Bilderfahrzeuge Lecture Series - 'Reimagining Modernism: Art History and Modernisms Outside The Metropolis' (Prof. Partha Mitter )

The Bilderfahrzeuge Lecture series 2022/23 - "Border Regimes"

Modernism is claimed to be an inclusive global concept today, as demonstrated by the endless merry-go-round of Biennales, Art Fairs and international auctions in which artists from Asia, Africa and Latin America are lionised. The heterogeneous character of contemporary global art practices has even given rise to anxiety about the end of art history as a grand Hegelian narrative.  As the talk will argue, rather than being universal, these values are in fact the product of the western modernism and its special claims to universality. It will offer a critical reappraisal of art history that created the modernist canon and led to its domination of global modernism.