Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America

Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America

Smith, Sarah E. K.

Paperback

Canadian ArtGeneral ArtInternational Relations

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0774868929
ISBN13: 9780774868921
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
Published: Oct 28 2025
Pages: 296
Weight: 1.00
Height: 0.79 Width: 6.14 Depth: 8.93
Language: English
Explores how the art world navigated North American free trade.

The 1989 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement reinvented the concept of North America as a cohesive whole, united by free trade. But within the bold concept of continental unity lay a paradox. While art was mobilized to frame the new narrative, culture itself was explicitly excluded from the agreements that implemented this vision.

Trading on Art brings culture to the foreground by examining how artworks, exhibitions, and museum programs from the 1980s to 2010 mediated North American free trade, from government-supported cultural diplomacy initiatives to activist art that confronted impending US hegemony.

Sarah E.K. Smith reveals how Canadian artists engaged with, contested, and reflected on free trade, paying particular attention to the ways in which art was used to forge ties between Canada and Mexico and to circulate ideas about North American identity. Her nuanced analysis convincingly makes the case for the centrality of art in conceptualizing continental unity.

Also from

Smith, Sarah E. K.

View All

Also in

General Art

View All