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From Exoticism to Postcolonial Art: Theorizing and Politicizing Art in the Age of Globalisation

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Politics in South Asia
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Abstract

Art can always be understood as a mirror of society, its beliefs and values, as well as the politics that govern it. This article draws a conclusive picture of how European, Western art has dealt with the ‘foreign’ and ‘exotic’. By doing so, it shows how the artist’s perceptions of the unknown and alien cultures around the globe gradually changed from a rather naïve fascination with and a contorted interpretation of the exoticism within the ‘other’ towards a more liberal, just and equal understanding and representation. This turn from the exotic to the postcolonial has not been limited to the arts, but can also be understood as being symbolic for politics and political science’s contact with distant, non-Western states and societies and the way in which they are received.

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Correspondence to Klaus von Beyme .

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von Beyme, K. (2015). From Exoticism to Postcolonial Art: Theorizing and Politicizing Art in the Age of Globalisation. In: Wolf, S., et al. Politics in South Asia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09087-0_13

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