Territorial Factors in a Globalised Art World? The visibility of countries in international contemporary art events

In comparison to other disciplines of high culture, the visual arts seem to be the most suitable to internationalise (cf. Crane, 1992; Janssen, Kuipers & Verboord, 2008). The global diffusion of visual art works, for example, is far less complex than that of the performing arts, which entails an impressive transportation operation of both goods – instruments, sets, costumes – and the actors involved, such as orchestra musicians, theatre company actors or dancers. The global distribution of literature, meanwhile, is easier to achieve than is the case for the visual arts, yet language obstacles manifestly hinder its internationalisation (Heilbron, 1999; Janssen, 2009; Sapiro, 2010). Indeed, the only way to overcome such hurdles is when the author provides a translation of the work, or when the reader learns the foreign language in which it is written (De Swaan, 2001). This is similar in the case of theatre plays or the cinema (Hofstede, 2000). On the other hand, the visual language is deemed to be universal and is unhindered by these issues. In short, while the internationalisation of other domains demands different kinds of investment, the visual arts seem to have the best conditions for artists to conquer the world.