Culture & Art: Artistic Globalization

1. Artistic Colonialism

1.1. "As colonizers, Europeans produced artistic images that affirmed their claims over other places and peoples while promoting their own fine art tradition around the world" (Burt, Ben p.204).

1.2. Images and photographs used to portray and objectify colonized people. Images function for descendants have inclination to reflect nostalgically on colonial history.

1.3. North America Land of the “noble savage”

2. The Global and the Local

2.1. "The global economic and political system was driven by Europeans and the West for long enough to give their culture enormous influence throughout the world, despite the emergence of new centers of power in the late twentieth century. This influence has been exercised in the interests of wealthy elites whose power and privilege enables them to set the agenda for others, especially from the metropolitan centers of Western countries" (Burt, Ben p. 222).

2.2. Local consumption of local products has declined. They are now exporting art to developed wealthier countries. Commercial pressures has led to decline of quality.

2.3. West African communities started to reserve and proclaim local cultural identities.

3. The Art World

3.1. "Western ideas about art have had a pervasive and often profound effect upon other artistic traditions through the processes of colonial expansion and global hegemony"(Burt, Ben p.159).

3.2. Fine Art creates a category that bases value on developing objects of contemplation. Institution provides examples of fine art in community.

3.3. Taste is defined and maintained through institutions.

3.4. 18th century masculine and feminine redefined

3.4.1. Male dominated the public arena

3.4.2. Female dominated the domestic arena

4. The Exotic Primitive

4.1. "People have always valued exotic artefacts and traded useful, curious, and prestigious imports from places they know little or nothing about" (Burt,Ben p. 172).

4.2. Colonial period led to a period of exploration and collection of “exotic” artifacts.

4.3. King Leopold of Belgium private colonial enterprise. He enslaved almost the entire country. Forced labor to produce rubber under the guise of civilizing the primitive.

5. Marketing Exotic Art

5.1. Indigenous groups have been systemically marginalized. They were forced into boarding schools. They were bullied in these schools if they spoke their native language.

5.2. "The final stages of colonizing North America in the late nineteenth century, with the dispossession of the Native peoples of the west, coincided with the rise of consumerism among their industrialized colonizers. At the same time that Native American culture was being suppressed as a matter of colonial policy, colonial tourists and artefact collectors were eager to purchase it" (Burt, Ben p. 190).