The Global Rules of Art

A trailblazing look at the historical emergence of a global field in contemporary art and the diverse ways artists become valued worldwide

Prior to the 1980s, the postwar canon of "international" contemporary art was made up almost exclusively of artists from North America and Western Europe, while cultural agents from other parts of the world often found themselves on the margins. The Global Rules of Art examines how this discriminatory situation has changed in recent decades.

Drawing from abundant sources-including objective indicators from more than one hundred countries, multiple institutional histories and discourses, extensive fieldwork, and interviews with artists, critics, curators, gallerists, and auction house agents-Larissa Buchholz examines the emergence of a world-spanning art field whose logics have increasingly become defined in global terms.