Ethnic Marketing

Art and globalization

This publication refers to an exhibition project curated by Tirdad Zolghadar in Geneva (2004) and Tehran (2006). It is dealing with the question of how to assess the emergent vicissitudes of the gradually “globalizing” art circuit without repeating the curatorial clichés of recent years.

Having watched one example of critical internationalism after another reduce itself to postcolonial platitude or self-congratulating adventurism, the participants framed this exhibition project as an inquiry into Euro-american xenophilia in and of itself. Rather than try and build the proverbial Third World “platform,” or “forum,” or “bridge,” the question is what makes the bridging so attractive in first place. Who stands to gain from searing critiques of the North and Northwest, and upholding the aims of the East and South.

Contributing artists include Atlas Group, Shirin Aliabadi and Farhad Moshiri, Jens Haaning, Lisl Ponger, Shahrzad, Erik van Lieshout among others.