Migrating arts with (out) migrating artists: Decentering the global art world

Abstract

Most models of cultural globalization describe circulation to and around conventional cultural centers. The art world becomes more inclusive, but its fundamental hierarchies remain in place. In this paper, we describe another form of cultural globalization called “decentering”, which involves the circulation and increased interconnectedness between peripheries, either with or without their integration to cultural centers. Using a mixed methods approach, we examined the global circulation of artists from Argentina, Lebanon, and South Korea in the past 20 years (2000–2019). The results show their works circulated to a broader range of destinations, more rapidly than their early artistic cohorts, without necessarily passing through traditional art centers. This trend was particularly true for younger artists. We attribute the increasing prominence of decentering to three factors: (1) The mobility of early artists that enables later artists to gain recognition without physically migrating, (2) the role of vernacularizers, and (3) labeling as categorization. Our research contributes to understandings of cultural globalization by demonstrating how these factors broaden the geographies of the global contemporary art world and encourage more vibrant artistic circulation within and between peripheries.