Challenging neocolonial methodologies as a step towards delinking from the colonial matrix of power

This paper proposes methods that might be used to further art historian Piotr Piotrowski’s call: 'peripheries of the world, unite' by examining this call via the broader undertaking of ‘delinking’ from the colonial matrix of power (Mignolo). The paper points to neocolonial tendencies present in the simultaneous inclusion and othering of the work of artists from East Central Europe, through an analysis of the reception of a number of recent artworks by artists from the region as well as thematic exhibitions which engage with postsocialism. By identifying tropes present in the critical reception of a number of works and exhibitions, the paper highlights the lingering tendency of the western gaze to rely on and perpetuate the totalitarian paradigm, which in turn intercepts the process of ‘delinking’ (Mignolo) these practices from the colonial matrix of power. The paper seeks to highlight, unsettle, and disrupt what Jelena Vesic has termed ‘the geopolitical paradigm of regional art as dominant epistemological tool for situating contemporaneity’, by proposing a three-pronged approach. Firstly, the paper proposes a persistent ‘calling out’ as a strategy - highlighting of the forced imposition of the totalitarian paradigm upon the work. Secondly, the paper calls for a refusal to accept the simplification and imposed likening of practices from the region to one another, which leads to an erasure of texture and local difference. Lastly, the paper encourages what Sara Ahmed has termed the refusal to ‘sit at the table of oppression’ – a refusal to participate and a need to challenge narratives based around colonial, patriarchal and exploitative models of inclusion. The paper invites strategies of ‘building of decolonial sensibilities’ (Mignolo), which could be productive in responding to Piotrowski’s call: ‘Peripheries of the world, unite!’