Review of “The Global Rules of Art: The Emergence and Divisions of a Cultural World Economy”

Abstract

Larissa Buchholz has written a magnificent account of the Global art market over the last half century. The book combines extensive, and highly nuanced, discussion of a wide range of relevant cultural theories, with an enormous amount of wonderfully researched data and studies of the Global art market and the relevant personnel including artists, curators, gallerists, art critics, art purchasers, and museum personnel. As a result, the book is an empirical and theoretical treasure for those interested in Global art. Buchholz’s motive for starting this study was a desire to understand how some artists from geographic locations that were, historically, outside geographic mainstream locations such as Western Europe and the United States, had nevertheless managed to become successful in the global art world and market. She was especially struck by the well-known paradox that, despite so much talk of a new era of globalization and openness, empirical studies such as those by French sociologist Alain Quemin, showed that contemporary visual arts were dominated by artists from a small number of Western countries. So her research turned to case studies of the very small number of exceptions, artists from “non-Western” countries who had succeeded in the Global art market.