The Solution?

Gerardo Masquera, in “The Marco Polo Syndrome,” discusses how contemporary art, as a whole, is derived from western culture and limits non-western artists by backing them into a corner where they have to either exploit there “otherness” or imitate western ideals. He then goes on to claim that “the de-Eurocentralisation in art is not about returning to purity, but about adopting post-colonial ‘impurity’ through which we might free ourselves and express our own thought” (221). It is interesting how Masquera renounces a return to “purity” simply because he is correct. It would seem almost a parody and out dated if non-western artists tried to return to a pre-colonial purity. Although I am speaking from a thoroughly western perspective, there is little doubt that western ideas, whether for better or worse, have taken over most of the art buying world. The influence is simply undeniable.
Although Masquera does pose a solution for the “de-Eurocentralisation” of art he does seem to push non-western artists right back into another corner where they have to reject western expectations for non-western art (“authenticity, purity and tradition”) and embrace “decentralization, and a move toward adopting artistic strategies of recontextualization, appropriation and recycling”(215). Replacing one set of guidelines for another hardly seems like a solution to this problem. Perhaps the West’s perception of art is what ultimately has to change.