Linacre JRF, Dr Vibe Nielsen, has co-edited the anthology ‘Global Art in Local Art Worlds – Changing Hierarchies of Value’ with Professor Oscar Salemink, Dr Amélia Corrêa and Dr Jens Sejrup as part of her postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen. The book explores the attribution and local negotiation of cultural valuations of artistic and art-institutional practices around the world, and considers the diverse ways in which these value attributions intersect with claims of universality and cosmopolitanism.
Vibe says; “The book consists of six in-depth ethnographic studies of the collection, circulation, classification and exhibition of objects in present-day Brazil (Amélia Siegel Corrêa), South Africa (Vibe Nielsen), Japan (Jens Sejrup), China (Oscar Salemink), India (Olga Kanzaki Sooudi) and Indigenous Australia (Tony Bennett).
My chapter ‘Ambivalent art at the tip of a continent: The Zeitz MOCAA and its quest for global recognition’ is based on parts of my PhD thesis ‘Demanding Recognition – Curatorial Challenges in the Exhibition of Art from South Africa’ (2019). It analyses the events around the opening of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, which I attended in September 2017 during my doctoral fieldwork in and around Cape Town.
Each of the six empirical chapters highlights two concepts that were fruitfully used in the ethnographic analysis, and is followed by two short essays reflecting on the wider relevance of these concepts, within and beyond the localized context of the chapter, written by well-known anthropologists, cultural sociologists, art historians, and art curators.
The book is preceded by an introduction by Oscar Salemink laying out the theoretical foundations and implications of the publication with reference to processes of valuation, exchange, changing hierarchies, and notions of universality, and ends with a gracious afterword ‘Agency and Hierarchy in the Creation of Aesthetic Value’ by Professor Michael Herzfeld.”
Please join Vibe for the book launch and a reception at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing at Stoke House, Linacre College, on Tuesday 9th May. Sections of the book will be presented as part of the weekly Tuesday Seminar series.
A free online version of the book is available for download open access here.
