MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

This catalogue of an extensive exhibition of modern art, co-curated by Laszlo Glozer and Kasper König in Kölnermessehallen, Cologne (30 May–16 August 1981). Intentionally provocative, the title Westkunst is a pun on the word ‘Weltkunst’ (World Art). It was intended to refer to the hegemonic Western ideology as well as the existing political and ideological division of Europe into West and East. Having taken as its starting point the year 1939 (the beginning of the Second World War and mass migration of prominent European artists to New York), the curators chose 800 works by 200 artists. Appealing to the formalist methodological tradition in art history, any historical ideological context was scaled down. The exposition thus was organised according to a formal / iconographic principle and the idea of artistic innovation.The “Today” section of the exhibition, which was intended to be a representation of the work of emerging artists, was described by critics as a “trade show”, or “dealers selection”. Westkunst is considered a consolidation of the Trans-Atlantic art world’s reluctance to accept artists of non-Western origin.