Cultural/Artistic Geography

The project of global art history calls for balanced treatment of artifacts and a unified approach. This volume emphasizes questions of transcultural encounters and exchanges as circulations. It presents a strategy that highlights the processes and connections among cultures, and also responds to the dynamics at work in the current globalized art world.

El agua ha sido vital en el desarrollo histórico en los ayllus de San Pedro
de Atacama, regados por los ríos San Pedro y Vilama. Los aportes hí-
dricos de estos ríos han venido disminuyendo desde la década de 1940
en adelante, lo que ha supuesto cambios sucesivos en las prácticas
culturales de aprovechamiento y gestión del agua, a fin de mantener
la seguridad del riego y sostener una agricultura basada en cultivos
tradicionales —maíz, trigo, alfalfa—. Este artículo constata, con
estadísticas, la disminución constante de los caudales medios anuales
de los ríos en los últimos setenta años, los cambios en el sistema e
infraestructura de riego, y las sucesivas reorganizaciones para gestionar
un recurso hídrico cada vez más escaso en un ambiente de desierto
extremo. Desvela que en los últimos cincuenta años la superficie
regada y cultivada se redujo en casi un 50%, en conjunto con el descenso
de los aportes hídricos de los ríos San Pedro y Vilama. Constata que
la estructura tradicional de cultivos se mantuvo hasta años recientes, y
se pregunta si el actual equilibrio precario entre aguas, riego y cultivos
se puede sostener en el tiempo en los ayllus de Atacama.
Palabras claves: ríos San Pedro y Vilama - infraestructura de riego - cultivos
tradicionales

The phenomenon of artistic quarters has been explored by many researchers interested in the spatial behaviours of artists in North American and Western European cities. Their analyses have often focused on the impact of this occupational group on transformations of selected urban areas: the arrival of artists as pioneers in degraded, problem neighbourhoods and the evolution of those neighbourhoods, which then attract more established artists, followed by creative professionals and non-creative gentrifiers. As over time the built environment, functions, cultural, gastronomic offer and ambiance of such areas change significantly, their progressive mainstreaming and commercialization prompt some artists to venture into new districts and spaces. The article first offers a review of existing findings with respect to artistic quarters and their transformations. The discussion of the possible stages of development of artistic quarters present in literature is followed by the application of this theoretical framework in the context of Polish cities using the examples of Krakow and Katowice. These significant regional capitals represent two major types of urban centres in Poland: a city with medieval roots, and a city which emerged during the 19th-century industrialisation process. The phases of evolution of the artistic quarters in both cities are analysed by examining the spatial perceptions of students of artistic majors. The analysis shows that the transformations of urban spaces in terms of their functions and perceptions as artistic quarters are not as straightforward and linear as earlier studies might suggest. Krakow’s more vibrant artistic life and its historic, concentric urban structure, combined with strong commercial pressures, are conducive to the development of new artistic quarters, although its traditional city centre continues to some extent to maintain its position on the artistic map of the city. In contrast, in Katowice the chaotic spatial structure of the heart of this historic industrial region makes the flow of artists more difficult and less likely, as they tend to concentrate in a poorly delineated area of the inner city. In addition, as the case studies reveal, spatial choices of artists are not only dependent on a city’s development path and its built environment but are also to a significant extent shaped by the diverse artistic backgrounds of its creatives and a host of factors linked with post-socialist transformation and neoliberal urban policies.

Historians trying to write a global or a social art history face the same question: how does one treat multiplicity and complexity in a comprehensive framework? ARTL@S is a multidisciplinary project that promotes spatialization as a method of investigation and the anchor of an innovative, analytical approach. Its goal is to contribute to what the French Annales School referred to as a "total" art history: writing a serial, transnational, geographical, and multiscale art history that would also address social issues. ARTL@S relies on the spatial (digital) method to identify new sites of investigation, uncover unseen patterns of artistic circulation and distribution, open up different dialogues with artwork, dissolve the boundaries between art history and other disciplines, and rethink scholarship through a focus on learning by sharing. As such, it participates in the redefinition of the discipline of art history by embracing the theories and methods of the spatial, global, and digital turns that have challenged humanities over the past decades.