arthistoricum.net

Since its establishment as an academic discipline, colonialism and imperialism have had a lasting impact on European art history—and thus on its questions, methods, subjects, canons and curricula. Since the late 1990s, the colonial impact on art history has been recognized, and in 2005, Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff identified the discipline's “colonial unconscious,“ which she believed was rooted in the neo-colonial racist implications of academic and institutional practices. She demonstrated how art history uncritically perpetuates colonial thought patterns, racist structures and terminology. Recently, universities, museums, exhibitions and artistic and cultural-political initiatives have demonstrated a growing interest in the “nodes of coloniality“ (Aníbal Quijano Obregón).  

Traces of colonialism remain visible in power structures, social inclusions and exclusions, the cityscape, language and the handling of historical objects, their provenances and museum environments. With this thematic portal, we are creating a space where people from different disciplines and contexts can come together to share experiences and knowledge and develop questions jointly. How should we engage with the material cultures of colonialism? How can we rethink, reimagine or even “unlearn” (Ariella Azoulay) museum collections and art historical narratives, recognizing modes of representation, methods and structures as colonial constructs? How can we further develop research, art projects, collections and exhibitions dealing with colonial entanglements in history and the present in terms of content, methodology and ethics?

Based on these questions, the network serves to promote networking and critical exchange between researchers, collection representatives, curators, and artists. Alongside academic and museum approaches, participatory and artistic approaches — whether exploratory, utopian or fictional — have the potential to further develop the methodology of historicizing, researching and visualizing colonialism.