Square plans for a circular journey: remarks on the “decolonial” critique of art history’. Review of: Carolin Overhoff Ferreira, Decolonial Introduction to the Theory, History and Criticism of the Arts

Abstract

The volume explores the Eurocentrism that has characterised practices and discourses related to Western art phenomena from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, examining the critical, aesthetic and ideological implications of such a pervasively Eurocentric horizon of references. Through the adoption of alternative parameters of interpretation, like the concepts of ‘third space’ and ‘a-historicity’, the book aims to promote a ‘decolonial perspective’ in the study of art, reassessing well-consolidated narratives that reflect, first and foremost, a hegemonic cultural system directly derived from Europe-centered experiences both in the production as well as in the analysis of artworks.

Keywords

• decolonial critique
• art criticism
• deconstruction and art theory
• historiography of art
• brazilian art and visual culture