Ambivalent art at the tip of a continent: The Zeitz MOCAA and its quest for global recognition
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
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Ambivalent art at the tip of a continent : The Zeitz MOCAA and its quest for global recognition . / Nielsen, Vibe.
Global Art in Local Art Worlds: Changing Hierarchies of Value. ed. / Oscar Salemink; Amélia Siegel Corrêa; Jens Sejrup; Vibe Nielsen. London : Routledge, 2023. p. 77-99.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Ambivalent art at the tip of a continent
T2 - The Zeitz MOCAA and its quest for global recognition
AU - Nielsen, Vibe
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The desire for global recognition presented by the team behind the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, around its opening in September 2017, not only confirms that a global hierarchy within the art world still persists. It also results in a paradoxical dilemma for the artists on display. While praising the museum for the opportunities it provides, this chapter shows how the artists exhibited there simultaneously experienced ambivalence in a space where they cannot necessarily express themselves with the same local elements in their artworks as some of them would have liked. The artists are thus caught between vaguely defined ideas about being locally anchored and globally connected, in a setting expecting them to be both at the same time, producing global art that is locally grounded enough to be part of a museum exhibiting art from “Africa and its Diaspora” to international visitors. This is the dilemma the artists face: if they want a chance to show and sell their art to the world, they have to adapt to the Zeitz MOCAA’s rather unclear curatorial definitions of what art from Africa is, and replace some place-specific elements in their artworks with others.
AB - The desire for global recognition presented by the team behind the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, around its opening in September 2017, not only confirms that a global hierarchy within the art world still persists. It also results in a paradoxical dilemma for the artists on display. While praising the museum for the opportunities it provides, this chapter shows how the artists exhibited there simultaneously experienced ambivalence in a space where they cannot necessarily express themselves with the same local elements in their artworks as some of them would have liked. The artists are thus caught between vaguely defined ideas about being locally anchored and globally connected, in a setting expecting them to be both at the same time, producing global art that is locally grounded enough to be part of a museum exhibiting art from “Africa and its Diaspora” to international visitors. This is the dilemma the artists face: if they want a chance to show and sell their art to the world, they have to adapt to the Zeitz MOCAA’s rather unclear curatorial definitions of what art from Africa is, and replace some place-specific elements in their artworks with others.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - South Africa
KW - Zeitz MOCAA
KW - Art
KW - Museums
KW - Recognition
U2 - 10.4324/9781003128908
DO - 10.4324/9781003128908
M3 - Book chapter
SP - 77
EP - 99
BT - Global Art in Local Art Worlds
A2 - Salemink, Oscar
A2 - Siegel Corrêa, Amélia
A2 - Sejrup, Jens
A2 - Nielsen, Vibe
PB - Routledge
CY - London
ER -
ID: 391627422