Introduction

Abstract

This book introduction explores the attribution and local negotiation of cultural valuations of artistic and art-institutional practices around the world and the diverse ways in which these value attributions intersect with claims of universality and global value, through what Michael Herzfeld termed the global hierarchy of value. Present-day geocultural changes are predicated on shifting notions of value and processes of valuation against the backdrop of a diversifying global art field and changing definitions of what constitutes art. While such valuations have an important financial dimension through the art market, art practices are institutionally validated in a global field of cultural production that historically privileged Europe and North America, primarily through institutions – especially museums and art academies – that make global and universalizing claims in an increasingly diversifying art field. The chapters in this book discuss museums and art worlds that are central in their own countries and that sometimes “uplift” just the local art scenes and localities. Local art institutions and practices generate “national pride” by simultaneously addressing local, national and international publics in an oftentimes implicitly comparative manner. Museums and local art scenes are thus put on the global art map which, however, is still mostly drawn in Euro-America.