Global Contemporary Art

Globalization101.org: a resource to learn about the trade-offs and dilemmas of globalization

Globalization101.org is a resource for students to research globalization. It is run by the Levin Institute of State University of New York. The Levin Mission Statement is as follows: "The SUNY Levin Institute (the “Levin Institute” or “Levin”) promotes thoughtful educational engagement and an analysis of “globalization” and its impact on New York State.  The Levin Institute operates in the tradition of urban land-grant universities*—public institutions dedicated to addressing challenges of 21st century cities. The Levin Institute enhances public discourse, creates and disseminates knowledge, engages international, national and local partners, and develops and manages programs to support New York’s and the nation’s economic growth, sustainability and social vitality. The Levin Institute focuses on international involvement, entrepreneurism, innovation, scholarship, and workforce development" (http://www.levin.suny.edu/about/). 

Globalization101.org deals with a variety of issues surrounding globalization including: trade, environment, media, development, women, investment, technology, culture, migration, human rights, the World Bank, energy, education, health, and international law. For the purpose of this post, I read the article Globalization and Art (March 16th, 2009). The article says: "This analysis will examine the impact of the global economic crisis on the art world, the role of emerging markets in the art industry, and some cultural challenges facing the art world" (http://www.globalization101.org/globalization-and-art-2/). The article is divided into sections: "Impact of the Global Economic Crisis," "Art and Emerging Markets," "Impact of the Technology," and "Cultural Concerns."

Many parts of this article interest me and are applicable to Art History 343. However, it is important to take this article with a a grain of salt. Some of the author's points seem to contradict what we learned in class. Though I easily could have misunderstood, I was under the impression that one of the reasons the art market was fascinating was because of it's ability to not lose money. However, this article says: "The art industry is no doubt taking a hit. Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips De Pury & Co, the three biggest art auction houses, have seen bids for Modern and Contemporary art drop by a 30-50 percent. Sotheby’s stock (the only one that is publicly traded) lost 83 percent of its value in the last year. Christie International’s 2008 sales totaled $5.1 billion dollars, down 19 percent since 2007." This loss seems to contrast what we talked about in class, even though the article acknowledges: "Just as emerging markets are a hot spot for investors and speculators, the art industry has also grown tremendously in emerging markets, such as India, China, Russia, and the UAE. Europe and the United States are no longer the only hubs of the art industry." 

I struggled quite a bit with understanding Neo-Liberalism when we first read about before class. However, after taking notes in class, I understood it's ideas much better. Thus, I thought I'd post my class notes and notes from the reading about Neo-Liberalism, in case anyone else struggled with it! 

_____________________________________________________

"Neo-Liberalism emphasizes privatization of industries, economic restructuring to emphasize public spending, and regulation of market." Additionally, under Neo-Liberalism, the amount of state funding for social welfare, education, security, and infrastructure will be diminished. Neo-Liberalism is characterized by privatization and commodification of everyday life. Commercials assimilating the aesthetics or other characteristics are not uncommon expressions of Neo-Liberalism.modification of the OBEY movement is an example of this. 

Supporters of Neo-Liberalism are excited by DIY culture, particularly in which subjects are responsible for their own well-being (as opposed to modern 'social contract' in which the citizen is supported by the state).One such example of this is the paraSITE project created by Michael Rakowitze. paraSITE uses recycled plastic goods to create temporary shelters for the homeless in New York. These shelters use air vents on the outside of buildings to inflate the structures and heat them, free of cost. You can read more about these structures here: http://michaelrakowitz.com/projects/parasite/. 

Yasumasa Morimura is a contemporary artist who utilizes Western icons and aesthetics by Japanese work. Penelope Mason writes in History of Japanese Art: “From Osaka, Morimura began in the 1980s by making pastiches of paintings by European masters in which images of himself supplant the subject matter of the painting. Alexandra Munroe qualifies Moriumra’s work as an attack on contemporary Japanese obsessions with appropriating Western culture and ‘commodifying’ it” (389). Yasumasa’s computer manipulated photograph, Psychoborg 22 (1994), displays two of the United States’ most memorable pop figures: Madonna and Michael Jackson. Garbed in flamboyant, futuristic, and metallic costumes, Yasumasa strikes the famed dance poses of his characters immortalizing his performance during a time moving image captures were out of his price range. They stand together, but not engaged, against a gradient blue and white wall, illuminated from above. Yasumasa assimilates Western aesthetics in order to critique its impact upon Japanese contemporary culture. His work is critical of globalization. Psyborg 22 examines aesthetics of assimilation, romanticization, and idolatry. 

"This issues is not whether these museums qualify as models for a 'global museum' anywhere in the world. The question is rather, whether in the global age the art museum will survive at all as an institution with a single purpose and a common appearance" (251).

Belting's essay identifies the rise of multiple contemporary 'art worlds' and the ways in which museums negotiate new practices, concerns, and audiences for contemporary art. Identify and briefly explain 3 challenges facing contemporary art museums in the global age and identify 3 new roles the contemporary museum serve. 

a. Museums can be limited in the public they serve, usually only visited by those in the "upper-class" or elite societies.

b. Museums can fall into traps of calling non-Western art "traditional" or "functional," without acknowledging aesthetics, cultural decisions, or value.  

c. "A museum collection has always been based on the need of selection for the public's memory and excluded what did not deserve memory" (251).

_________________________________________________________

a. "In many ways, the educational part will be its strong side, and this also applies to the need for a public forum where a community looks to art as a social practice rather than at art for exhibition" (251). The desire creates this forum combats the tendency to only reach the upper-class citizens.

b. Contemporary art museums represent "the different agendas - aesthetic, historical, and political - that diverse publics bring to contexts of display" (251). This battles the ethnocentrism previously mentioned. 

Based on your readings of Caroline Jones', "Biennial Culture and Aesthetics of Experience" and Tim Griffin's "Worlds Apart" and Claire Doherty's "Location, Location" essay, explain in (3-5 sentences each) 4 specific features of biennial culture (e.g. where does it come from? What kind of structures does it rely on? What kinds of art making does it facilitate? What kinds of interactions between artists and audiences are made possible? What are some possible pitfalls of these events?)

a. Biennial culture provokes various kinds of BIG activist projects. Physically big, that is. As a result the work is rarely able to exist outside the biennial environment. Biennials create a new kind of site-specific art. Thus, the audience that is able to experience this work is limited to those who are able to participate in biennials. 

b. The biggest, most important biennials (like that in Venice) can become exclusive. They are inaccessible by the every-man for a variety of reasons including admission costs, travel expenses, and other barriers. Thus, they can lose their community reputation and fail to serve the people the activist work they produced sought to serve. Instead, work can become pretentious, exploitative, or useless. 

c. "Experience in the contemporary art context is contractual. When invoked, it class to a certain good faith and openness on the part of the observer, as well as protocols of generosity form artist and curator..." (198). This quotation refers to the new powers given to curator and artist created by biennials. As a result of this new interactivity, artists and curators have more control over exhibitions, when previously such roles were limited. Now, artists and curators are able to be more experimental and creative. 

Yanobe Kenji’s Antenna of the Earth (2000)

 Formally known as the Modern Art Society, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati strives to “impact regional and global communities by providing changing arts experiences that challenge, entertain and educate.” If you want to learn about the history of the Contemporary Arts Center, you can access their timeline here: http://contemporaryartscenter.org/about/timeline. The Contemporary Arts Center resides within the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art. “With more than 16,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, a dedicated black box performance space and the Sara M. and Patrica A. Vance UnMuseum, a 6,600 sq. ft. multi-generational exhibition and education space, the Rosenthal Center remains one of the nation’s largest and most dynamic contemporary arts presenter. The Rosenthal Center is also a highly sought-after facility rental space for creative events, weddings, corporate meetings and more.”

In addition to hosting traditional gallery exhibitions, the Contemporary Arts Center offers performance and film showings, guest lectures, programs for community involvement (including programs for community members with memory loss involving DIY and free tours), children-oriented programs (including hands-on activities, liberal arts education, and summer programs), teacher workshops,  exhibition and architecture tours, and the Scripps School Program (for third to twelfth-grade teachers and students), and various special events.

The most widely read art magazine in the world

Student Resource: ARTnews.com

  I’m sure most people are familiar with the ARTnews Magazine. However, I wanted to offer a little information about the ARTnews website, as more people probably have access to it. Founded in 1902, ARTnews is the oldest and most widely-circulated art magazine in the world. It is read by over 180, 000 people in 123 countries. It is a valuable source that strives to report on not only this historical, but the contemporary and modern. In order to remain a valuable source, the magazine has adapted to include “profiles of notable collectors, museum directors and scholars; travel itineraries filled with art appreciation; inside views of the art market; and reports from the world of design.” The website is divided into several sections including “News,” “Investigations,” “Features,” “Trends,” “Profiles,” “Market,” “Looking At Art,” “Reviews,” and “Books.” The homepage displays a variety of headlines or articles from the most recent magazine and other submissions. You can also sign up to receive the free bi-monthly email newsletter.

  For the purpose of this class, I decided to search something simple and straight-forward: “globalization.” This search resulted in 21 articles. I was particularly drawn to the articles: From Showroom to Studio: Artists Repurpose IKEA Products (Emma Allen, 2013), Japan’s Postwar Art Wave (Barbara Pollack, 2013), and African Art: Beyond the Masks (Roger Atwood, 2012). All of the articles offered were descriptions of works.  Artists Repurpose IKEA  Products examines the variety of ways international artists use the global products produced by IKEA. Japan’s Postwar Art Wave focuses upon works and exhibitions dealing particularly with Gutai and other works examining post WWII events. African Art says: “There is a growing sense of the globalization of art and a sense that we need to look at African art as more than an inspiration for modernism…” (http://www.artnews.com/2012/09/17/beyond-the-masks/).

Artists’ Resource: The Rauschenberg Foundation

The Rauschenberg Foundation was formed in 1990 to serve three primary functions: “increasing access to and scholarship about Rauschenberg’s work, maintaining the foundation’s artist-residency program in Florida, and philanthropic endeavors” (Stolze, George, Art News: March, 2014, 84). To further promote Rauschenberg works, the Foundation offers a Gift Purchase Program through which museum may buy Rauschenberg works at half price. Additionally, the Foundation has a Loan Bank program that lends Rauschenberg works to smaller institutions, covering insurance and transportation costs. The Foundation also offers a comprehensive website with pictures and information about most of Rauschenberg’s pieces. The artist residency program, “…brings artists together for four-week cycles during which collaboration is encouraged – an eclectic approach modeled on the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina, which Rauschenberg so fruitfully attended” (85). Attendees are invitation-only.

All of this is important, but what I (and probably you) am most interested in is the Foundation’s philanthropic actions. The value of the Rauschenberg Foundation’s artworks, real estate, and cash is approximately $600 million. The Foundation’s website says: “Rauschenberg was a strong believer in collaboration between artists and across cultures. His life and work demonstrated how art could be a vehicle for social change, locally and globally. We are proud to carry Rauschenberg's legacy forward, and the impact of his spirit and style are reflected in the projects that we invest in.” George Stolze wrote: “the foundation’s philanthropic activity is divided into various subprograms, both within and beyond the confines of the art world” (86). Recently, the Foundation has funded educational programs focusing on self-worth and dyslexia. Additionally, the Foundation funds various environmental and humanitarian activist campaigns including Mt. Everest Nature Preserve; Earth Day; AIDS research and treatment; Natural Resources Defense Council; Tibetan Preservation; and United Nations supported efforts in population control and peacekeeping.

“Byzantine Things in the World” was a 2013 exhibition at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas curated by Glenn Peers. It exhibits Byzantine religious works side-by-side with contemporary works to “…help isolate the distinctive, odd, and yes, magical aspects of Byzantine art” (Strasnick, Stephanie, 2013). Peers is an Art History professor at the University of Texas in Early Medieval and Byzantine art. He has written a variety of books including: Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (2004), Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium, Transformations in Late Antiquity, vol. 32 (2001), and Collaboration with Massimo Bernabò and Rita Tarasconi, Il Fisiologo di Smirne (1998). In addition, he has published many other book-length works, periodicals, articles, and encyclopedia entries. If you would like to learn more about Peers, you can access his CV here: file:///C:/Users/lenore/Downloads/Peers_CV.pdf. You can also access his University of Texas profile here: http://www.utexas.edu/finearts/aah/about/people/glenn-peers.

“Byzantine Things in the World” utilizes the Menil Collection’s permanent collection and various contemporary works that were brought to the museum for the exhibition. The pieces are grouped into categories and rooms including “Cross,” “Face,” “Body Orientations,” and “Erotics.” In the “Cross” room, viewers were able to view an icon of Saint Gregory (late 14th to early 15th century) and Dan Flavin’s untitled [to Barbara Wool] (1970). One of the most notable juxtapositions in “Byzantine Things in the World” is between various gold objects displayed side-by-side. As Devon Britt-Darby wrote for http://artsandculturetx.com/, “Dark, with objects lit in a powerfully theatrical way, the room balances modestly scaled icons and Robert Raushcenberg’s equally portable 1956Unititled (Gold Painting) against Yves Klein’s large, almost unbearably tactile gold-leaf-on-wood Untitled (Monogold) (ca. 1960), James Lee Byars’s The Halo (1985) and a ravishing Rothko multiform. A pair of shiny, irascible Lucio Fontana sculptures, their off-spherical forms evoking bombs about to go off, their gashes implying stigmata, refused to settle easily into the room, Peers and Sutton said, but eventually led the curators to the perfect place…More than holding its own against all these heavyweights is a miniature gold reliquary less than two inches tall…” (http://artsandculturetx.com/byzantine-things-in-the-world/, 3). 

Antoinette Conti, Phiadelphia, 2012

South Philly, Mattress Flip, 2001

Sage Jumping, 2008

Daddy tattoo, Philadelphia, 2004

Vanessa, Philadelphia, 2006

Melissa's Handstand, 2004

New Tattoo Jorge, 2005

Zoe Strauss is a Philadelphia-born photographer. Born in 1970, Strauss was the first in her family to graduate from high school. As a result, most of Strauss’ photography focuses on the setting and people in the lower-income areas of Philadelphia. Rebecca Robertson in the November, 2013 Art News article said: “She [Strauss] seeks humanity in situations where it is sometimes hidden, in the lives of the poor and working class” (92). The pictures above are from her project “Under I-95.” “Under I-95” was an instillation staged by Strauss between 2001 and 2011. For these ten years, Strauss photographed the run-down, broken locations of Philadelphia and the people inhabiting them. She then staged an instillation exhibition beneath an I-95 highway overpass in South Philadelphia of these photographs once a year for the ten years. Robertson writes: “Every row of columns correspond to a category Strauss devised, ranging from the fluidity of gender to American identity, but meanings shifted as the selection and order changed and images were added” (94). She would also sell color photocopies of the portraits for five dollars each. She describes her work as "an epic narrative about the beauty and struggle of everyday life."

I feel that it would be too strong to describe “Under I-95” as an anti-globalization or global justice piece. However, I would say that it is a piece that calls attention to “…a panoply of struggling characters...” (93). When Strauss photographs these settings and people, she critiques class division and poverty in the United States and, by extension, the world. Though she does not offer a specific solution, by drawing attention to the problems of poverty and exclusion, she demands change.

This book is available for free online here: http://books.google.com/books?id=F_yWgZzLnuwC&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=cultural+mercantilism&source=bl&ots=aubjdxrHga&sig=Nng95xf-_AtqTM1umgNJq2zuatI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4TZkU9vWNoiGogSTxIGIDw&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=cultural%20mercantilism&f=false

During my hunt to define cultural mercantilism, I came across this gem! 

Globalization and Contemporary art is a compilation of essays regarding, most simply put, globalization and contemporary art! Jonathan Harris is a Research Professor in Global Art & Design Studies at the Winchester School of Art with the University of Southampton. He is author and editor of sixteen books and over a hundred journal essays. You can actually contact him through the university's email, which I find pretty exciting ( [email protected]). 

Obviously, I was unable to read the entire book. However, looking at Harris' table of contents, I believe it will be a very valuable source for our research! The book is divided into parts, each containing four or more essays concerning a specific topic. Part 1 is "Institutions" and includes essays about how museums can interact with time-based pieces, among other institutional complications when dealing with global contemporary art. Here are the other sections:

Part 2: Formations (examining the evolution of groups as a result of global contemporary art)

Part 3: Means and Forces of Production (examining the economic affects and effects of globalized art)

Part 4: Identifications (interacting with the appropriate ways to identify art in a globalized context)

Part 5: Forms 

Part 6: Reproduction 

Part 7: Organization (an examination of the new ways in which contemporary global art is collected, displayed, and distributed)

As you can see, this book contains essays about many issues important to Art History 343. The Wiley Advantage says: "In a series of newly commissioned essays by both established and emerging scholars, Globalization and Contemporary Art probes the effects of internationalist culture and politics on art across a variety of media. Globalization and Contemporary Art is the first anthology to consider the role and impact of art and artist in an increasingly borderless world. [It is the] First major anthology of essays concerned with the impact of globalization on contemporary art. [It has an] Extensive bibliography and a full index designed to enable the reader to broaden knowledge of art and its relationship to globalization. [It is a] Unique analysis of the contemporary art market and its operation in a globalized economy." (2006).