In this text, Icleia Borsa Cattani discusses the implications of globalization in contemporary art and its practice of separation, mentioning in passing the cultural consensus, the crisis in art, and the neutralization of criticism. Under such conditions, some critics have turned toward what she calls “art at the margins.” By that expression, the critic means art that is not part of the (self-satisfied) globalized system, but that is instead opposed to it and does not accept the reduction of art activities to simple market values. In the writer’s opinion, criticism must be involved with the processes and places where art is made in order to recover its function as a mediator between art and society. The coming together of criticism of this type, art at the margins and poetics would lay the foundation for a new way of thinking about contemporary art.

In this document, the professor and art critic from Rio Grande do Sul, Icleia Borsa Cattani, establishes certain concepts and methods of analysis for the interpretation of marginal contemporary art. She clearly asserts her preference for trends that question the dictates of the globalized art world. The artists with whom she discusses these issues include Néstor García Canclini, Marc Jimenez, and Tadeu Chiarelli.

Borsa Cattani even chooses exhibitions that invert the center/periphery axis, exemplified by her participation in the São Paulo Biennial (1998). Other exhibitions she favors are those that propose an alternative to the current configuration of the art system, such as the paradigmatic Magiciens de la Terre held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in the late 1980s. She also highlights the Lyon Biennial Sharing Exoticism (2000), and exhibitions that start from established models and offer some specific qualities, such as the Painting Biennial of Cuenca (Ecuador). Finally, she mentions exhibitions that foster the execution of localized artwork outside the system: including Manifesta (Ljubljana, 2000), among others. 

Icleia Borsa Cattani is an art critic, curator, and professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Some of this writer’s more recent thinking on contemporary art in Latin America are “Identidade cultural e relações de poder: A arte contemporânea no Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil (1980-1990)” [doc. no. 1111395], and “Os lugares da mestiçagem na arte contemporânea” [doc. no. 1111348].