For a large print version please contact the engage office: [email protected]
This PDF is an extract from engage publication:
• engage review Promoting greater understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts
• Globalisation
• Issue 13 – Summer 2003
• 80 pages
• ISSN 1365-9383
The original publication is available from engage as below, subject to stocks.
This text is copyright, and is made available for personal/educational use only, and may not be used commercially or published in any way, in print or electronically, without the express permission of the copyright holders engage. engage reiterates its gratitude to the authors and editors concerned, many of whom work without fee. For more details of engage see end.
Contents
Globalisation Issue 13 – Summer 2003
Editorial
Okwui Enwezor To-ing and fro-ing: interview with Karen Raney
John Steers Globalising visual culture: a matter of choice?
Katherine Hann A history of imperialism in a global economy
Charles Landry The dilemma of crossing cultures
Cesare Poppi African Art and Globalisation: on whose terms the question?
Ferdinand de Jong Globalising the self, localising the other
Richard Hylton Notes on Documenta
Alessio Antoniolli The Bigger Picture: interview with Karen Raney
Emma Cocker Give and Take: the possibility and problematic of transcultural exchange
Kaija Kaitavuori Globalising audiences
Veronica Sekules ‘Artworld’ and higher education learning on the internet
Pete Worrall Culture Box plc
Reviews David Blamey’s Here, There, Elsewhere: Dialogues on Location and Mobility Karen Raney’s Art in Question
Editorial, Globalisation
Karen Raney
Fredric Jameson writes that globalisation is the modern equivalent of the proverbial elephant, described by blind men in many different ways. Common to all accounts is the idea of a world ‘shrinking’ as a result of instant communication and expanded markets. But the consequences of a shrinking world may be perceived very differently. In the optimistic view, globalisation leads to celebration of difference and enriching cultural exchanges, where those who have been silenced are given voice. In the pessimistic view, globalisation leads to an impoverished monoculture being visited on the world by force - market forces, armed forces. Both views may be true in part and at different times and places. Globalisation unifies and fragments. Globalisation makes local cultures visible, and it overrides them.
This volume brings together some reflections on art in a globalising world, from the point of view of curating, educating and art practice. Increasing huge, international exhibitions are the stage on which the conflicts and aspirations of contemporary art play themselves out. Okwui Enwezor was artistic director of Documenta 11 (2002). As well as being the most ‘global’ of the Documentas to date (it took place on three continents), this exhibition also took globalisation as its subject. In interview, Enwezor speaks about the problems with the fixed categories ‘West’ and ‘non- West’. His own westernization did not come about from moving beyond his Nigerian origins into another space; rather the West was already contained within this so- called non-Western culture. There is an interspace which is active, reciprocal, in flux. One shuttles to and fro, reworking each notion in ‘a restless, ceaseless engagement with the present.’ In a similar way, he seeks to rework the notion of art by activating the space between different forms of cultural production: architecture, fine art, documentary.
Enwezor speaks of curation as a form of research, and an exhibition as a space of debate and conflict as artists, institutions, curators and viewers ‘go forward together to shape a theoretical field.’ Freelance curator Richard Hylton offers one viewer’s response to Documenta 11. He argues that the exhibition’s ambition, scale, and commitment to inclusiveness resulted in a chaotic spectacle which often failed to take into account the exhibiting needs of different media and different kinds of work. The result was a viewing experience akin to TV channel-hopping or window shopping. While attempting to correct the racial and cultural inequities of the past, Documenta 11 may have been blind to the politics of its own form - the international contemporary exhibition.
In post-colonial writing about visual art, ‘hybridity’ is often used to describe what happens when one culture’s system of meaning is translated into that of another. A third identity is created in which the original ones are still discernible but neither dominates. This solution to difference, though, has its problems. Hybridity can become a new orthodoxy, with non-Western artists creating ‘hybrid’ identities to cater to international markets. Alternatively artists may deny hybridity and produce work which is seen as ‘pure’, ‘authentic’, or ‘traditional’. Ferdinand de Jong writes about two Senegalese painters who depict vanishing local traditions and rituals in order to preserve them in cultural memory. In the process they carefully, eliminate signs of creolisation or cross-cultural influences. These ‘uncontaminated’ images are destined for North American and European living rooms, where they signify ‘tradition’ and ‘locality’, thus reinforcing clichés of African otherness. The artists also had a tendency to separate images of tradition and modernity: paintings were either rural idylls with no signs of modern life, or else crowded urban streets with no signs of the natural world.
Non-Western artists may thus find themselves consigned to certain roles of ‘otherness’ in the system - whether it is the hybrid, the pure or the traditional ‘other’. Cesare Poppi examines the conceptual frameworks offered by some recent major exhibitions of African art. The attempt to recast cultural production from that continent as ‘postmodern’ is particularly problematic. It seems that the struggle continues to find an adequate critical point of view for African art, one that acknowledges its specificity but doesn’t get trapped in clichés. Exhibitions which aim to correct the flawed established accounts may end up by imposing other, equally constricting, categories. Clearly it is easier to diagnose the problem than it is to offer viable alternatives. What is needed is a way of thinking about African art that allows it its own internal contradictions and complexities.
John Steers looks at the recent history of InSEA (International Society for Education through Art) in regard to its developing concern with plurality, multiculturalism and global issues. This overview offers insight into changing ideas about art education and its purposes. He concludes that a sufficiently broad education in ‘visual culture’ has an important role to play in intercultural understanding, and hence tolerance. Katherine Hann writes about the establishment of the new British Museum of the Empire and Commonwealth. Through consultation and various means of presenting opposing points of view, the museum makes a great effort not to endorse the conquerors, or to re-victimise the conquered, but rather to re-examine a segment of the history of globalisation in order to contribute to current debates. Charles Landry reflects on galleries which have devised their practices and their physical structures to accommodate ‘the sum of many histories, many versions, many voices.’ Veronica Sekules and Pete Worrall reflect on digital projects which link university and school education with the resources of museums and galleries.
A recurring theme is that the local and the culturally specific will continually assert itself within the drive toward standardisation. De Jong suggests that although the materials people use (consumer goods, artistic media) may look increasingly alike, cultures will use them in varying and specific ways. The online teaching resources described by Sekules were intended to be used anywhere, by anyone; this has not proved so simple. Apparently a great deal of work is required to adapt the resources to contexts outside of the insitutions that devised them. In Helsinki, Kaija Kaituvuori reflects on clashes around the concepts of art, the image and nudity during a gallery project with Somalian children.
Emma Cocker asks whether gallery education itself has become standardised, whether educators all work in more or less the same way now. She goes on to describe Site Gallery’s participation in the FAME project, designed to exchange gallery education practice amongst Spanish, Finnish and British partners. At one point it became clear that many things were failing to be carried across the cultural divide: ‘A sense of uncertainty about the project became palpable in the pauses between the translations from one language to another.’ Despite many shared aims, the teaching methods themselves tended to be culturally specific. This was something to be valued. However, it was possible to import ‘foreign’ strategies, digest and reformulate them, as a way of enriching one’s own approach. Through such encounters one sees oneself differently. The same thing happens through encounters with the best art: the familiar becomes strange and the strange is made, in the end, familiar.
Notes 1 Jameson, F. and Miyoshi, M (eds) (1998) The Cultures of Globalisation, Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. xi.
2 See Kahve-Society ‘The International Art World and its Exclusions’ in engage 11 (2002), p
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
engage is a registered not-for-profit educational association which promotes access to and understanding of the visual arts through gallery education and cultural mediation nationally and internationally.
engage has a membership of over 1000 worldwide, including galleries, arts centres, museums, artists studios, artists, curators, teachers, students as well as gallery education and cultural mediation staff and freelancers. engage works in three key areas: action-research (including the Collect & Share lifelong learning network in Europe – see www.collectandshare.eu.com), professional development, advocacy (see www.engage.org).
engage is building an international online case study database, and a resource and library of relevant reports, evaluations, and research. engage welcomes offers of material to make available to the sector through these channels.
To enquire about copyright, to subscribe to the engage journal or join engage, or to offer material for the database or website, please email [email protected]
engage is grateful to the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, to the Depts of Culture and Education in England, to the British Council and the European Commission, and to the Esmee Fairbairn and Baring Foundations for ongoing support.
This PDF is an extract from engage publication:
• engage review Promoting greater understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts
• Globalisation
• Issue 13 – Summer 2003
• 80 pages
• ISSN 1365-9383
The original publication is available from engage as below, subject to stocks.
This text is copyright, and is made available for personal/educational use only, and may not be used commercially or published in any way, in print or electronically, without the express permission of the copyright holders engage. engage reiterates its gratitude to the authors and editors concerned, many of whom work without fee. For more details of engage see end.
Contents
Globalisation Issue 13 – Summer 2003
Editorial
Okwui Enwezor To-ing and fro-ing: interview with Karen Raney
John Steers Globalising visual culture: a matter of choice?
Katherine Hann A history of imperialism in a global economy
Charles Landry The dilemma of crossing cultures
Cesare Poppi African Art and Globalisation: on whose terms the question?
Ferdinand de Jong Globalising the self, localising the other
Richard Hylton Notes on Documenta
Alessio Antoniolli The Bigger Picture: interview with Karen Raney
Emma Cocker Give and Take: the possibility and problematic of transcultural exchange
Kaija Kaitavuori Globalising audiences
Veronica Sekules ‘Artworld’ and higher education learning on the internet
Pete Worrall Culture Box plc
Reviews David Blamey’s Here, There, Elsewhere: Dialogues on Location and Mobility Karen Raney’s Art in Question
Editorial, Globalisation
Karen Raney
Fredric Jameson writes that globalisation is the modern equivalent of the proverbial elephant, described by blind men in many different ways. Common to all accounts is the idea of a world ‘shrinking’ as a result of instant communication and expanded markets. But the consequences of a shrinking world may be perceived very differently. In the optimistic view, globalisation leads to celebration of difference and enriching cultural exchanges, where those who have been silenced are given voice. In the pessimistic view, globalisation leads to an impoverished monoculture being visited on the world by force - market forces, armed forces. Both views may be true in part and at different times and places. Globalisation unifies and fragments. Globalisation makes local cultures visible, and it overrides them.
This volume brings together some reflections on art in a globalising world, from the point of view of curating, educating and art practice. Increasing huge, international exhibitions are the stage on which the conflicts and aspirations of contemporary art play themselves out. Okwui Enwezor was artistic director of Documenta 11 (2002). As well as being the most ‘global’ of the Documentas to date (it took place on three continents), this exhibition also took globalisation as its subject. In interview, Enwezor speaks about the problems with the fixed categories ‘West’ and ‘non- West’. His own westernization did not come about from moving beyond his Nigerian origins into another space; rather the West was already contained within this so- called non-Western culture. There is an interspace which is active, reciprocal, in flux. One shuttles to and fro, reworking each notion in ‘a restless, ceaseless engagement with the present.’ In a similar way, he seeks to rework the notion of art by activating the space between different forms of cultural production: architecture, fine art, documentary.
Enwezor speaks of curation as a form of research, and an exhibition as a space of debate and conflict as artists, institutions, curators and viewers ‘go forward together to shape a theoretical field.’ Freelance curator Richard Hylton offers one viewer’s response to Documenta 11. He argues that the exhibition’s ambition, scale, and commitment to inclusiveness resulted in a chaotic spectacle which often failed to take into account the exhibiting needs of different media and different kinds of work. The result was a viewing experience akin to TV channel-hopping or window shopping. While attempting to correct the racial and cultural inequities of the past, Documenta 11 may have been blind to the politics of its own form - the international contemporary exhibition.
In post-colonial writing about visual art, ‘hybridity’ is often used to describe what happens when one culture’s system of meaning is translated into that of another. A third identity is created in which the original ones are still discernible but neither dominates. This solution to difference, though, has its problems. Hybridity can become a new orthodoxy, with non-Western artists creating ‘hybrid’ identities to cater to international markets. Alternatively artists may deny hybridity and produce work which is seen as ‘pure’, ‘authentic’, or ‘traditional’. Ferdinand de Jong writes about two Senegalese painters who depict vanishing local traditions and rituals in order to preserve them in cultural memory. In the process they carefully, eliminate signs of creolisation or cross-cultural influences. These ‘uncontaminated’ images are destined for North American and European living rooms, where they signify ‘tradition’ and ‘locality’, thus reinforcing clichés of African otherness. The artists also had a tendency to separate images of tradition and modernity: paintings were either rural idylls with no signs of modern life, or else crowded urban streets with no signs of the natural world.
Non-Western artists may thus find themselves consigned to certain roles of ‘otherness’ in the system - whether it is the hybrid, the pure or the traditional ‘other’. Cesare Poppi examines the conceptual frameworks offered by some recent major exhibitions of African art. The attempt to recast cultural production from that continent as ‘postmodern’ is particularly problematic. It seems that the struggle continues to find an adequate critical point of view for African art, one that acknowledges its specificity but doesn’t get trapped in clichés. Exhibitions which aim to correct the flawed established accounts may end up by imposing other, equally constricting, categories. Clearly it is easier to diagnose the problem than it is to offer viable alternatives. What is needed is a way of thinking about African art that allows it its own internal contradictions and complexities.
John Steers looks at the recent history of InSEA (International Society for Education through Art) in regard to its developing concern with plurality, multiculturalism and global issues. This overview offers insight into changing ideas about art education and its purposes. He concludes that a sufficiently broad education in ‘visual culture’ has an important role to play in intercultural understanding, and hence tolerance. Katherine Hann writes about the establishment of the new British Museum of the Empire and Commonwealth. Through consultation and various means of presenting opposing points of view, the museum makes a great effort not to endorse the conquerors, or to re-victimise the conquered, but rather to re-examine a segment of the history of globalisation in order to contribute to current debates. Charles Landry reflects on galleries which have devised their practices and their physical structures to accommodate ‘the sum of many histories, many versions, many voices.’ Veronica Sekules and Pete Worrall reflect on digital projects which link university and school education with the resources of museums and galleries.
A recurring theme is that the local and the culturally specific will continually assert itself within the drive toward standardisation. De Jong suggests that although the materials people use (consumer goods, artistic media) may look increasingly alike, cultures will use them in varying and specific ways. The online teaching resources described by Sekules were intended to be used anywhere, by anyone; this has not proved so simple. Apparently a great deal of work is required to adapt the resources to contexts outside of the insitutions that devised them. In Helsinki, Kaija Kaituvuori reflects on clashes around the concepts of art, the image and nudity during a gallery project with Somalian children.
Emma Cocker asks whether gallery education itself has become standardised, whether educators all work in more or less the same way now. She goes on to describe Site Gallery’s participation in the FAME project, designed to exchange gallery education practice amongst Spanish, Finnish and British partners. At one point it became clear that many things were failing to be carried across the cultural divide: ‘A sense of uncertainty about the project became palpable in the pauses between the translations from one language to another.’ Despite many shared aims, the teaching methods themselves tended to be culturally specific. This was something to be valued. However, it was possible to import ‘foreign’ strategies, digest and reformulate them, as a way of enriching one’s own approach. Through such encounters one sees oneself differently. The same thing happens through encounters with the best art: the familiar becomes strange and the strange is made, in the end, familiar.
Notes 1 Jameson, F. and Miyoshi, M (eds) (1998) The Cultures of Globalisation, Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. xi.
2 See Kahve-Society ‘The International Art World and its Exclusions’ in engage 11 (2002), p
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
engage is a registered not-for-profit educational association which promotes access to and understanding of the visual arts through gallery education and cultural mediation nationally and internationally.
engage has a membership of over 1000 worldwide, including galleries, arts centres, museums, artists studios, artists, curators, teachers, students as well as gallery education and cultural mediation staff and freelancers. engage works in three key areas: action-research (including the Collect & Share lifelong learning network in Europe – see www.collectandshare.eu.com), professional development, advocacy (see www.engage.org).
engage is building an international online case study database, and a resource and library of relevant reports, evaluations, and research. engage welcomes offers of material to make available to the sector through these channels.
To enquire about copyright, to subscribe to the engage journal or join engage, or to offer material for the database or website, please email [email protected]
engage is grateful to the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, to the Depts of Culture and Education in England, to the British Council and the European Commission, and to the Esmee Fairbairn and Baring Foundations for ongoing support.