Mediating Modernisms

Ruth B. Phillips

ISBN 10: 1478032367 / ISBN 13: 9781478032366

Published by Duke University Press, US, 2025

About this Item

Mediating Modernisms explores the fertile exchanges between Indigenous artists living in colonial societies and the mid-twentieth mediators who carried ideas of aesthetic modernism and modernist primitivism into these worlds. Spanning South Africa, North America, Australia, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Brazil, Nigeria, and India, the case studies examine the mediators who played the role of mentors, friends, and patrons to Indigenous artists. Their relationships constituted complex mutual exchanges of aesthetic ideas and practices that inspired artists to create new fusions of modernism with Indigenous art traditions and that reflected their negotiations between affiliation to tradition and embrace of technology, newness, and metropolitan patronage. Challenging current understandings of modernist primitivism and elucidating the creation of the "global contemporary" art world, this volume reveals broader historical patterns, shared ideological and aesthetic dynamics, and the structural parallels that link mediators and Indigenous artists to globally circulating artistic ideas and geopolitical forces.Contributors. Peter Brunt, Roberto Conduru, Hanna Horsberg Hansen, Elizabeth Harney, Jyotindra Jain, Sandra Klopper, Ian McLean, Anitra Nettleton, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Ruth B. Phillips, Una Rey, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Nicholas Thomas, Norman Vorano, Mark Andrew White.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781478032366

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mediating Modernisms
• Publisher: Duke University Press, US
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1478032367
• ISBN 13: 9781478032366
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 445 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Mediating Modernisms explores the fertile exchanges between Indigenous artists living in colonial societies and the mid-twentieth century mediators who carried ideas of aesthetic modernism and modernist primitivism into these worlds. Spanning South Africa, North America, Australia, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Brazil, Nigeria, and India, the case studies examine the mediators who played the role of mentors, friends, and patrons to Indigenous artists. Their relationships constituted complex mutual exchanges of aesthetic ideas and practices that inspired artists to create new fusions of modernism with Indigenous art traditions and that reflected their negotiations between affiliation with tradition and embrace of technology, newness, and metropolitan patronage. Challenging current understandings of modernist primitivism and elucidating the creation of the “global contemporary” art world, this volume reveals broader historical patterns, shared ideological and aesthetic dynamics, and the structural parallels that link mediators and Indigenous artists to globally circulating artistic ideas and geopolitical forces.

Contributors. Peter Brunt, Roberto Conduru, Hanna Horsberg Hansen, Elizabeth Harney, Jyotindra Jain, Sandra Klopper, Ian McLean, Anitra Nettleton, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Ruth B. Phillips, Una Rey, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Nicholas Thomas, Norman Vorano, Mark Andrew White

About the Author

Ruth B. Phillips is Professor Emerita of Art History at Carleton University.

Norman Vorano is Associate Professor and Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Art and Visual Culture at Queen’s University.