Decentering World's Fairs

How are the histories of art and fashion connected in the global context of world’s fairs? The contributors to this volume analyze the changing roles assumed by the arts, visual media, handicrafts, and artifacts and investigate the unifying conceptions of the ›Gesamtkunstwerk‹ in the framework of national representations at world’s fairs. They reflect the ambivalent status of Latin American re-/presentations and the artistic and curatorial strategies employed by representatives of (post)colonial or ›peripheral‹ states. By focusing on transcultural style migrations and aesthetic discourses in a globalized art world, the volume provides a re-vision of international exhibitions and world’s fairs from the perspective of a critical art history.