About this video

• Video Title: Concepts and Problems in the Visual Arts, Lecture C29: Decolonizing art history
• Channel: James Elkins
• Speakers: James Elkins
• Duration: 00:22:48

Overview

This lecture explores the concept of "decolonizing art history," presenting five distinct strategies that have emerged in recent academic literature. It then traces the historical development of this concept, moving from its roots in activism to its integration as a theoretical and interpretive tool within the discipline.

Key takeaways

• Five Strategies for Decolonizing Art History: The lecture outlines five approaches, ranging from practical teaching methods to more radical proposals for dismantling the discipline itself.
• Evolution from Activism to Theory: The discussion highlights a historical progression where calls for decolonization have shifted from immediate activism towards becoming integrated theoretical frameworks and interpretive strategies within art history.
• Historiographical and Geographical Considerations: The lecture emphasizes the importance of understanding "decolonizing art history" not as a fixed concept, but one that evolves historically and carries different meanings across various geographical contexts.
• Critique of Eurocentrism: A central theme is the critique of art history's foundation in Enlightenment thought and its inherent Eurocentrism, suggesting a need to move beyond these established frameworks.

The five main strategies discussed for decolonizing art history are:

1. Teaching art through the lens of race, ethnicity, class, and power: This involves interpreting art not based on aesthetic values or masterpieces, but by focusing on these social and political issues, and recognizing how traditional art history can perpetuate inequality.
2. Increasing diversity at the center of the discipline: This strategy advocates for diversifying the voices and perspectives that are considered central to art history, including those of indigenous people, and questioning what constitutes the "center" of the discipline.
3. Removing the center of the discipline: This involves questioning and rejecting established canons and developmental models that are seen as inherently exclusionary or rooted in Eurocentric narratives.
4. Dismantling the discipline itself: This approach suggests moving beyond art history as it is currently known into new, emergent domains of practice whose forms cannot be predicted, leading to a "decentered, deterritorialized, undisciplined, heterogeneous" field.
5. Removing the inheritance of the Enlightenment: This is presented as the most radical option, arguing that art history's foundational concepts, methods, and assumptions are inherently Eurocentric and need to be replaced with entirely new starting points.