The Nomad and the Altermodern: The Tate Triennial

Nicolas Bourriaud's 2009 Tate Triennial, titled 'Altermodern', claims to trace a profound shift in contemporary art. According to Bourriaud's catalogue essay, postmodernism has been superseded by a new 'altermodern' culture, the artist of today responding to the processes of globalisation in works that reflect his or her increasingly nomadic ways. The central problem here is that Bourriaud celebrates the artist-nomad without considering the diverse objectives and experiences of the various travellers, including the businessman, tourist, migrant and refugee, whose movements are directly or indirectly recast in the artist's work. Bourriaud's blindness to the larger sociopolitical implications of the artist's nomadism results in a peculiarly flat and uncritical perspective on globalisation. Fortunately, some of the works on display in the Triennial advance more lucid and nuanced visions of contemporary travel, artists such as Walead Beshty and Franz Ackermann inserting themselves into the pathways of global exchange and reflecting corrosively on the contradictions of globalisation.