World Art and the Legacies of Colonial Violence

How have imperialism and its after-effects impacted patterns of cultural exchange, artistic creativity and historical/curatorial interpretation? World Art and the Legacies of Colonial Violence - comprised of ten essays by an international roster of art historians, curators, and anthropologists - forges innovative approaches to post-colonial studies, Indigenous studies, critical heritage studies, and the new museology. This volume probes the degree to which global histories of conflict, coercion and occupation have shaped art historical approaches to intercultural knowledge and representation. These debates are relevant to contemporary artists and scholars of visual, material and museological culture in their attempts to negotiate imperial and colonial legacies. Confronting the aesthetics of Abolition, Fascism and Filipino independence, and re-thinking relationships between colonised and coloniser in Cameroon, North America and East Timor, the collection brings together new readings of Primitivism and Aboriginal art as well. It features discussions of touring exhibitions, popular media, modernist paintings and sculptures, historic photographs, human remains and art installations. In addition to the critical application of phenomenology in a fresh and contemporary manner, the volume’s ’world art’ perspective nurtures the possibility that intercultural ethics are relevant to the study of art, power and modernity.

Daniel J. Rycroft is Lecturer in the Arts and Cultures of Asia, at the University of East Anglia, UK.