What role can art and art history play in a world in which global processes are becoming increasingly important for understanding transcultural exchange and interaction? What approaches to modernity and cultural politics have developed in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America? Can contemporary art teach us anything about decolonization, gender, migration and the formation of identities? How can global art historical constellations destabilize old hierarchies and static categories of geographic space?
The section of World Art History was established at the Institute of Art History and in affiliation with the Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art History. It is also affiliated to the Master program in World Arts and Music at the Center for Global Studies, which enables the combined study of various media and artistic forms of expression from different cultures and art worlds under the unifying framework of cultural studies. World Art History addresses the diverse forms that art takes in a global context, while complicating conceptions of “the global”. It enables reflections on cross-cultural exchange with a global perspective and captures the complexities of those relations. Through the study of objects and discourses, it explores alternative stories and flows of objects, transnational and transregional cultural interactions and new, de-centered historiographies.
