<strong>Prince</strong> <strong>Claus</strong> <strong>Fund</strong> Reader #1 · Summer <strong>2011</strong> · 10
ds, in wideruits, unprepost-anthroanconditionwaiting thetaneously onoutes: Historyhis article.ticle haveFrom 30 March to 2 April 1998 the Unescointergovernmental conference on the ‘Power ofCulture’ took place in Stockholm, Sweden.As an agora to this conference the seminar‘Vision of African Cultural Co-operation andDevelopment’ was organised, seeking to discusskey issues of African cultural development forthe 21st century.The event was also the occasionfor the international launch of Ubuntu 2000, apan-African initiative working in this field.At the invitation of the Bellagio PublishingNetwork, organiser of the conference, Els vander Plas, Director of the <strong>Prince</strong> <strong>Claus</strong> <strong>Fund</strong>,read the following paper.Internationalism and the Arts:Theory and PracticeThe world of the visual arts in the post-colonial,post Cold War and indeed even post-modernistera is characterised by certain specific features,which may serve as relevant starting-points fortoday’s discussion on internationalism and thearts, in theory and practice.Concepts and DefinitionsThe terms ‘art’ and ‘modernity’ – and thus also‘modern art’ – are of Western origin. In thisWestern perception, art is regarded as theultimate expression of the ultimate emotion. Inthis context the meaning of modernity is closelylinked with evolutionary ideas. The logicalconsequence of a belief in human progress is thatmodern artists create their ultimate expressionsof art in ivory towers and exhibit their works ofgenius in those Western ‘art temples’, themuseums of modern art. The almost religiousexperience of these objects comes close to thishigher ideal of ultimate emotional possibilities.This modernist concept is currently changing. Itis a change that started roughly ten to fifteen yearsago, especially through the influence of the artfrom non-Western countries and of art workscreated within multicultural societies in theDiaspora. Cultural relativism is making inroads inthe art world. In fact it is better to talk of‘contemporary art’ rather than ‘modern art’ whenreferring to contemporary developments in theinternational art world, given the Westernconnotations of the term ‘modern’.Els van der PlasThe visual arts take many forms. In addition tothe modern art I referred to above, there ispopular art, fashion, ceramics and religious andanimistic art from countries in Latin America,Africa and Asia. These forms of art are sometimesmore popular in their own country than modernart is in the West. At the same time this isprecisely the difference in comparison with themodernist definition of art given above. All ofwhich goes to strengthen the case for using theterm ‘contemporary art’ rather than ‘modern art’as a way of including various contemporarydevelopments in the art field around the world.Art HistoryIn the areas colonialised by the West, Westernersestablished academies of art. There a Europeansystem of academic art training was given (afterthe example of the 19th-century painter JoshuaReynolds) and modern art was taught from theImpressionists and the Cubists up to the time thecolonists withdrew again, the 1950s. As a resultartists in Latin America, Africa and Asia oftenknow a great deal about Western modern art,especially up to the 1950s. Western art historytherefore became a part of the history of thecolonial areas. In that sense ‘back to the roots’ isnot a contemporary idea, but rathera ‘neo-postcolonial’attitude.On the one hand, there is a lack of knowledge inEurope and America of the art history and currentdevelopments in the arts in the various countriesof Latin America, Africa and Asia. On the otherhand, in non-Western areas there is sometimes alack of up-to-date information on Westernmodern art. This makes the transfer of knowledgeessential. It is just as important for aMozambican artist to read ‘Art in America’ as it isfor the Museum of Modern Art in New Yorkto have ‘Revue Noire’ or the Zimbabweanmagazine ‘Gallery’ in its library. The mutual lackof expertise needs to be corrected on both sides.The gaps in knowledge and expertise I havereferred to, mean that art is not always assessedadequately and professionally or in its propercontext. As a result it is not always easy tocombine arts from various areas and bring themtogether in a balanced way, as can be done withother art forms. In literature, for example, this isstimulated by translating books and other works,<strong>Prince</strong> <strong>Claus</strong> <strong>Fund</strong> Journal #1 5511 · <strong>Prince</strong> <strong>Claus</strong> <strong>Fund</strong> Reader #3 · Summer <strong>2011</strong>
Change language