Recalcitrant Geographies: National Claims, Transnationalism, and the Institutionalization of Contemporary Art

The time is ripe for modern and contemporary art museums in the West to reconsider their position in a globalizing world, to engage with such questions as how their collections have been formed and presented in the past fifty years or more, and what they represent. Modern art is said to have an international scope, but in reality this generally means Euro-American. Consequently, its origins, which lie in part in art from Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, are denied. Contemporary art as a global phenomenon is making a somewhat hesitant entry into museums in the Western world and into art history. It may be making its entry and may also be included in the discourse of art history, but in many cases this move is problematic. Throughout the past twenty-five years, Third Text founder Rasheen Araeen has fulminated against the “West’s” appropriation of modern art and the concept of Modernism.[1] Third Text has persistently argued that the Western analytical paradigm of the arts is distorted in its history and imposes its values and aesthetics without acknowledging the contribution of artists “from elsewhere,” as Okwui Enwezor terms it. This has had a number of consequences, not least the neglect in art historical textbooks and by modern art museums in the West of crucial Modernist work produced by non-Euro-American artists. Not having been written into the mainstream of art history, or seen as foundational for the formation of the canon of modern art and displays in modern art museums, this neglect results in a distorted view and calls for a thorough rewriting of modern art history, as well as a reconsideration of the layout of art museums. This urge is felt even more in the present-day globalization of art and the art world. “Art from elsewhere,” which is abundant, cannot simply be added to the existing canons or inserted into prevalent discourses; rather, we need to critically assess the foundations of art historical writing, canon formation, and museum displays.