Paper Presentation
Arts Faculty of the University of Leuven, 2-4 February 2026
Abstract
Feeling Against Empire: Rusli and the Affective Space of Asian Art Avant-Gardes
This paper examines the connection between anti-imperial Asian avant-gardes and affect theory by analyzing the aesthetics and work of Indonesian painter Rusli (1912-2005). His journey included formative years at the Santiniketan School of Art in India (1932-1938), teaching at the nationalist Taman Siswa school in Yogyakarta (1938-1945), and artistic creation both within and outside Indonesia after the Revolution (1945-1949). Rusli’s artistic practice evoked emotional responses through a sensory and poetic engagement with his environment, highlighting spirituality and emotional depth, much like his spiritual guide, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).
Trained at the Santiniketan School of Art in India (1932-1938), Rusli later joined Indonesia’s nationalist struggle (1946-1949) and subsequently travelled to Europe (1954-1956). His drawings from Amsterdam, Brussels, and Rome reflect a form of “colorful cosmopolitanism” (Sugata Bose, 2010, 2024), an aesthetic and philosophical stance that actively resists the logics of colonial rationalism, anchored in European universalism. Through his art, Rusli translated site-specific emotional experiences into colors, lines, and shapes formed through brushstrokes applied with rhythmic and dynamic motions. This paper proposes that Rusli’s work exemplifies a decolonial and liberal aesthetics of feeling that expands the twentieth-century art avant-garde’s artistic and poetic repertoire with an anti-imperial spirit.
Methodologically, this paper argues for an expanded understanding of avant-garde art as a generator of affective registers and for a geographically multidirectional approach to the modern art avant-gardes of the mid-twentieth century. Based in his artistic and aesthetic education at the Santiniketan School of Art, Rusli’s sensorial cosmopolitanism challenges dominant genealogies of twentieth-century avant-garde art, inviting us to rethink it not as a reaction to the economic rationality of the grid (Krauss, 1986), but as a container for emotionally and politically charged aesthetic and artistic responses to concrete sensation (Sunderason, 2020). By situating Rusli within Asian aesthetic traditions, this paper contributes to the discussion of affect theory and art avant-gardes beyond Euro-American theoretical frameworks.
Peer-Reviewed Article
Kerstin Winking, ‘The Kantian Legacy in Global Art Exhibitions: Between Enlightenment and Decolonization’ in: Panos Kompatsiaris (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Art Biennials (Routledge: New York, 2026).
Abstract
This paper explores how the legacy of Kantian philosophy continues to haunt the discourse on global art exhibitions and the discipline of art history. It recalls how Enlightenment thought—particularly Kant’s theory of world history—informs the epistemological foundations of modern art history and perpetuates Eurocentric hierarchies under the guise of universalism. While the concept of global art is often framed as inclusive, it frequently reproduces a difference-blind model of equality that marginalizes non-European histories and perspectives. Drawing on James Tully’s critique of Kantian cosmopolitanism, the paper analyzes how institutional frameworks and curatorial practices in Germany continue to privilege European norms while demanding conformity from artists and curators from the global south. As an alternative, it advocates for a difference-sensitive approach to global art history and curatorial practice—one that affirms cultural plurality and recognizes the active role of Indigenous and non-European artists in shaping modernity. By engaging with the concepts of cosmopolitan thought zones and constellational historiography, the paper outlines a more just and multidirectional framework for the study of global art—one that resists Enlightenment developmentalism and embraces entangled, plural histories of aesthetic production and critique.
About The Routledge Companion to Art Biennials
The Routledge Companion to Art Biennials assembles forty-five chapters that explore art biennials as expanded sites of artistic display, cultural policy, economic value, soft power, urban development and political struggle. The volume traces biennials from their 19th-century origins to their explosive post-Cold War growth, critically engaging with debates on globalization, institutional critique, identity, inclusion and resistance.
Structured in eight parts, it maps biennial histories from Venice to São Paulo and beyond, alongside their geopolitical and institutional entanglements. Bringing together contributors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the volume offers a comprehensive account of art biennials in their complexity and ambiguity, while outlining the main orientations and state of research in the field of biennial studies.
The volume will appeal to scholars and students in art history, museum and curatorial studies, as well as cultural geography, cultural sociology, critical theory, public sphere studies, media and communication studies, postcolonial theory, anthropology, and cultural and creative industries, making it essential for examining contemporary art and visual culture’s institutional ecosystems.