Writing on the History of Modern Art: From Particularism to a New Universalism

A number of art historians, both from Central Europe and elsewhere, currently refer to Piotr Piotrowski in their reflections. Even today, however, his texts also continue to provoke interesting polemical discussions. Both types of response are accompanied by paraphrases of some of his views. In order to strengthen the force of the argument, however, these views can also be misinterpreted. In his polemical article, Matthew Rampley alters the meaning of a number of Piotrowski's theses in this way. Marie Rakusanova's text attempts to show that this not only distorts the Polish scholar's ideas, but also undermines the credibility of Rampley's own suggestions for methodological innovations in writing the art history of Central Europe. Rampley's mistaken reading of Piotrowski relates primarily to the article 'On the Spatial Turn, or Horizontal Art History', which was published in the journal Umeni/Art in 2008, with variant versions also appearing in other publications. Rakusanova's text reminds us not only of the true form of Piotrowski's theses in this article, but also of his ideas expressed in the study 'East European Art Peripheries Facing Post-colonial Theory', published six years later. Piotrowski's concepts of horizontalism, transnationalism, and critical art geography were opposed not only to the (particularist) universalism of Western writing on the history of modern art, but also to the mechanical transfer of the principles of postcolonial criticism to the setting of East-Central Europe. Piotrowski anticipated the significance of the specific regional, temporal, and linguistic features which determine the nature of modernity in this part of the world and art-historical research into it. The differing time frame of the development of art in Western and in East-Central Europe has a different character than the diversity of time lines made visible by postcolonialism, which was originally violently suppressed by Western colonial policy. East-Central Europe cannot lay claim to the status of a former colony of the West; it is a case that shows the division in relationships of place and time within Western culture as a whole. A shift from particularism to a new universalism in writing on Central European art history can only be achieved through the ability to reflect on this division. When Rampley calls for a change in the conceptual frame in writing the art history of East-Central Europe, this appeal does not take sufficient account of these problems, and it is not surprising that it results in another call to respect hierarchies.