and Weibel, P. 2013. Global Contemporary Art and the Rise of New Art Worlds.
Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.
2
In the Netherlands this discussion began already from the mid 80’s at The Tropical Institute (Het
Tropeninstituut) in Amsterdam. Studies were published and symposia were organized around the subject:

In 1985 en 1992 The symposia ‘Hoe hang je het op?’(how do you present it)? were organized in the
Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. The debate was about the presentation of contemporary non-Western art in
Museums: Can it be presented without context, should the work be treated as an ethnological object or as an
art object?
Lavrijsen, R. (ed.) 1993. Diversity in the Arts , Art Politics and the facelift of Europe. Amsterdam:
Tropeninstituut.

Leyten, H. and Damen, B. (ed.). 1992. Art, anthropology and the modes of re-presentation – Museums and
contemporary non-Western Art. Amsterdam:Tropical Institute.

Lavrijsen, R (ed.).1998. Global encounters in the world of art – Collisions of tradition and modernity.
Amsterdam: Tropeninstituut.

Lavrijsen, R. (ed.). 1999. Culturele diversiteit in de kunst. Den Haag: Elsevier bedrijfsinformatie.

In april 1994 the symposium ‘A New Internationalism’ was held at the Tate Gallery in London. The papers
are collected in the book: Fischer,J.1994. Global Visions. Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual
Arts. London: Kala Press.
3
Gombrich, E.H. 1995 [1950]. The Story of Art. Londen: Phaidon.
4
Elkins, J. 2002. Stories of Art. Londen: Psychology Press.
5
Honour, H. & Fleming, J. 2005. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King Publishing.
6
Arnason, H.H. & Mansfield, E. 2010. A History of Modern Art. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
7
Stokstad, M. 2010. Art History. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
8
Lazzari , M. & Schlesier, D. 2012. Exploring Art. A Global, Thematic Approach. Wadsworth: Cengage
Learning.
9
Bell, J. 2007. Mirror of the World, a new History of Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

35
10
Onians, J. 2004. Atlas of World Art. London: Laurence King Publishing.
11
Carrier, D. 2008. World Art History and its Objects. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.
12
Summers, D. 2003. Real Spaces. World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism. Oxford : Phaidon.
13
Elkins, J. 2010. Is Art History Global? New York :Routledge.
14
Zijlmans , K. & Damme, W. van (eds). 2008. World Art Studies: Exploring Concepts and Approaches.
Amsterdam: Valiz.

Horst, M. ter (ed). 2012. Changing Perspectives. Dealing with Globalisation in the Presentation and
Collection of Contemporary Art. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.

Casid, J.H. & D’Souza. A. (eds). 2014. Art History in the wake of the Global Turn, New Haven/London:
Yale University Press.
15
More about World Art Studies, Website of the University of East Anglia,
http://www.uea.ac.uk/art/moreabout.
16
Onians, J. 1996. World Art Studies and the Need for a New Natural History of Art. The Art Bulletin 78 (2):
206-209.
17
Pfisterer, U. 2008. Origins and Principles of World Art History: 1900 (and 2000), in World Art Studies,
edited by K. Zijlmans & W. van Damme. Amsterdam: Valiz: 85.
18
The protagonists of this critical approach to the so called appropriation of the West element of other
cultures (the appropriation of ‘The Other’), are: E.W. Said, Orientalism, Hardmondsworth/Middlesex 1978.
He was the first who pointed to the phenomenon of ‘self-colonization’. ; Rasheed Araeen, ‘New
Internationalism, or the Multiculturalism of Global Bantustans’ in: Jean Fisher (ed.), Global Visions:
towards a new internationalism in het visual arts, London 1994, p.10 (He states:”We know that
independence from colonialism did not end the hegemony of the West. If anything, the West’s hegemonic
position and its institutions were reinforced through its increased economic, political and cultural domination
of the postcolonial world.”; Homi Bhabha. For him hybridity is a process linked to power relations between
the coloniser and the colonised. Peter Cilds and Patrick Williams, An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory,
Harlow 1997, pp. 122-123; Debora Root, Cannibal Culture. Art, Appropriation & the Commodification of
Difference, Oxford 1996; Okwui Enwezor (the organiser of Documenta 11) et al. (eds.), Créolité and
Créolization, Ostfildern-Rui 2003.
19
This point of view can be more or less confirmed by the fact that only recently a research-project called
Reference Cultures has started at the University of Utrecht. A reference culture is a culture or society that
assumes a dominant role in the international circulation of knowledge and practices. In other words they
impose a model that others imitate, adapt or resist. The aim of the project is to explore how reference
cultures and ‘asymmetrical encounters’ function. The West is seen as the reference culture of the nineteenth
and twentieth century.
20
James Elkins, ‘Art History as a Global Discipline’, in James Elkins: 2010, pp. 19-20.
21
For a more elaborate review on Summers’s Real Spaces it is advisable to read: Elkins, J. 2010. On Davids
Summers’s Real Spaces, in Is Art History Global?, edited by J. Elkins. New York: Routledge: 41-73.
22
For the history of the origin of the forming of a world art history in Germany I gratefully made use of the
detailed study of Ulrich Pfisterer, Origins and Principles of World Art History: 1900 (and 2000), in Kitty
Zijlmans & Wilfried van Damme(2008:69-89).
23
It would be getting too far off the subject to elaborate on all the different causes fort this collective
oblivion of these interesting art historical developments in Germany. The dominance after World War II of
the Anglo-American approach, that is based on the unilinear and evolutionary thinking has overruled the
earlier more universalistic approaches. One can think of the popularity of anthropologists like Edward Tylor,
36
James Frazer and Franz Boas. But also the rise of nazism has nipped the scientific activities of the cultural
relativists in the bud. You can read more about it in the fore mentioned article of Pfisterer.
24
Recent historiographic analyses make it clear that within the framework of Kunstwissenschaft the study of
visual art was much more globally oriented and was more multidisciplinary than previously has been
thought. For a detailed study of this subject: Halbertsma, M. The many Beginnings and the One End of
World Art History in Germany 1900-1933, in Zijlmans & Van Damme ( 2008:91-105).
25
The founders of Völkerpsychologie were the philosopher and psychologist M. Lazarus and the linguist H.
Steinthal. Their programme of a 'psychic ethnology’, developed during the 1850’s, was based on a
systematic research into language, religion, mythology and art. They argued that only these manifestations of
collective genius offered the clue to the driving forces and governing principles of various historical
trajectories. Pfisterer: 2008.
26
In the two different terms World Art History ( or Global Art History) en World Art Studies we can discern
a same separation between on the one hand the more historical approach of Kunstgeschichte and on the
other hand the multidisciplinary approach of the more universalistic oriented discipline Kunstwissenschaft.
27
There have been written several studies about the influence of non-Western art on Western art since the
1980’s, among which the following: Goldwater, R. 1986 [1938]. Primitivism in Modern Art. Harvard:
Harvard University Press; Rhodes, C. 1994. Primitivism and Modern Art. New York: E.H. Gombrich, E.H.
2002. The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art, London: Phaidon.
28
And not to forget the following influential artists: Paul Gauguin, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Henri Moore
and Alberto Giacometti.
29Konijn, F. 1992. A universal language of art. Two exhibitions of non-Western art in Dutch museums of
modern art, in: Anthropology and the mode of representation. Museums and contemporary non-Western art,
edited by H. Leyten and B. Damen. Amsterdam: Tropical Institute, pp. 23-31.
30 Idem, note 29.
31
Rubin, W. 1984. Primitivims in 20th Century Art. Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. New York :
Museum of Modern Art.
32
Araeen, R. 1989. Our Bauhaus Other’s Mudhouse. Third Text 3 (6): 3-14.
33
Martis, A. 1998. Expressie en primitivisme, in: Expressionisme en primitivisme in de beeldende kunst van
de twintigste eeuw, edited by A. Martis & M. Rijnders. Heerlen: Heerlen Open Universiteit.
34
See for more information about these exhibitions: Greenberg, R. 2005. Identity Exhibitions: From
Magiciens de la Terre to Documenta 11. Art Journal 64 (1).
35
Deresiewicz, W. 2009. Adaptation: On Literary Darwinism. The Nation may 20
In this article Deresiewicz criticizes that Darwinian theories are becoming the most dominant in the
academic world, first in the social sciences and more recently the humanities are attracted tot this all-
encompassing thinking model. He states that this appeal of evolutionary thinking is opposing against the
intellectualistic deconstructivist theories that coloured the eighties and nineties.
36
Wilfried van Damme points out that art historians, anthropologists, archaelogists and other scholars
already have made substantial contributions, although this may well have gone unnoticed outside art history,
due to the lack of an overarching global framework in the study of art. Damme, W. van. 2008. Introducing
World Art Studies, in K. Zijlmans and W. van Damme (2008: 28).
37
Idem, p. 48.
38
Wilfried van Damme has contributed to the anthropological approach of aesthetics in an important way
already in 1996 with his study Beauty in Context: Toward an Anthropological Approach to Aesthetics,
Leiden 1996. This is the first study to survey the field of the anthropology of aesthetics, which during the last
37
few decades has emerged on the cross-roads between anthropology and non-Western art scholarship. He
elaborates on a central thesis which concerns the relationship between aesthetic preference and sociocultural
ideals. Drawing on empirical data from several African cultures, he demonstrates that varying notions of
beauty are inspired by varying sociocultural ideals, thus shedding light on the phenomenon of cultural
relativism in aesthetic preference.
39
Halbertsma, M. The call of the canon. Why art history cannot do without, in Mansfield, E. (ed.). 2007.
Making Art History: A changing Discipline and Its Institutions. New York: Routledge: 16-31.
40
In general there is a consensus about the idea that in the West the origin of art as a distinct categorie can be
situated in the eighteenth century.

Clowley, D. 2011. Definitions of Art and Fine Art’s Historical Origins. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 69 (3).
41
Danto, A. 1992. Beyond the Brillo-Box, The Visual Arts in Post-historical Perspective. New York :
University of California Press.
42
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The location of culture. London.

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism, London.

43
Lavrijsen, Ria. 1998. Global encounters in the world of art. Collisions of tradition and modernity.
Amsterdam: Tropeninstituut, 9.
44
A clear example of this interest is the exhibition Beyond the Dutch in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht in
2009/10. Remco Raben, Meta Knol, cat. Beyond the Dutch, Centraal Museum Utrecht, 2009/10. This
exhibition presented the interaction between Dutch and Indonesian art from 1900 until now.

In my research project The Outskirts of Modernism at the University of Utrecht the forgotten modernisms in
non- Western countries are being investigated.
45
The postcolonial art-theorist Rasheed Araeen was a pioneer in the rediscovery of neglected non-Western
modernist artists with the exhibition The Other Story, where for the first time work was shown of Afro-
Africain artists in postwar Britain at Hayward Gallery in 1989. This was for him also the reason for the
foundation of the periodical Third Text in 1987, that pays attention to non-Western artists.
46
James Elkins has recently published a study about the way how modernist painting outside the West could
be studied.

Elkins, J. 2010. Writing about modernist painting outside Western Europe and North America. Chicago:
Chicago University Press.
47
Belting, H. 2009. Contemporary Art as Global Art. A Critical Estimate, in The Global Art World, edited
by H. Belting and A. Buddensieg. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag: 12.
48
Belting, H. 2007. Contemporary Art and the Museum in the Global Age, in Contemporary Art and the
Museum: A Global Perspective, edited by P. Weibel and A. Buddensieg. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag: 22.
49
The historian Francis Fukuyama talked in this context about the end of history. This means that after the
fall of communism the all-encompassing ideologies don’t exist anymore, but that the mechanism of the free
market, and liberal democracy have triomphed.

Fukoyama, F. 1989. The end of History. Quadrant 34 (8). He developed this concept in the book 1992. The
End of History and the last Man. London: Free Press.
50
Carrol, N. 2007. Art and Globalization: Then and Now. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (1):
131-143.

38
For the above mentioned notions that the now used new media are in itself emblematic for the emerging
transnational artworld and that we can now speak of a globally shared art language and themes I have
thankfully used Carrols above mentioned analysis of the difference between the globalization in former times
(before 1989) and now.

Christophe Gallois, ‘An archipelago of local responses. Nicolas Bourriaud on the Altermodern’,
51

Metropolis M 1 (2009), p.79.

52
Belting 2009: 2.
53
See for the present interest of the anthropological discipline and anthropological museums in
contemporary non-Western art:

Layton, R. 1991. The Anthropology of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge Press.

Marcus, G., Meyers, F. 1995. The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology. Berkeley: University
California Press.

Schneider, A and Wright, Ch. (ed.). 2005. Contemporary Art and Anthropology. Cambridge: Berg
Publishers.; Scheider, A. and Wright, Ch. 2010. Between Art and Anthropology: contemporary ethnographic
practice. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.
54
Crane, D. 2009. Reflections on the Global Art Market: Implications for the Sociology of Culture.
Sociedad e Estado 24 (2): 331-362.
55
There are two main probable causes for the origin of the global art market. Big cities all over the world use
art exhibitions to improve their image (citybranding). A more important influence however is the enormously
increased wealth in the global economy.
56
Two recent books that delve into the influence of the art market and consumerism on a global scale are:

Julian Stallabrass, Art Incorporated. The Story of Contemporary Art, Oxford 2004.

Charlotte Bydler, The Global Art World Inc: On the Globalization of Contemporary Art, Uppsala University
Press 2004.
57
Diana Crane, ‘Reflections on the Global Art Market: implications for the Sociology of Culture’, Sociedad
e Estado 24 (2009) 2, pp. 331-362
58
This reminds me of Jean-François Lyotard’s theory about what he calls the ‘secret of artistic success’. In
his view ‘this resides in the balance between what is surprising and what is wel-known’. Lyotard: 'This is
how innovation in art operates: one re-uses formulae confirmed by previous success, one throws them off
balance by combining them with other, in principle incompatable formulae, by amalgamations, quotations,
ornamentations, pastiche’. Lyotard, J-F. 1991. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time. Stanford: Polity Press:
106.

39
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Arnason, H.H. & Mansfield, E. 2010. A History of Modern Art. New Jersey: Pearson Education

Homi K. Bhabha, The location of culture, London 1994; Edward Said, Orientalism, London 1978.

Bell, J. 2007. Mirror of the World, a new History of Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

Belting, H. 2007. Contemporary Art and the Museum in the Global Age, in Contemporary Art and The
Museum. A Global Perspective, edited by Belting, H., Weibel, P. & Buddensieg. A. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz
Verlag.

Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg and Peter Weibel have edited from 2007 on four important books about
the globalization of the art world and its influence on art, the art market, museums and audiences:

Belting, H., Buddensieg, A. and Weibel. P. 2009. The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets and Museums.
Ostfidern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.

Belting, H, Birken, J., Buddensieg, A. and Weibel, P. 2011. Global Studies. Mapping Contemporary Art and
Culture. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.

Belting, H., Buddensieg, A. and Weibel, P. 2013. Global Contemporary Art and the Rise of New Art Worlds.
Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag.

Charlotte Bydler, The Global Art World Inc: On the Globalization of Contemporary Art, Uppsala University
Press 2004.

Carrier, D. 2008. World Art History and its Objects. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.

Carrol, N. 2007. Art and Globalization: Then and Now. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (1):
131-143.

Casid, J.H. & D’Souza. A. (eds). 2014. Art History in the wake of the Global Turn, New Haven/London:
Yale University Press.

Clowley, D. 2011. Definitions of Art and Fine Art’s Historical Origins. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 69 (3).

Diana Crane, ‘Reflections on the Global Art Market: implications for the Sociology of Culture’, Sociedad e
Estado 24 (2009) 2, pp. 331-362

Danto, A. 1992. Beyond the Brillo-Box, The Visual Arts in Post-historical Perspective. New York :
University of California Press.

Deresiewicz, W. 2009. Adaptation: On Literary Darwinism. The Nation may 20

Elkins, J. 2002. Stories of Art. Londen: Psychology Press.

Elkins, J. 2010. Is Art History Global? New York :Routledge.

Elkins, J. 2010. Writing about modernist painting outside Western Europe and North America. Chicago:
Chicago University Press.

Fischer, J.1994. Global Visions. Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts. London: Kala Press.

Fukoyama, F. 1989. The end of History. Quadrant 34 (8). He developed this concept in the book 1992. The
End of History and the last Man. London: Free Press.

40
Christophe Gallois, ‘An archipelago of local responses. Nicolas Bourriaud on the Altermodern’, Metropolis
M 1 (2009), p.79.

Gombrich, E.H. 1995 [1950]. The Story of Art. Londen: Phaidon.

Greenberg, R. 2005. Identity Exhibitions: From Magiciens de la Terre to Documenta 11. Art Journal 64 (1).

Honour, H. & Fleming, J. 2005. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Halbertsma, M. The call of the canon. Why art history cannot do without, in Mansfield, E. (ed.). 2007.
Making Art History: A changing Discipline and Its Institutions. New York: Routledge: 16-31.

Horst, M. ter (ed). 2012. Changing Perspectives. Dealing with Globalisation in the Presentation and
Collection of Contemporary Art. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.

Konijn, F. 1992. A universal language of art. Two exhibitions of non-Western art in Dutch museums of
modern art, in: Anthropology and the mode of representation. Museums and contemporary non-Western art,
edited by H. Leyten and B. Damen. Amsterdam: Tropical Institute, pp. 23-31.

Layton, R. 1991. The Anthropology of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge Press.

Lavrijsen, R. (ed.) 1993. Diversity in the Arts, Art Politics and the facelift of Europe. Amsterdam:
Tropeninstituut.

Lavrijsen, R (ed.).1998. Global encounters in the world of art – Collisions of tradition and modernity.
Amsterdam: Tropeninstituut.

Lavrijsen, R. (ed.). 1999. Culturele diversiteit in de kunst. Den Haag: Elsevier bedrijfsinformatie.

Lazzari, M. & Schlesier, D. 2012. Exploring Art. A Global, Thematic Approach. Wadsworth: Cengage
Learning.

Leyten, H. and Damen, B. (ed.). 1992. Art, anthropology and the modes of re-presentation – Museums and
contemporary non-Western Art. Amsterdam:Tropical Institute.

Martis, A. 1998. Expressie en primitivisme, in: Expressionisme en primitivisme in de beeldende kunst van de
twintigste eeuw, edited by A. Martis & M. Rijnders. Heerlen: Heerlen Open Universiteit.

Marcus, G., Meyers, F. 1995. The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology. Berkeley: University
California Press.

Onians, J. 1996. World Art Studies and the Need for a New Natural History of Art. The Art Bulletin 78 (2):
206-209.

Onians, J. 2004. Atlas of World Art. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Pfisterer, U. 2008. Origins and Principles of World Art History: 1900 (and 2000), in World Art Studies,
edited by K. Zijlmans & W. van Damme. Amsterdam: Valiz.

Raben, R. Knol, M. 2009/10. cat. Beyond the Dutch, Centraal Museum Utrecht.

Rubin, W. 1984. Primitivims in 20th Century Art. Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. New York :
Museum of Modern Art.

Scheider, A. and Wright, Ch. 2010. Between Art and Anthropology: contemporary ethnographic practice.
Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.

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Summers, D. 2003. Real Spaces. World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism. Oxford : Phaidon.

41
Summary

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.
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 book 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
42
the field should deal with the formation of a World Art History; 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.
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
43
knowledge new hybrid art works emerge with a mixture of local and Western views;
a phenomenon we call glocal art.
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.

44