How to Do Things With Words

The Reality of the Mass Media

This article examines the transformation of museums and the rise of art fairs as arenas for assembling Latin American art and agents at regional and larger scales, and as channels through which the work of the market and its templates has spread. It approaches this topic through the analysis of the Lima art scene and its mechanisms of articulation. This article connects to studies of the rise of ‘new art worlds’, but not as celebration of their position on the ‘global art map.’ In contrast, with a focus on multi-scale assemblages, this work traces actors’ – particularly art collectors’, curators’ and art fair directors’ – strategies and articulations to promote Peruvian and Latin American art. I argue that while current assemblages are strengthening the region and mobilizing – some – new interpretations, they are also fuelling market logics and spreading similar values and protocols.

Fuelling museums and art fairs in Peru’s capital: the work of the market and multi-scale assemblages

The thesis analyses modes of representation in the South African National Gallery (SANG) between 
1930 and 2009. Built in 1930, for the larger part of its history SANG was situated in a white state 
that disenfranchised the black populace. Whiteness, as citizenship, was normalised and glorified in 
the state’s museums. Analysis of evidence collected from the archive, decor, art collection, 
exhibitions, attendance of walking tours and semi-structured interviews with staff demonstrates 
that SANG’s historic practice does not fit neatly within the dominant theoretical understanding of 
the art museum, namely a sacred space in which power has been obscured through the ‘art for art’s 
sake’ model. Instead, the thesis finds at SANG invisible symbolic capital resided alongside the 
more muscular capital of the colony, which derived its strength from an overt relationship with 
commerce, politics and race. The thesis further finds that SANG developed a close relationship with 
its white audience through its construction as a ‘homely space’. As a consequence, I argue SANG 
developed museological conventions that better fit the analogy of the political house than the 
temple.

Taking new museum ethics into consideration, the thesis examines how SANG’s distinctive heritage 
impacted on its ability to be inclusive. My fieldwork on recent representational practice at SANG 
reveals strategies congruent with the post-museum, including performative political exhibitions, 
diversification of the collection and active dialogue with the communities it seeks to serve. At 
the same time embedded modes of white cultural representation were identified that restricted its 
capacity to ‘move-on’. The thesis contributes to the field of museum studies by drawing attention 
to the significance of the individual histories of art institutions in determining their ability to 
make change. The thesis also contributes to the field of visual sociology by presenting
images and ‘map-making’ as an integral feature of the research design.

The Political House of Art: The South African National Gallery 1930-2009

Rethinking the center-periphery model: Dimensions and temporalities of macro-structure in a global field of cultural production

"The geography of the visual arts changed with the end of the Cold War. Contemporary art was no longer defined, exhibited, interpreted, and acquired according to a blueprint drawn up in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin. The art world distributed itself into art worlds. With the emergence of new art scenes in Asia and the Middle East and the explosion of biennials, the visual arts have become globalized as surely as the world economy has. This book offers a new map of contemporary art's new worlds. The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds documents the globalization of the visual arts and the rise of the contemporary over the last twenty years. Lavishly illustrated, with color throughout, it tracks developments ranging from exhibition histories and the rise of new art spaces to art's branding in such emerging markets as Hong Kong and the Gulf States. Essays treat such subjects as curating after the global turn; art and the migration of pictures; the end of the canon; and new strategies of representation."--Publisher's website.

Andrea Buddensieg

Papers

The global contemporary and the rise of new art worlds

Contemporary art and the museum : a global perspective

Ein Afrikaner in Paris: Léopold Sédar Senghor und die Zukunft der Moderne