Views of Difference

This part of the course deals mainly with 'western' views of 'non-western' cultures (particularly in relation to art and artists) past and present. Also, by implication, the reverse is important to consider; indeed all views of other cultures both from within and without. Multi-cultural societies are not a new social phenomenon, nor are they a 20th century western phenomenon. Inter-cultural exchange is age old and worldwide but proprietorial attitudes to culture is much more recent.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This course book gives an account of cultural misunderstanding, the dominance of 'western' viewpoints and judgments in terms of inferiority and superiority in the fields of culture. Such attitudes are typified by the view that they (cultures of the so-called developing world) have folklore rather than culture, practice superstition rather than religion, speak dialects rather than languages and make craft rather than art.

Attitudes to 'the other' are not recent. Plato, representing the superiority of Ancient Greek civilisation, apparently said that if you are shipwrecked and washed up on a beach, and you see drawings in the sand showing that people have been studying geometry, then you know you are alright: you have landed in civilisation.

However, inter-cultural encounters have not always been based on prejudice. For example, in India in the 18th century the Asiatic Society of Bengal was founded to make a rational study of Indian culture without Judeo-Christian prejudice. For further information, there is a footnote on page 104 in the course book referring readers to The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth by J.B.Bury. Another book, The Buddha and the Sahibs by Charles Allen expands on the Asiatic Society's work in uncovering India's 'lost' pre-Islamic past and the role of William (Oriental) Jones. This book offers a more benign view than for example the late Edward Said's Orientalism, on the attempts of 'western' scholars to study 'non-western' cultures. Allen makes the point that the efforts of these scholars were not connected to colonisation, that they were even disapproved of by the East India company and the British Government.

In the Times Literary Supplement, May 9th, 2008, Robert Irwin reviewsReading Orientalism (University of Washington Press) by Daniel Varisco, in which he finds vilification of Edward Said's work. Varisco calls Said a polemicist, criticises his method as being 'end justifies the means', his use of perjorative vocabulary and a supposed blindness to literary irony. This 'hatchet job' on Said, Irwin says, is quite typical of Said's opponents who despise his pro-Palestinian stance. Others, such as Zionists (who have been prominent in this field) and allies from the political right, hypocritically 'accuse' Said of being political, while others resent his 'trespassing' in the field of anthropology. Irwin's own book For Lust of Knowing, Allen Lane, 2006, also challenges Said's work. It is reviewed by Maya Jasanoff in the London Review of Books, June 8, 2006, who says that 'given that Said's work hinges on the argument that imperial power drives orientalism and vice versa, Irwin's book should address these issues head on.' She agrees that his concentration on the British, French and American empires contrasts with his exclusion of the Russian and German. Spanish, Dutch, Portugese, Italian? She also sees ambiguity which makes one ask whether orientalism, according to Said, acts as a substitute for empire, enables empire or is a consequence of it. She ends by praising Said for helping to make scholars (and students?) more conscious of their own perpectives. I would add too that it ought to remind people that academics' work is not isolated from politics.

Western ethnographers' methods for tabulating the stages of cultural development viz: archaic, classical etc seem to have been widely adopted in ethnographical displays around the world. These correspond to the cyclical model used by Petrarch and then by Vasari in the European Renaissance. You may notice this when visiting museums abroad.

A huge 'catalogue raisonné' on Melchior Lorck (ed. Erik Fischer) was published in August 2009. According to a review by Marina Warner (London Review of Books, vol 32, no 10, 2010) the drawings in this very large and expensive book (€300) provide a fascinating visual record of Constantinople and its inhabitants, the 'enemy at the gates of Christendom'. This mid 16th century Danish artist spent some time in Constantinople, following in the steps of Gentile Bellini and husband and wife Pieter Coecke and Mayken Verlhulst (mentioned in course book 2) who had visited the city respectively 75 and 22 years before. Lorck is perhaps best known for his 11 metre panoramic drawing of Constantinople but there's also a drawn portrait of Durer, a brutal caricature of the Pope and an example of work that you might expect to find in a collection of surrealist works. Warner is interested in Lorck's apparent adaptation of different aesthetic styles and conventions in a culture with a history of prohibition of lifelike representation and at a time before 'orientalist' preoccupations with languor and debauchery that Edward Said excoriated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The connection between artistic value, permanence and collectability is made in case study 8 in this course book. Thus the body painting and house painting of the kind done in Nigeria have been dependent on photography for exhibition purposes.

Globally ambitious artists who have refused for their work to be limited by national identity and tradition such as the Nigerian 'Eye Society', discussed in case study 8, have opportunities to raise their profile and enhance their reputation at biennales which have proliferated in recent years. These events bring to cities and countries a considerable degree of acclaim and kudos that can be enjoyed by their leaders and the upper echelons of those societies. Julian Stallabrass (in Art Incorporated, Oxford University Press, 2004) says that biennales perform the same function for a city as a Picasso above the fireplace in the office of a tobacco executive. He mentions the 1994 Johannesburg Biennale which was to reconnect South Africa with the 'international community' (a term which requires some thought) following the apartheid era and years of boycott. In the event local artists who might have provided a critical view of the born again rainbow nation were generally excluded, says Stallabrass. He adds that global trends in conceptual art and photography seemed to be imposed on the local culture furthermore. Apparently it was boycotted by much of the black community there or ignored by others not wishing to celebrate the end of apartheid with a show of global multi-culturalism purchased with a pledge to handle the economy in a way that has actually condemned the country to continuing poverty.

The Navahos of North America are known for their 'sand-paintings' which express goodness, happiness, health and harmony generated by the creator. They are traditionally destroyed after ceremonial use. The effects of commercial pressure on sand-paintings and the traditional anonymity of the 'artists' are referred to in Language and Art in the Navaho Universe by G.Witherspoon. Another example of ephemeral visual culture comes from Tibet, where mandalas and yantras are created out of natural materials such as earth, sand, rice or shells in daily monastic rituals where priestly and artistic roles are combined.

A report that illustrates different attitudes to art/craft and the status of artist/craftsman in the East and West was printed in the Independent newspaper July 12 in the year 2000. It tells of an Irish PhD student who went to Rajasthan in India to learn the secret of araash frescoes from the last surviving master. She said that he was initially unsure of her seriousness because she was a woman but that he eventually treated her as an honorary son. After completing her 'apprenticeship' she underlined the difference between herself and the master saying that she was an artist, not a technician as he and his ancestors were. When asked whether she would be passing on her newly gained knowledge in time honoured tradition, she said that she would not, describing herself as 'a tight Englishwoman ...and very proprietorial.'

Tartan plaid comes from the Punjab in India, so do bagpipes! A shop-keeper in the town of Sialkot, when asked to explain how bagpipes and tartan came to be in this corner of South Asia, said 'I suppose (making and playing the pipes) is just part of our tradition.' This began after the first Highland regiments arrived in British India. Nadeem Bhatti, bagpipe-maker, now exports to Scotland, Canada and the USA where manufacturing costs are much higher.

In a project reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement Wissa Wassef, an Egyptian Copt, began an art centre for children to work in textiles in the 1940s. It was based on the belief that every human has artistic potential within. He died in 1974 but the centre has been continued by his two daughters, Suzanne and Yoanna, just outside Cairo. The children's ideas are essentially spontaneous but produced methodically as required by manual processes such as weaving; the colours for yarns are naturally produced by plants grown locally. The centre has been so successful that there are not enough places for the amount of prospective students. Products from the centre have been widely exhibited around the world and several prominent institutions have bought tapestries. See www.wissawassef.com for more information.

The 11th century Bayeux 'tapestry' (an embroidery) probably stitched by women from Canterbury bears the name of the patron (Bishop of Bayeux), the makers being anonymous. Its style and format allow it to show an informative running narrative of the Battle of Hastings. Along the border strip there is even an image of a couple having sex, rather as 'hags with gaping vulvas sometimes found propping up the eaves of (Romanesque) churches', says Julian Bell in his Mirror of the World: A New History of Art, Thames & Hudson, 2007. He is referring to 'sheela-na-gigs' and other sexually explicit material (in contemporary parlance) found on the inside and outside of several churches in Britain dating from Saxon to medieval times, cultures as far removed from 21st century Britain as India was to British 19th century travellers whose aesthetic and moral sensibilities were informed by either classical academism or squeamish christianism and who duly concluded that the erotic imagery they found in India signified cultural decadence.

I understand from a recent trip to West Africa that the wax resist or batik method of dyeing textiles used in West African countries, originating in Bali and commercially introduced by the Dutch, is now being produced in China and 're'exported to West Africa. So the story continues. This type of fabric has been much used by Yinka Shonibare (now bought at Brixton market) in installations on the 'strangeness' of Africans wearing clothes tailored in 18th century Britain or the British landed gentry kitted out in tie-dyed fabrics, so his work refers to the British colonial relationship with Africa, provoking thoughts on the history of trade in commodities such as slaves and textiles and in the light of more recent attitudes to cultural exchange.

Yinka Shonibare, How Does a Girl

Like You Get to be a Girl Like You?

Installation, height approx 165 cm

A ship in a bottle now occupies the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square (June, 2010). It is clearly a reference to British maritime history of war and trade and also, says the artist, a reference to contemporary multi-culturalism in London.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is interesting to compare attitudes to cultural identity and exchange in the world of music to those in the world of art. World Music has of course become a branded multi-million dollar industry since the 1980s. The integration of European songs, melodies and musical instruments in North American folk and country music and mixed with Afro-American influences produced 'hybrids' which in turn influenced rock musical styles in the 1960s. The interconnections between musical influences are very complicated, and subject to the same prejudices as visual art. Similar questions are raised: Is it alright for the Beatles to use the sitar and not okay for Indian bands to go rock 'n roll? Mixed traditions have become known as 'fusion', an established category not universally popular due to the endless search by ambitious bands for the new.

Cultural syncretism in music was prohibited by the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea (ancient & modern Cambodia). 'Khmer Rock', an adaptation of Western rock, rhythm & blues, doo-wop and surf guitar by Cambodian musicians using traditional instruments and vocal styles, had become very popular there by the early seventies. Western rock had been broadcast by American Forces Radio in Vietnam. When the Khmer Rouge came to power the penalty for playing and listening to Khmer rock was hard labour or summary execution. It was alleged that one female diva was stripped naked and forced to walk around in circles, singing until she dropped. This music has now become collectable, while in today's Cambodia memories of the KR period have been covered over; school books make a cursory mention of 'misfortunes' and there is little enthusiasm for the current genocide tribunal from a government largely consisting of KR cadres. (July, 2009)

Philip Hensher wrote an article in The Guardian on the delusion that "through world music you gain access to different cultures". He says that the taste for world music has been driven by a desire for 'authenticity', but which actually merely creates an artistic style with conventional indicators of authenticity. (This reminds me of the piece 'Am I authentic?' by Danzker in Art and Its Histories, Ed. S. Edwards). Hensher doesn't deride musicians from poor countries who take the opportunity to make some money out of the West in this way.

As China's economy becomes stronger, Chinese artists who are fortunate not to have to work around the clock assembling parts for gadgets and other consumables for export, are being snapped up by dealers in the global art market. Students at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing had until the last few years specialised more in figurative painting, often in the Soviet style Realist art, whereas now their work and career prospects resemble the situation in western countries, with the possibility of earning art stardom and financial rewards to match.

Another aspect of contemporary art practice in China can be seen near Shenzhen, a city in the south, where a factory produces 60% of the world's cheap oil paintings. The Hong Kong entrepreneur Huang Jiang hires local art students to reproduce an estimated 5 million classic western works per year, mass produced on assembly lines at an incredible rate. Experts have been fooled and this has arguably produced the biggest threat to the art market, depending as it does on authenticity and connoisseurial expertise for maintaining the monetary value of art.

Further to where Craig Clunas' case study (5) ends on recent art trends in China, it seems relevant to add what the deputy chairman of Bonham's Asian art department has said about the rising prominence of the Chinese in the world of contemporary art: "Chinese art produced by Chinese artists (who) think they're producing things to western taste, and it is bought by westerners who think they're buying Chinese taste."

An exhibition of Picasso's work in South Africa in early 2006 raised the questions of whether, on the hand, the great genius of Modern Art pilfered and copied African art without acknowledging any debt he might owe it, or on the other hand, whether he helped establish African art on the world map. Two young exhibition visitors on a school trip were asked by the journalist Benoit Villeneuve what they thought of Picasso's work. Okay, but they would prefer to have the car of the same name, they said in a more Post-Modern than Modern response.

In the Evening Standard (27/4/07), Brian Sewell reviews the exhibition of European views of the New World at the British Museum. He notes the pose of an "Indian Chief" as being "that of a classical antique sculpture", where learned schematic conventions are used to depict the unfamiliar, reminding me of the chapter 'Truth and Stereotype in E.H. Gombrich's Art and Illusion. At the end of Sewell's article he criticises the proposition of Ekow Eshun, director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, entered in the exhibition catalogue that "Britain is home to the cultures of many rather than the property of a native few", countering that Britain is home to the culture of the native many and that Britain's fault has been to try imposing it where it has had no business to be.

The exhibition of 19th century orientalist painting 'The Lure of the East' at Tate Britain (summer 2008) contained an interesting range of paintings including one, of several by David Roberts, of Baalbek in Lebanon (1861) which, according to the information plaque, showed the local population treating their national heritage without due respect, the sort of spectacle that allowed European colonial powers to feel justified in 'liberating'artefacts. (Nevertheless it is quite surprising that these Graeco-Roman ruins are in such good condition today, surviving decades of war and earthquakes. Pride in shared cultural heritage survives despite sectarian differences and when I last visited in 2005 there were visiting groups of secondary school students from both the Shi'a Muslim and Christian areas in the South of Lebanon.)

This painting by John Frederick Lewis (1857, measuring 31 x 21 cm), at Tate Britain's 'The Lure of the East'

was accompanied by a comment on a plaque relating to 'the gaze', the theories of which have been so strongly associated with the connections between the viewer, artist and female body in western art and the effects on our perception. Here the gaze is obviously not prurient but curious and arguably intrusive: "He has become the property of our eyes even as he claims through prayer to be the property of God" - it says on an adjacent plaque. But I think it would be hard to feel so strongly in such terms today about a painting of an anonymous man at prayer when one considers contemporary attitudes to privacy. It brings to mind the apparently popular appeal of the misnamed 'Reality TV', where the viewing public pry on the unguarded moments of complete strangers, themselves willing participants, who cannot 'see back'. There is also the easy accessibility of one way viewing or ogling on the internet and then there is the more privatised gaze of the CCTV, a feature of surveillance society, which is controversial but not universally unpopular. Back to the painting - the exhibition brought to mind another 19th century painting which would have fitted in very well here, except that it was not done by a British artist and it currently hangs in a museum in the town of Constantine in North Eastern Algeria (colonised by the French at the time it was painted). It is called The Hashish Smokers and attributed to Gabriel Ferrier.

It is interesting here to consider who it was painted for, where it was originally intended to hang, what kind of reactions it caused and the reactions it may cause now among Algerian museum visitors. How does the contemporary 'East' view the 'West' and vice versa, in terms of decadence, promiscuity and drugs?

The exhibition 'L'Orientalisme en Europe: Delacroix a Matisse' at La Vieille Charité in Marseilles in 2011 was conscientiously guarded and policed and the atmosphere was hushed and reverential. Two guards hurried across when I pointed to a sculpture because of a comment I was making to my two companions, one of whom had made an interesting remark about the possible idealisation of the 19th century sculpted heads of sub-Saharan Africans noting that there was no sign of ritual scarification. Anyway the ambience was noticeably different from that of the Notre Dame cathedral across the bay, where people seemed far less inhibited, children tearing down the aisles as though they were in their local supermarket.

Agosta, the pigeon-chested man and Rasha the black dove, Christian Schad, 1929, (Tate Britain).

Art in America, May, 2010, reviewed an exhibition of recent work at the Guggenhem, Berlin, by Wagechi Mutu which is concerned with exoticising and the hyper-sexualization of Afro-American women.

In his Guardian review of Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic at the Tate Liverpool (30/01/10), Fred D'Aguiar mentions that part of the exhibition which is about the scrutiny, voyeurism and possession of 'the other's' body, particularly the female body, in a reference to the colonial era of slavery and the taxonomic interest in racial types (viz the case of the woman called Saartjie Baartman {in Afrikaans} brought to England in 1810 as an exhibit entitled 'The Hottentot Venus'). In view of this history the recent case of the South African athlete Caster Semenya comes to mind, as 'her' (her gender apparently not having been in any doubt until this point) sexual identity was called into question and she was put under the media spotlight and laboratory microscope in the summer of 2009. She 'failed' a sex test, and her possible ostracism arises from both the strict laws of competitive testosterone-driven sport and ignorance concerning what and who is 'normal' in sexual terms and gender terms, where hormones don't necessarily work in unison with chromosomic predisposition in neatly establishing either males or females.

Members of the Kogi people of Colombia visited London (The Guardian, September 28, 2010), not as exotic beings from a 'pristine indigenous culture', but in order to promote a movie of their way of life for the benefit of the West so that the West might learn something about planet management. Confident of their way of life they wear traditional clothes and do not crave cars, restaurants, gadgets etc, unlike, as the Guardian article puts it, other traditional Amazonian societies 'where you have an impoverished western urban culture situated in indigenous villages in T-shirts and baseball caps.'

By way of contrast this reminds me of the controversy over the Kalunga people from the other side of Amazonia, in Brazil, who were described as a 'lost' black community 3,000 whose African ancestors had worked as slaves (Brazil did not abolish slavery until 1888). In 1999 they were supposedly under threat from the first metalled road to reach them. Anthropologists from Brasilia University claimed that the Kalunga would be unable to evaluate the consequences of such a change, yet many of them were in favour of the opportunity to obtain electricity, telephones, medical supplies and running water that the road would make possible. A Kalunga leader claimed that anthroplogists were trying to hold them back, whereas they were perfectly able to speak for themselves.

There is an interesting short video clip that shows how a Kenyan fishing community have responded to the pollution of their fishing grounds. They are constructing a colossal whale out of flip flops found floating in the sea rather than dumping them in land-fill sites. This seems to be an innovative response to the contemporary world of consumption and waste - in the name of art.

Artists with origins in economically poor countries now working inside rich (western) economies, and arguably, artists working in poor enclaves in rich economies and also artists working in various situations in poor countries are today more easily seen as global artists with access to critical attention and beneficial opportunities than they have been previously, thereby attracting the attention of collectors and exhibition reviews. However, there is also a large category of art and artists that remains apart, ignored by 'serious' art critics. 'Outsider art' is a term coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in the 1970s as an English equivalent of 'Art Brut' a label created by the canonical modern French artist Jean Dubuffet for the art forms of people in extreme mental states. It was always a rather loose definition open to revision or expansion that in addition to including producers of art who have had or continue to have diagnosed and treated health problems, may also include those who are simply untrained and unable or unwilling to practice in a conventional way.

One cannot help wondering about the mental state of many canonical artists throughout art history; I mean quite apart from the considerable number whose severe mental torments and fixations have been well documented. One might for example wonder about the mental state of medieval artists with their obsessive diabolical imaginings or later acopalyptic painters such as 'Mad' John Martin in the 19th century. As for untrained artists, Théodore Rousseau is an example of one who was 'attached' to the modern canon - only because of the connection with the early 20th c avant-garde painters and writers. Yet the work of 'outsider artists' such as Louis Wain, Augustin Lesage and Henry Darger, to name just three, is known only to relatively few 'specialist' enthusiasts and collectors.

The aversion to blank space and the intense (possibly manic) compulsion to fill it may be a typical starting point of many outsiders, but although degrees of compulsion will vary, many 'insider' artists also experience the 'horror vacui', experiencing it more as a sticking point than a starting point. Also the process of creation for many 'insider' artists is as important as the end product, which is how researchers (mostly psychologists) into outsider art have thought of as a distinct characteristic of the art of the most mentally isolated who apparently feel little connection with their work once it is (or they have) finished, suggesting that it is not intended as communication - this therefore makes the viewer's response interesting too. Would it be more problematical for the viewer than insider or 'normal' art?

(I should perhaps add at this point that when Van Gogh's particular mental state was at its worst he was actually unable to work.)

The binary insider - outsider, sane - insane categorical distinctions may seem out of step with modern psychology and supposed public opinion, contemporary libertarian views and the prevailing policies of inclusiveness regarding the accessibility of art; but however it is packaged it does seem surprising that the opportunistic and rapacious art market has not seen a chance to make much more money out of outsider art, although this may change. One can perhaps even imagine insiders hoping to qualify as outsiders in a bid for opportunities, in which case everyone would be in the same boat after all.

Outside In (www.outsidein.org.uk) says on its website that it provides a platform for artists finding it difficult to access the art world either due to mental or physical health, social circumstances or because their work doesn't conform to what is normally considered art.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some further definition to a few of the terms widely used in this part of the course would be useful:

RELATIVISM is largely concerned with ethical judgments of behaviour, a theory asserting that there is no universal truth or correctness and no objective reality. Part of its appeal lies in the fact that it spares us from making morality judgments about other cultures, acting as an axiom of tolerance. A relativist approach to research would for example avoid making eurocentric judgments about other cultures and cultural produce, and yet it faces the problem that it may itself be eurocentric. The philosophical opposite to relativism is universalism. Critics of relativism say that it concentrates on difference ignoring similarity, so for example if we cannot really understand what other people do, then how can the relativist be sure that despite different appearances there is no common principle. Over two thousand years ago Plato argued that relativism was false because it refuted itself, as those who deny relativism must also be right.

National governments and, further down the scale, so called community leaders use this 'Don't interfere with our culture' card very readily on such issues as human or civil rights. Sometimes it is hard if not impossible to take a position either from inside or outside the ethnic culture in question. For example HarperCollins publishers were accused by Mark Rose, head of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, of "an extreme faux pas" for publishing a book The Daring Book for Girls that encourages girls to play the didgeridoo (traditionally played by males). It is believed that girls who read the book and break the taboo risk becoming infertile. The company has apparently bowed to pressure and had the offending chapter rewritten. (4 September, 2008)

MULTI-CULTURALISM stands for the presence of many cultures (e.g. in a society). Proponents of multi-culturalism may tolerate or even enthuse over cultural variety, but it may not encourage inter-cultural exchange (INTER-CULTURALISM) and integration. 'Inter-culturists' see cultures not as separate and autonomous blocks but rather as contributory aspects of world culture.

In relation to to attitudes to unfamiliar culture, the term 'the other' (as opposed to 'ours') has been coined to denote a feeling of sharp and immutable difference from, yet also possibly of fascination with inherently inferior 'alien' culture, which could possibly contaminate if not kept at a safe distance. On more comic level, I think it conjures up images of the prince on a royal visit trying awkwardly to join in with the locals.

On the controversial subject of non-western cultural artefacts held in western museums or private collections, most famously in the case of the Parthenon (Elgin) marbles at the British Museum, progress has been made in the form of The UN Security Council Resolution 1483 adopted to ensure the return of Iraqi cultural property pilfered under the cover of war. Also in the UK the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act came into force on December 30th, 2003, with repercussions fore example for art stolen by Nazis. Against this background some interesting cases for cultural relativity have arisen. There is the possibility of causing offence where sacred objects of the Zuni Indians of New Mexico have on the face of it been stored properly ensuring optimum levels of preservation. However, traditionally such 'objects' as war gods were left in open shrines to decompose naturally. Then there is the case of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, who have agreed to return a head-dress to the Blood tribe in Canada, and were asked to also agree not to make either a replica or take photographs of the head-dress, owing to the tribe's belief that copies of sacred artefacts are dangerous and offensive. (The Art Newspaper, July-August, 2004)

Case study 9 discusses the career of Pakistani born artist Rashaeed Araeen, treated as 'other' as he has struggled to overcome his experience of racial and cultural stereotyping in 'the West'. In contrast to this, the story of British born Zimbabwean sculptor Paula Ware is interesting. A visit to the website http://www.streathamguardian.co.uk/reveals how as a white artist she has found it easier to adopt the pseudonym 'Chaka', even though, as she says, she feels she has disappointed some clients who assumed she was black and male.

For anyone wishing to read further into relativism in this connection at the end of the course could look for Rationality and Relativism, Ed. M.Hollis and S.Lukes, Blackwell 1982. In a more purely ethical connection, Ethical Relativism by Mohammad Shomali, ICAS 2001 is a 'relatively' easy book to read, considering the complexity of the subject.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Coloniser and the Colonised by Albert Memmi, Earthscan, was reviewed in the London Review of Books, 23 March 2006. It considers the social psychology of colonialism, comparing for example the French and British approaches. The former promising assimilation as the way to civilisation and the attainment of liberty, fraternity and equality, whereas for the British 'civilisation' was the problem rather than the cure; a relativist position.

An informative book on censorship, Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression, Ed. Robert Atkins, looks at this subject from a variety of angles. Atkins says "Artists are a reflection of the social conditions around them, which is why there is change in art."

The Art of Wonder, A History of Being, Julian Spalding, Prestel, takes you back, forth and around the world several times to look at its many wonders which are illustrated in the margins by the author, or as he says at one stage he is 'like a lepidopterist identifying butterflies in meadows.' Consequently it's hard to commit the myriad factoids contained in this whistle-stop tour, even to short-term memory. It also comes without references and bibliography, which is alright for anyone ready to take it at face value not wishing to verify facts.

Cognitive Variations by G.E.R.Lloyd (Oxford University, 2007) in which the author discusses variations of cognitive behaviour (such as colour perception, spacial cognition and reasoning) in different cultures.

Multiculturalism 'without 'Culture, Princeton University, 2009, by Anne Phillips. Those who prefer to see culture as a major source of people's identity, those who luxuriate in exoticism and difference, who overvalue difference and underestimate similarity will not like this intelligent book, neither will those who are impatient with people who do not absolutely adhere to western mores and values.

The periodical Third Text offering critical perspectives on contemporary art can be seen on line at www.informaworld.com/ctte

Guiseppe Castiglione, Chang Yee (The silent traveller), Xu Bing, Wim Delavoye, Anish Kapoor, Chris Offili, Sokari Douglas Camp, Romuald Hazoumé, Wangechi Mutu, David Goldblatt, Marlene Dumas.