Today’s artist identity as multicultural and hybrid identity

Abstract

After modernism, the definition of a work of art and the manner in which art is being created has changed. Artists today, no longer being nourished by their cultures alone, not identified as ‘genius’ or considered to be highly talented. They take part in the new world with their multiple identities. Art, via circulations that exceed the borders of nation states, is being moved away from indigenous values and authentic innocence towards a globalized and monopolized world. Notably, the cold war coming to an end in the 1980s, demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the opening of national borders and globalism which feeds on electronic communication, have been shaping the contemporary world into a new form. All of these factors contribute to the creation of new type of artist, with legitimized hybridity within art. The issue is not the identity itself, but how it is being represented. This is due to the risk of ghettoization, brought along by claiming a culture and identity for oneself. The hybrid identities confronting us are political strategies out to tear down stereotypes such as race, gender, ethnic origin and conventional way of thinking. There is currently an increase in the numbers of artists, who manage to fit a variety of cultures into their lives, reside in a cosmopolitan manner within multiple geographical locations and create in several countries at once. The art world, having been de-centered, away from the West; upon discovering artists from Africa, South America and Asia, and conveying them towards the globalized world, is at the same time harboring a problem of standardization and similitude. The leisure of traveling the earth can be an advantage for an artist; however the lack of having roots and the insecurity caused by a nomadic lifestyle can turn into a disadvantage.

Keywords: multicultural, hybrid identity, contemporary art