Untitled by Jananne Al-Ani (1996), who participated in last night's ICA debate. Photograph: Essor gallery
Powerful Euro-American art institutions have always had a range of excuses to justify their position as international name-makers and canon-protectors. At last night's United Colours of Art debate at the ICA, these institutions' rich array of privileges and prejudices came up for review. Why is it that in an era of globalisation, non-white artists are severely under-represented in major shows, publications and galleries? Do Western collectors like only that "foreign" art which confirms their stereotypes of the Other?
The event was chaired by Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery. With her were the award-winning photographer Jananne Al-Ani, LA-based artist Jorge Pardo, 2000 Turner Prize winner Wolfgang Tillmans and the academic Marcus Verhagen. Amusingly, the organisers couldn't even bother to find a token non-white face to round out the picture.
The problem is that globalisation means different things to different people, depending on their level of politicisation. What emerged was not a debate but a series of five mini-speeches, each giving a snapshot of a different (and discrete) way of interpreting the theme. Iwona Blazwick set out the debate intelligently, in broad socio-political terms, noting the tendency of (Western) superpowers to see the world in terms of "the West and the rest, the centre and the margin" but pointing out the insufficiency of this in a post-colonial world in which "the artistic canon has moved outwards ... towards a mosaic of multiple perspectives," even though "the machinations of global corporations and the state" necessarily define the terms of power in the art world as everywhere else.
Jananne Al-Ani expanded on this, introducing the term "xenophilia" to explain the Euro-American art world's fetishisation of clichéd Otherness such as obviously "tribal" African art, simplistic and kitsch reworkings of Chinese Communist imagery and "exotic" Indian prints. The art world sponsors the cliché in order to corroborate its own superiority complex: "hybridity is too difficult to deal with."
Marcus Verhagen, the most cogent speaker, demonstrated how this xenophilia was reinforced through the network of galleries, museums, art fairs and art schools, "the institutions that compete, collaborate and communicate with each other". The Biennials, which have the capacity to legitimise works and endorse trends on a global scale, benefit disproportionately the existing hubs of the Western art world - London, New York, Zurich. Artists from the developing world are notable by their exclusion. Therefore the Biennials, instead of dispersing power by spreading the curatorial net far and wide, merely consolidate it by showing those artists who are already plugged into "the scene".
Jorge Pardo bemoaned the vacuity of the LA art scene: "Power runs through it but it doesn't produce any social identity." Then Wolfgang Tillmans let rip with an astounding complaint. He said that art courses had a bias in favour of accepting overseas students, "meaning, from Asia," who pay higher fees that subsidise the home students. He taught in Frankfurt, where his institution was "inundated with applications from Asian students who don't understand the art that is being dealt with, let alone being able to speak the language". Later, when an audience member who lectures at Goldsmiths spoke about the importance of artists in diverse developing nations communicating with each other, Tillmans got bored, turned his empty glass over and began drawing around its rim.
Thanks, sir, for showing us that no amount of high-minded multisyllable debate can stand in the way of a white man complaining about the foreigners who are coming in and taking all the natives' opportunities.
