Cosmopolitan Modernisms

Cosmopolitan Modernisms explores various moments in 20th-century art where the encounter between different cultures has produced something distinctive and revealing about the lived experience of modernity. Distinguished art historians and emerging scholars are brought together in this book by a critical dialogue that pushes beyond separate areas of study to arrive at a more connective approach to the history of art.
Travelling through a variety of historical contexts, from colonial India and pre-war Germany, to post-1945 Brazil, and the Caribbean and African American spaces of the black Atlantic diaspora, this unique collection re-defines the 'cosmopolitan' as a critical aspect of the questioning attitude that artists adopted throughout the world.
Featuring internationally respected scholars at the cutting edge of contemporary research, Cosmopolitan Modernisms is the first volume in the Annotating Art's Histories series. Each volume builds up an in-depth understanding of cultural difference as a constant factor in the history of art. Presenting newly-commissioned writings alongside translations, interviews, bibliographies, and selected reprints of hard-to-find texts, this innovative series is essential reading for students, practitioners and anyone curious about cross-cultural interaction in the visual arts.

Kobena Mercer is a writer and critic living in London. He is the editor of Pop Art and Vernacular Cultures, Cosmopolitan Modernisms, and Discrepant Abstraction (all published by The MIT Press and inIVA), author of Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies, and an inaugural recipient of the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, presented by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.