Alain QUEMIN, Is There Such a Thing as a « Global South »? Contemporary Visual Arts, the Art Market and Institutions in “Southern Countries”, in Adelaide Duarte & Marta Pérez-Ibañez (dir.), The Art Market and the Global South, Boston, Brill, 2023, 39-56
Abstract of the chapter :
When Raymonde Moulin developed her pioneering research on the art market at the very end of the 1950’s and during the 1960’s, she found it appropriate to consider the French case only. At the time and until the middle of the 1960’s, the art market was hyper concentrated in France – not to say in Paris. It is only in a rather recent phase of the development of the art market, especially from the 1990’s, that the internationalization both of the market and of its leading operators became a massive phenomenon. Still, what is the role of the Southern hemisphere in what is today a highly internationalized contemporary art market? Are countries of the Southern hemisphere present on the international art market and to what extent? And do they contribute rather homogenously or are there strong inequalities between them? To frame it in a different way: is there such a thing as “global South”? After questioning the very concept of “South”, this contribution studies both the art market and art institutions in the Southern hemisphere. Then it reconsiders theories of so-called “artistic globalization” from the perspective of this peculiar case. Because of the specificities that they present, and although they all share a peripheral position at the international level, countries located in the Southern hemisphere should prevent social scientists from treating them as a global entity.
