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Moving the goalposts: modernism and 'World art history'

This article argues for the importance of a new direction for research in the field of contemporary art history, under the rubric of a 'global imperative'. It also argues for the continuing significance of links between contemporary practice and the modernist avant-garde tradition. In doing so this constitutes an argument against an emergent trend in global-contemporary theory in the arts, namely to emphasise a clear distinction between the modern and the contemporary.

It therefore makes a contribution to current debates about the focus of research priorities. The article advocates a shift from the classic ground of the social history of art's focus on 'vertical' high/low relations to 'horizontally' conceived centre/periphery relations, especially the way these have been influenced by the development of global networks in the arts. This latter is seen to represent the most pressing concern for current art historical research. One of the key areas of concern is the relationship of contemporary practice to the historical avant-gardes.

The article is based on a research paper given at the European Avant-Garde and Modernism (EAM) conference at the University of Poznan, Poland in 2010, involving speakers from established academic traditions as well as from emergent nations in the European Union. The paper surveys a wide range of art historical models, from modernist theory to Burger’s definition of the avant-garde, to a Clarkian social history, to argue that current circumstances demand a revision of priorities in the field.