Magiciens de la terre come evento soglia della global art history? Ipotesi e prospettive di ricerca a partire dalla ricezione della mostra.

For an aspiring Australian artist, a sojourn north to the world’s large cultural centres has become a rite of passage and to some extent a requirement to achieve recognition both abroad and at home. Many of Australia’s most recognised artists have spent some or a considerable amount of time abroad, such as musician Peter Sculthorpe, painter Arthur Streeton and contemporary indigenous photographer Tracy Moffatt. Despite the frequency of this rite of passage, Australian art continues to struggle to achieve significant international recognition. This article considers the influence of this rite of passage for Australian artists in the context of a rapidly changing global art world, which is increasingly subject to changing production and consumption patterns. It does so in the context of what Bourdieu describes as a cultural field and which involves a complex arrangement of horizontal and vertical power relationships. The paper also considers the extent to which this rite of passage is relevant in the second decade of the 21st century and for a nation which, although having strong historical ties to Britain in particular, is geographically closer to Asia and in a time of the Asian century.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. The Febuary 2011 annual meeting of the College Art Association (CAA) in New York had an entire session organized by Patricia Mainardi dedicated to “The Crisis in Art History.” The papers were later published in a special issue of Visual Resources (27, no. 4, 2011). Yet the present crisis in the discipline can be considered just the latest of many that it has faced at least since the 1970s, when a whole new range of theoretical references, such as postcolonial theories, psychoanalysis, gender studies, and semiotics, pressured art historians to reflect about their specific approaches to art. Hans Belting's Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte? came out in 1983, centering its fire on the power structures of the field in Germany, and in 1982 the Art Journal also produced an issue on “The Crisis in the Discipline,” edited by Henri Zerner, with articles by such leading art historians as Rosalind Krauss, David Summers, and Donald Preziosi, among others. At that time, the main topic of discussion was the incorporation of new objects of study in the art historical field, such as advertisement, photography, and other aspects of visual culture, bringing art history closer to so-called visual studies. Concerns about developing a global art history, something that still resonates today, appeared at the turn of the century with important publications such as Hans Belting's Bild-Anthropologie (2001) and David Summers's Real Spaces (2003). Both books demonstrate a special interest in anthropology, which persists today with the incorporation of anthropological theories such as those of Alfred Gell and Bruno Latour, for example, into the field. Belting, Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte? (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1983), trans. as The End of the History of Art? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Zerner, ed., “The Crisis in the Discipline,” special issue, Art Journal 42, no. 4 (Winter 1982); Belting, Bild-Anthropologie (Munich: W. Fink, 2001); and Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism (London: Phaidon Press, 2003).2. This was the 33rd Congress of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art, Germanische Nationalmuseum Nuremberg, July 15–20, 2012. Its theme, “The Challenge of the Object,” appears somewhat conservative when considered from the perspective of contemporary art. Since at least the 1960s Conceptual art has done away with the idea of a necessary connection between art and the material world, which had important political consequences as well.3. The same logic that we see here organizes much of the “globalized” art world. In a review of the exhibition Africa Remix: L’art contemporain d’un continent, presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, in 2005, Roberto Conduru notes that African artists still need to pass through the established institutions of art in the United States or in Europe to enter the circuits of the international market and art world. “With one sole exception—Wim Botha … all of the remaining 87 artists already represented their country and/or the Continent in the Biennials that proliferate throughout the world, and also presented their work in prestigious institutions within the system of international art.” Conduru, “O mundo é uma tribo,” Concinnitas (UERJ, Rio de Janeiro), no. 8 (July 2005): 198–202.4. Although this in fact is a very significant way to approach Brazilian visual culture, it should not be exclusive. Important work has been done in the last few years on the process of the transfer and circulation of material culture within the Portuguese Empire and in Brazil. See Jens M. Baumgarten, “Transformation asiatischer Artefakte in brasilianischen Kontexten,” in Topologien des Reisens, ed. Alexandra Karentzos, Alma-Elisa Kittner, and Julia Reuter (Trier: Universität Trier, 2009), vol. 1, 178–94.5. A good example can be found in Rodrigo Naves's interpretation of Jean-Baptiste Debret's Brazilian period: “Definitely, the existence of slavery hindered once and for all any effort to transplant the classical form as truth into Brazil.” Naves, A forma difícil: Ensaios sobre arte brasileira (São Paulo: Ática,1996), 71.6. Moema is the tragic character of Frei Santa Rita Durão's epic poem Caramuru. She was the sister of Caramuru's wife, Paraguaçu, and drowned while swimming after the ship that carried Caramuru back to Europe.7. Regarding the position that Baroque occupies in Brazilian art history, it is interesting that in the first Pan-American Congress of Architects, organized in Uruguay in 1920, Alexandre de Albuquerque proposed the Baroque manner of Minas Gerais as the source for a Brazilian national style, since, according to him, Brazil did not possess a strong indigenous culture, as did other countries in South America.8. Sergio Miceli, Nacional estrangeiro (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003).9. The study of art history is relatively recent in Brazil, and by examining other contributions to the history of culture in the country, one can find elements that could help to impel art history in new directions. The writer Mario de Andrade, one of the main protagonists of Brazilian modernism, for instance, developed a genuine interest in African and Native culture and in 1936 wrote a project for the creation of an Institute for National Patrimony in which he included material and immaterial culture of the different populations in Brazil. In the same period, the sociologist Gilberto Freyre, who had studied with Franz Boas, wrote his classic book Casa-grande e senzala, in which he examines the diversity of contributions to Brazilian culture. In the 1940s and 1950s, Lina Bo Bardi organized exhibitions in Bahia and at the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP) based on her research on popular art in Brazil. See, among others, Antonio Gilberto Nogueira, Por um inventário dos sentidos: Mário de Andrade e a concepçã de patrimônio e inventário (São Paulo: Hucitec/Fapesp., 2005); Marina Grinover and Silvana Rubino, eds., Lina por escrito: Textos escolhidos de Lina Bo Bardi (São Paulo: Cosac e Naify, 2009); and Gilberto Freyre, Casa-grande e senzala (São Paulo: Global, 2003).10. “From this we conclude that … art, in its simple forms, is not necessarily expressive of purposive action, but rather based upon our reactions to forms that develop through mastery of technique.” Franz Boas, Primitive Art (New York: Dover, 1955), 62. I also think that Boas's question about what could be considered an aesthetic object in these cultures is a very important one because it definitely secures these objects as of interest for the field of art history, at the same time that it forces us to listen to the point of view of their creators.11. On Assuriní visual culture, see Regina Polo Müller, Os Assuriní do Xingu: História e arte (Campinas: Unicamp, 1993). When dealing with contemporary indigenous culture we must also acknowledge the impact of the market on how aesthetic value is assigned. This, of course, implies recognizing that indigenous culture is in fact alive and interacting with other sectors of society today, resisting the tendency of both anthropologists and art historians to imagine these cultures as if “frozen in the past.”12. Tapirage is the name given to a technique used by some indigenous groups to alter the feather colors of live birds. See Amy Buono, “Crafts of Color: Tupi Tapirage in Early Colonial Brazil,” in The Materiality of Color: The Production, Circulation, and Application of Dyes and Pigments 1400–1800, ed. Andrea Feeser, Maureen Daly Goggin, and Beth Fowkes (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Press, 2012), 8–40.13. Amy Buono, “Indigeneity as Corporeality: The ‘Tupinambization’ of the Early Modern Atlantic,” in Art and Its Histories in Brazil, by Claudia Mattos and Roberto Conduru, Issues and Debates (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, forthcoming).14. On this issue, see Joanne Rappaport and Tom Cummins, Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Americas (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2012), 1–26.15. As I have argued above, there cannot be one unitary Brazilian art; given the constant dynamic exchange between local and transferred material and immaterial culture, we must substitute this concept for a more dynamic view of the arts in Brazil.16. Terreiro is the name for buildings and spaces that contain Afro-Brazilian religious activities. Quilombos are historic settlements of fugitive and freed slaves that were created in remote places within the interior of Brazil.17. We must learn to see the circulation of people, ideas, and objects between different localities in Africa and Brazil as a two-way process. As Roberto Conduru notes, although slavery implied the forced migration of a much larger population from Africa to the Americas, there was also some significant immigration in the other direction. This is well documented, for example, in the development of agudá architecture in the region of the Gulf of Guinea (Togo, Benin, and Nigeria). Conduru, “Sobrevivência e invenção—conexões artísticas entre Brasil e África,” in Mattos and Conduru, Art and Its Histories in Brazil.18. The direct relation between art and art history has been pointed out numerous times. Wolfgang Kemp (“Benjamin and Aby Warburg,” Kritische Berichte, no. 3 [1975]: 5–6) has argued that Dadaist collage played an important role in the development of Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas, for instance. See Kurt W. Forster, “Die Hamburg-Amerika-Linie, oder: Warburgs Kunstwissenschaft zwischen den Kontinenten,” in Aby Warburg: Akten des internationalen Symposions, Hamburg, ed. Horst Bredekamp, Michael Diers, and Charlotte Schoell-Glass (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH Verlag), 11–37. Performance art has helped us understand the theatricality of Baroque art, and it also can be very productive in interpreting much of what we call Native art, for instance.19. Thierry Dufrêne, “Pour en finir avec le corset de la chronologie: Vers une histoire de l’art élargie qui rapproche les temps et les oeuvres,” in Théâtre du Monde, exh. cat. (Paris: FAGE, 2013), 30–37. The exhibition at La Maison Rouge, which showed the collection of eccentric Tasmanian collector David Walsh, was curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, who also used Surrealist-inspired anachronistic models to display the objects.20. Belting, Bild-Anthropologie; and Summers, Real Spaces. For a critique of David Summers's book in relation to the question of a new world art history, see James Elkins, “On David Summers's Real Spaces,” in Is Art History Global? (New York: Routledge, 2007), 41–72.Additional informationNotes on contributorsClaudia MattosClaudia Mattos, professor of art history at the University of Campinas, earned a PhD from the Freie Universität, Berlin, in 1996. She publishes on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art and is preparing one book on art and ecology in Brazil and editing another on Brazilian art history for Getty Publications [Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Artes Plásticas, Rua Elis Regina 50, Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz, 13083-854, Campinas, SP, Brazil, cvmattos@iar.unicamp.br].

This article discusses the works and writings of Brazilian visual artist Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980) as a way to rethink the notions of global art, especially through the lens of the artist’s unique vision of a decolonial avant-garde, against the background of Arthur Danto’s and Hans Belting’s theories concerning the end of art history. Oiticica's entire work is set against the double trap that haunts artists in the geopolitical silent zones of the art world: submission to the international art trends, at risk of becoming mere epigones following the footsteps of what is current in the art world’s centers, or the equally melancholic condemnation to a nativist art that doesn’t transcend it’s local status and can only come in to the international spotlight as the object of some form of “white savior” primitivism.
 
 Article received: April 23, 2021; Article accepted: June 23, 2021; Published online: October 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper
 How to cite this article: de Ávila Duarte, Miguel. "Of Adversity We Live: Hélio Oiticica, Decolonized Avant-Garde and Global Art." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 26 (October 2021): 41-52. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i26.468

Comment: World without Art

Globalization is a factor that contributes to the unification and integration of national cultures of different countries of the world. This phenomenon, of course, has a significant impact on the development of modern painting. The article is devoted to the analysis of the work of contemporary artists in order to identify the features of the process of their transformation in the context of the development of global art. The boundaries of the concepts of "world art" and "global art" are defined. The characteristic features of the modern global art environment are revealed, as well as the forms of their perception and interpretation in the works of such artists as Chris Metze, Douglas A. Kinsey, Claire Fahy, Katarzyna Zvolinska, Nazafarin Lotfi and Daniel Hutchinson. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the article examines the works of individual and most famous contemporary artists in the context of such a phenomenon as "global art". Here a watershed is drawn between the concepts of "global art" and "world art", their boundaries and the most important features are determined. Thus, it contributes to the formation of ideas about the global trends of artistic and creative activity on the example of specific paintings. Relevance and short-termness are designated as the main features of global art, which strongly affect the artistic form, figurative language and ideological content of works in the art of modern painting.

The concept of abjection, which provoked new ways of thinking about art and aesthetics, came into prominence in the visual arts in the late twentieth century, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, with ‘[t]he postmodernist return to the body’ (Ross, 2003, p. 281). In these manifestations, the body was not necessarily featured as ‘a whole, integrated entity but as something evoked by corporeal fragments and physical residues’ (Hopkins, 2000, p. 225). It was also subject to a number of processes that involved dislocation, evisceration and other ways of breaking up its unity and revealing its relentless materialism and uncontrollability. There were a number of significant exhibitions which brought abjection to the forefront of aesthetic considerations in the late twentieth century. These included Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art at the Whitney Museum (of American Art) (New York, 1993), which was the first formal identification of abject art; Rites of Passage: Art for the End of a Century at the Tate (London, 1995); and L’informe: Mode d’emploi (Formless: A User’s Guide) at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 1996).

While prior research foregrounds the economic and political conditions that shape cultural globalization, we focus on the effects of culture. We argue that diffusion itself is a cultural practice, and that two types of cultural schemas – ways of conceptualizing national belonging, on the one hand, and geopolitical ideologies, on the other – shape the people, policies, and infrastructures actors deploy to insert their cultural products into the global art and literary worlds. Based on fieldwork in Argentina, South Korea, and Lebanon, we show how two forms of trans-border nationalism – those that incorporate the diaspora based on ethnic or ancestral similarity, and those that incorporate regional neighbors based on common civic norms – are mobilized to circulate art and literature internationally. Who participates in these diasporic and regional networks, however, depends on diffusers’ ideological commitments. We identify two types of aspirational visions for a global (art) world order, which influence which people and institutions cultural makers and managers draw on to diffuse art and literature: a reformative vision, in which the core institutions in traditional centers of power maintain their centrality but become more inclusive of creators from historically underrepresented countries, and a transformative vision, in which the global art and literary world are restructured and power redistributed via new nodes and circuits that circumvent these traditional centers.

Since the 21st century, debates about the crisis or even the death of art criticism have been ongoing. One of the points of controversy is the weakening of the sharpness of art criticism, which plays a role of relying on power rather than being a critic in the art system. In academia system, it is considered to lack academic rigor due to its subjectivity. In the context of art communication, professional criticism no longer has the public influence in emerging communication channels. These discussions largely focus on external factors affecting the art world. This paper uses Hans Belting’s concept of the “End of Art History” as a lens to explore the theoretical reasons behind the crisis of art criticism from an art historical perspective. Through historical analysis and theoretical comparison, it explores internal logic, differences, and implications of Arthur Danto’s “End of Art” and Hans Belting’s “End of Art History” for the contemporary art scene. Subsequently, it further reveals that after the collapse of traditional art history narrative, contemporary art has fallen into the paradox of “breaking the frame” and “reconstruction”, as well as the triple dilemma of art criticism turning towards theoretical orientation, subjective tendency, and market-oriented dependence due to the dissolution of value standards. Afterwards, through the reexamination of the concept of “global art” by Belting, the transformation direction of art criticism was proposed, that is, from “value judgment” to “meaning tracing”, maintaining tension between globalization and locality, institutional criticism and on-site intervention in a nomadic posture.

This special issue of Humanities Research offers a selection of papers presented at the international conference 'The and World-Making in Art: Connectivities and Differences' held at The Australian National University (ANU) from 11-13 August 2011.1The conference inspired significant interest nationally and internationally and attracted scholars from the United States, Europe, Asia, the Pacific and South America. It formed part of the program organised by the Humanities Research Centre (HRC) at ANU under the overarching theme: 'The and World-Making in the Humanities and the Arts' and complemented other conferences relating to the concept of 'world-making' in history and literature.2 We would like to extend our special thanks to the Head of the HRC, Dr Debjani Ganguly, who suggested we undertake a conference focussing on art and to our co-conveners Zara Stanhope and Jackie Menzies and to Leena Messina and Sharon Komidar for their assistance with both the conference and this special issue of Humanities Research. We also extend our thanks to Professor Paul Pickering and the Editorial Board of Humanities Research for supporting our proposal to publish this special issue of the journal on the topic of 'The and World-Making in Art'.Art historians have often resisted the term 'world art', although the concepts of world literature and world history have been more accepted in the humanities. One of the aims of our conference was to explore key issues in art discourses today, and also to address a central concept of the HRC's theme in invoking an idea of 'beyond a cultural divide' and instead speaking 'to a domain of human connectivity'. We have selected papers which we believe present new and illuminating perspectives on the theme. As Zara Stanhope and Michelle Antoinette argue in their paper in the international journal Art, 'If the term World Art designates a flux-a multidisciplinary synthesis of history, critical analysis and practice-the notion of world-making describes processes involved in its generation.'3The conference was organised around four key sub-themes, which are represented in the selection of papers included in this volume:1. World-Making and the Idea of 'Global Art'2. Cosmopolitanism3. Indigenous World-Making in Art4. Crossing Borders: Artists, Institutions, Exhibitions and AudiencesWhile there were a number of very fine papers at the conference on the historical dimensions of 'world-making' in art, we have concentrated in this publication on what Terry Smith has called (in assessing the 1950s as prefiguring the roots of this change) the shift from 'modern to contemporary' in art. The papers selected for this special issue of Humanities Research under the four sub-themes focus on the critical period from the post-World War II era to the present. They also examine changing definitions of art in a time of increasing globalisation and of dramatic economic, cultural and geopolitical change.As Stanhope and Antoinette state in their essay in Art: 'The conference proceeded from the acknowledged position that in art is a platform for research aiming to challenge the hegemony of EuroAmericentric perspectives or to register alternative world views. Papers were invited to focus on the potential of connections and diversity within world-making, particularly cosmopolitanism, art practice, institutions, exhibitions and audiences crossing borders, and indigenous world-making.' In seeking to explore a number of key issues in art discourses today and speaking to 'a domain of human connectivity' the conference 'generated dialogue on subjects that went beyond geographic, state or cultural communities.'4A key issue of the conference that is reflected in the essays in this volume relates to the critical question in contemporary art discourses as to whether art and art history are now truly global. Our special issue begins with three essays from Smith, Marsha Meskimmon and Ian McLean, which together provide a broader theoretical context for discussion of the practical implications of present-day in art. …

This paper investigates the art world as a setting for hegemonic status or prestige politics. Powerful states engage in art world status-seeking but appear to face challenges distinct to the art world in so doing. To explain, I adopt a Bourdieusian forms of capital approach, framing the art world as a social field with distinctive contentious dynamics and symbolic politics. I argue states must work through art world networks and institutions to pursue status there, observing local rules in so doing. I frame art world prestige as symbolic capital—the overt, observable pursuit of which tends to undermine any gains. Hegemonic incumbents and challengers face differing such constraints. The existing global art world models rules and standards by homology on that of the current hegemon. A challenger must adapt to this status quo before they can revise it. I unpack these dynamics in the cases of America, China, and India. I focus on their shifting standing in the global art market and performances of national aggrandizement at a recurring global art world event: the Venice Biennale.

Dakar's Art Scene:In the Street and in the Global Art World Fiona McLaughlin Joanna Grabski's book about Dakar's art scene complements earlier studies, such as Harney's In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 (2004) and Snipe's Arts and Politics in Senegal, 1960–1996 (1998), by introducing us to contemporary developments in this Afropolitan capital. But it is also, and more importantly, a book about Dakar that joins a body of new(ish) literature on the city (Fredericks 2018; Melly 2017; Simone 2004a, 2004b) in taking us onto the streets of Dakar's popular neighborhoods, through bottlenecks, garbage piles, markets, and artists' studios, to offer important insights about urban infrastructures. The art scene in its pages unfurls in multiple interconnected urban sites, which, in addition to markets and studios, include streets themselves as a place for sourcing materials, exhibition sites, and the Dak'Art Biennale, an important contemporary art exhibit, whose thirteenth edition took place in 2018. As a counterpart to its visual character, the Dakar art scene is articulated through narratives by artists, visitors, collectors, and journalists. Artist Soly Cissé, for example, claims that "visitors come to the studio because they want to see and hear more" (98), while Fally Sene Sow keeps a journal in which he writes about Colobane, the neighborhood that is the subject of his collages behind glass (105). The narrative, the visual, and the material thus work together in contributing to what Grabski terms the creative economy of the city. What is an art world city? And how do we parse it?—as an (art world) (city) or an (art) (world city)? Drawing partially on Howard Becker's (1982) elaboration of the concept of "art worlds," Grabski proposes a paradigm to account for "the imbrication of the creative economy and the urban environment[,] as well as the interplay of local and global dynamics shaping Dakar's art world" to define the art world city as a "multiscalar, urban site for artistic production, mediation, and transaction" (3). Then, starting at 17 rue Jules Ferry, the courtyard studio of the late Joe Ouakam, an artist and omnipresent public figure, who even after his death in 2017 continues to appear in effigy in various exhibitions, Grabski proceeds to guide us through the city to explore how ideas about art in Dakar are cultivated though practices of visibility, mediatization, conversations around objects and with artists, sourcing of materials from the urban environment, and transactions between artists and buyers. What emerges is a complex set of practices and a dense network of actors who through their agency and engagement with the creative economy constitute Dakar's art scene. The growing importance of the Dak'Art Biennale might in itself be grounds enough to posit Dakar as an art world city, but this is not Grabski's argument. The view in Art World City is a local view from Dakar, and it is the affordances of Dakar's urban status that make it a node in an interconnected and increasingly globalized art world, especially since the 1990s. Grabski's attribution of the artist's [End Page 203] studio as an infrastructure of opportunity could be extended to the city as a whole because Dakar, in addition to being the site of a major biennale, is a place of creative expression from which artists increasingly participate in exhibitions and art fairs across the globe. In the opening to "Picturing the City" (chapter five), Grabski draws our attention to Démarches urbaines, a group exhibition by three urban artists, Cheikh Ndiaye, Modou Dieng, and Mohammed "Mookie" Coulibaly, held at the IFAN museum in April of 2000, as an artistic turning point, which both "exalt(ed) the city as generative of representational forms" and "declared that urban-referential propositions merited our regard and contemplation" (175). For anyone who has followed the development of Senegalese art since independence, once dominated by mythic representations of a rural Africa of masks and sculptures, a focus on the city represents a truly new engagement, which Grabski, in chapter four, attributes to an urban turn in the pedagogy of the École des Arts in the early...

This article revisits Arnold Van Gennep’s Rites de passage from the point of view of gift theory. Gifts emerge as quasi-omnipresent and in association with all sorts as well as all phases of rites of passage in Van Gennep’s text. However, he never explicitly addresses nor problematizes this pervasive connection between gifts and rites of passage. In contrast with Marcel Mauss’s later Essai sur le don, moreover, Rites de passage tends to relate to gift-exchange in either mere instrumental, economic terms, or as a rather simple and efficient, binding and “unifying” mechanism, while displaying none of Mauss’s complementary attentiveness to the agonistic as well as more complex and contradictory features of gift processes. Yet, precisely the ideas of margin and liminality for which Van Gennep’s became best known, but which did not seep at all into his own treatment of gifts, may be drawn upon to approach gift interactions as ritual processes, perhaps even rites of passage, with liminal phases and anti-structural features of their own kind. Such an angle of analysis happens to converge with current approaches to the gift that have underscored the part it may play in fraught dynamics of mutual definition and recognition in human interactions. It might also suggest new ways of interpreting the deep, recurrent association between gifts and rites of passage, which Rites de passage unwittingly contributed to highlight, but still needs to be further explored and conceptualized.

The paper explores “The Blue Rose” (1896) by Lesia Ukrainka in terms of the ‘rite de passage’ as the text with a ritual function that reflects the cultural, gender, and author status transformations within the field of literature. In the most general sense, the first drama by Lesia Ukrainka is analyzed as an act of initiation into the fin de siècle culture. Peculiar features of this ritual are the critical comments of the modern culture, transformation of the autobiographical facts into aesthetic phenomena, and interiorization of the motif of death.
 “The Blue Rose” discusses a female genetic illness — a popular topic of the late 19th century — and depicts an attempt of escaping into the illusionary world of platonic love. Representation of the female insanity and ‘unconventional love’, as well as the critique of a bourgeois view of happiness and the patriarchal world, is also an important aspect of the drama. References to the unpublished materials of Lesia Ukrainka’s archive — her excerpts from the “Psychiatry” by Krafft-Ebing — allow concluding that “The Blue Rose” treats insanity as a psychiatric and not a psychological phenomenon. The mother-daughter relations as well as the tension of the mother-son relations in the family of Kosaches are also an important element in Lesia Ukrainka’s work.
 “The Blue Rose” (1896) is a multidimensional and experimental drama. Its author transforms numerous autobiographical facts into cultural situations and engages in a discussion on the topical themes and motifs of the fin de siècle, in particular female insanity, hysteria, and maternity. The writer employs naturalistic methods of analysis and reinforces descriptions of female insanity with the facts from psychiatric practice. “The Blue Rose” displays an interest of Lesia Ukrainka in Neoplatonism, which she would later associate with a Neo-romantic impulse ‘ins Blaue’.
 In general, the author did not follow the foreign patterns, as the critiques noted, but explored the Zeitgeist of the new era. She involved authentic practical experience of her own life and the lives of her relatives and friends, analyzed moral norms and psychological states referring to the cultural codes that ranged from “The Romance of the Rose”, Dante, Shakespeare, and Heine to Zola, Ibsen, and Nadson. This practice ensured Lesia Ukrainka’s initiation into the fin de siècle culture and paved her way to the modernist drama.

The notion of ‘global art’ acknowledges that there are major changes in the art worlds‐network, and refers to new concepts of contemporary art and art worlds. The anthropology of art, however, has participated in a limited way in these art theoretical debates, although it could fruitfully contribute to them. This article discusses one major issue of global art using three ethnographic examples from Francophone West Africa: how to analyse the local specificity of contemporary art?

This article investigates the under-researched sphere of insurance. It uses empirical research data to focus on one case study, the London art world, to analyse how the global art insurance industry ‘does’ security and how it enables risk and security to be embraced. Examining how the industry plays a crucial role in the security of art and within the art world itself, the article argues that the global art insurance industry’s role is largely beneficial for the art world because by enabling risk to be embraced through insurance, its pre-crime and post-crime responses, and its influence ‘beyond’ insurance, it emboldens and fuels the dynamic, thriving global art world.