Panelists: Elena Agudio, Vít Havránek, Vjera Borozan and Maria Iñigo Clavo
Moderator: Pablo José Ramirez

Over the last years, we have witnessed an increasing presence of post-colonial art practices at world art venues, such as the 57th Venice Biennale and documenta. Those practices usually range between complex political narratives and empty neo-folklorism, which evidence the paradoxes of the West and its relation to culture.

When the Martinique-French literary critic and philosopher Edouard Glissant stated that “the West is not the West, it is a project, not a place” he was perhaps anticipating the shadowy perception of a project which after 1989 takes upon a universal status, not just as a global project, but as a matrix which produces the only possible reality. In doing so, the West avoids a specific allocation while mirroring itself as a post-ideological project of universal aims.

After 1989 the post-communist bloc aimed to adjust terms with history, entering into the teleology of a time fixed by the optimistic progress of western history. The post-colonial regions have not of a less problematic relation to it, determined by the creolization and colonization of psyche and the nation-state as its political project, which after the fall of the Berlin wall, were succeeded by global multicultural neoliberalism.

In 1982, the MoMA presented a controversial exhibition: “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, where they proposed to look for non-western traces in modern art, and in doing so, ended up justifying a universal canon of art history. Paraphrasing the art critic Thomas McEvilley: The purpose of such theorizing is to preclude major breaks in Western art history; its tradition is to remain intact, not pierced and violated by influences from outside the West. But this conflict has changed dramatically, today we assist not to the westernization of the tribal, but to the trivialization of culture. The West in this sense doesn’t aim to represent the only culture, but a global pastiche, which is usually condensed upon a vague notion of “diversity”.

So, where and when does the West actually begin? How then should we think about the tension between post-communist/post-colonial contexts in relation to Western art? Are there any cracks at all? How have post-Fordist capitalism and postmodern global culture dealt with such a fragmented and diverse history? And how this has shaped contemporary art in 21st century?

On this panel we will discuss positions in art criticism and curatorial practice that build upon a critical approach to the idea of “the West” beyond a geopolitical reading, but trying to work upon perspectives which trace the Western project as matter of ideology and as a virus, which affects bodies, objects, and as a manufacturing of time.

Event will be in English.

Event is organized by Věra Jirousová Award in cooperation with Pablo José Ramirez and 4+4 days in motion.

The event takes place thanks to the financial support of the Czech Ministry of Culture, the State Cultural Fund and the City of Prague.