Offering a very basic introduction to Globalization, this presentation seeks to re-frame previous discussions on Postmodernism within a broader political and social context.

1. Postmodernism in Art: An Introduction Globalization and Art

2. Globalization and Art The purpose of this presentation is to offer a wider perspective upon significant changes taking place during the period we’ve studied.

4. An example of Globalization This example (slides 4 - 10) is taken from Mafried B. Steger’s excellent Globalization: A Very Short Introduction

5. Osama bin Laden addressing the glode in 2001

6. Office in Kabul

10. Contemporary Military Fatigues Timex Watch AK-47 Kalashnikov Rifle

11. Globalization New Communication Technologies Higher speed of information Greater distribution of information Multinational Corporations Increased International trade Increased flows of money across national boarders. (Increased ease of travel!)

13. “With Globalisation people become move able – physically, legally, linguistically, culturally and psychologically – to engage with each other whereever on planet earth they are” (Scholte, p. 59) “Instead of the monochrome fixation on nationality that reigned in the mid-twentieth century, identities in today’s more global world have tended to adopt a more plural and hybrid character” (Ibid, p. 225) “Globalization has tended to generate hybridity, where persons have complex multifaceted identities and face challenges of negotiating a blend of sometimes conflicting modes of being and belonging within the same self.” (Ibid, p. 226)

14. Flash Mob In Toronto Second Life

15. Neo-liberalism, Reagan and Thatcher.

16. “The Soviet and the East European regimes were unable to prevent the reception of Western radio and television broadcasts. Television played a direct role in the 1989 revolutions, which have rightly been called the first ‘television revolutions’. Street protests taking place in one country were watched by television audiences in others, large numbers of whom then took to the streets themselves.” (Giddens 1999, p.14-15)

17. Anti-Globalization “In 1820 the five richest countries in the world were three times as rich as the five poorest. By 1950, they were 35 times as rich; by 1970, 44 times; and by 1992, 72 times.” (Fulcher 2004, p.98)

20. McDonaldization Homogenization Disenchantment Dehumanization

22. Globalization and Art “Seen from the point of view of the art-world as a system [artworks] appear as the component parts of a uniform machine, which produces a large range of novel combinations that are tested against various publics for marketable meaning.” (Stallabrass 2004, p.151) “The filtering of local material through the art system ultimately leads to homogeneity. This system – not just the curation but the interests of all the bodies, private and public, that make up all the alliances around which biennales are formed – tend to produce an art that speaks to international concerns.” (Stallabrass 2004, p. 42)

23. Globalization and Art “The real story of the art world in the 1990s lies in how it subtly embraced and then reversed this trend toward hypercommodification by using the machinations of ‘marketing’ to shift the focus of art patronage away from the artist and back toward the institution... [The] 1990s did not show its unique aesthetic hand in the emergence of any identifiable period style in the visual arts; rather, it did so with a building boom in stylish museum buildings and a concomitant proliferation of international biennial exhibitions.” (Van Proyen, Mark 2006)

24. Globalization and Art

25. MatejAndraiVogrincic (2006) Untitled. Liverpool Biennale

26. Documenta 11 (2002) OkwuiEnwezor Thomas Hirschhorn (2002), Bataille Monument. Kassel, Documenta 11.

27. Roderick Buchanan (1995) Work in Progress. “Players who associate themselves with Italian football by wearing Inter Milan and A.C. Milan shirts amid the dozens of local tops on display every night on the football parks of Glasgow.”

28. Local vs. Global Martin Kippenberger (1997) Madulain. Part of the Metro-Net series.

30. References Fulcher, J (2004) A very short introduction: Capitalism. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Giddens, A (1999) Runaway World. London, Profile Books Ltd. Stallabrass, J (2004) Art Incorporated. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Steger, M (2003) A very short introduction: Globalization. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Scholte, Jan Aart (2005) Globalization: A Critical Introduction. Palgrave MacMillan, Hampshire. Van Proyen, Mark (2006) Contemporary Art and the Administrative Sublime. In Art Criticism 21 no 2. pp. 25-56, 162-71.