Is the Middle East the Next Global Cultural Center?
The Financial Times kicks off a polemical article with the knock-out sentence, “Europe as a cultural centre is in danger of being eclipsed by the Middle East as western heritage industries struggle with swinging austerity measures.” Speaking to the recession-induced cuts to Western cultural organiza
The Financial Times kicks off a polemical article with the knock-out sentence, “Europe as a cultural centre is in danger of being eclipsed by the Middle East as western heritage industries struggle with swinging austerity measures.” Speaking to the recession-induced cuts to Western cultural organizations, the Times argues that the Middle East’s status as the locus of international money (based on oil and human capital) make it a more stable patron of the arts, and thus “the new cultural capital of the world.” Including a quote from Met director-emeritus Phillipe de Montebello, the argument runs that as water flows downhill, culture flows toward money. This is a stupid, reductive way to think of a globalizing art world that has never been larger or more universally accessible.
The Art Market Monitor subscribes to the argument as well, writing in support of the FT article,
One of the lasting effects of the financial crisis will be the transference of the center of world culture from Europe to the Mid-East or Asia. This is issue isn’t whether it will happen but where the new center will be: Abu Dhabi or somewhere in China.
Because non-Western institutions are experiencing flushes of cash from their somehow non-recession deadened economies, they will therefore become ascendant centers of international culture. The issue I have with this argument is in the cause, not in the effect, and the extremes to which these writers take their case. Though we are facing a recession that is largely Western in impetus and consequence, there is little reason to link that with a flourishing cultural development in non-Western countries. In fact, it’s dangerous and essentializing to do so. The reason that we notice upswellings of cultural production and support in nations like China and the UAE isn’t because they have more money, it’s because the art world is, at last, flattening.
New York City, London, Basel, and Beijing, Damascus and New Delhi are increasingly being woven together into an integrated global cultural landscape that is inclusive rather than exclusive. We are beyond the era of cultural hegemony: there is no single pole of cultural production in the world, and to even refer to the concept of a “new cultural capital of the world” is a mistake. Art is being made equally, everywhere, all the time. This is a result not of monetary flow to the developing world or the Western world’s debilitating recession, rather, it’s a consequence of the implacable globalization and technological development of the past 20 years. Cultural moments like Paris in the 1920s or New York City in the 50s have always been inextricably interdependent on other places for their time in the spotlight, from emigre artists to foreign support. Today with the advent of the internet and digital media, that fact should be more apparent, not less. The Financial Times attributes this development to a mere imbalance of economics.
We no longer have to compete for the title of art world kingpin. We collaborate across countries and across datelines as well as across studio walls. We no longer need first-class tickets and a hotel in every major art city to feel the interconnection that was the previous possession solely of the art world elite. The best work will always come out of a spirit of open-mindedness and exchange rather than the utterly superficial branding of one city, one country, as the center of international culture.
Philippe de Montebello, an extremely well-respected member of the international art world elite, lodges his foot firmly in his mouth with, “Art always goes where money goes, and where money is made.” Art is now and has always been everywhere. Money has little to do with the art historical “regime changes” that we base our books on. Art goes where it is made comfortable, and that is ever more all over the world. New avenues of communication make the resource entry barrier ever lower and the possibilities of artistic creation and display ever wider.
The Financial Times seems to be adopting the economic appropriation of culture as a working definition for cultural significance. The Times‘ article connects the economic success of the developing world first to the damage wrought by the recession in a zero-sum balance sheet, and goes on to connect cultural relevance strictly to economic success. These are all false and faulty links. The idea that we will suddenly find a new global art world center is contrary to the burgeoning flatness of global cultural production and the effects of globalization. I don’t think we’ll ever see a re-polarization around a single center. I think, and I hope, that we will begin to understand that political and national boundaries are increasingly irrelevant to a global, dynamic human culture.
