Critical Term: Globalisation

The term globalisation has come to be hotly debated in the Humanities as a way of understanding some of the more dynamic and complex changes taking place in social and cultural life today. In the field of art history, globalising processes can be identified over a wide historical span, from the age of exploration and encounter that began in earnest in the fifteenth century, through colonisation and empire, to the present day circumstances of late capitalism. Leon Wainwright and Leah Clark examine globalisation, addressing the circulation of objects and images through the lens of trade and commerce and in the production of modern art, by showing how artworks and artists have moved across an expanding global geography.