Curtis L. Carter1
Globalization and Cultural Identity 
of Art Works
Abstract: Works of art are properly characterized as cultural ob-
jects, as opposed to being merely physical or perceptual objects. As
cultural objects, works of art can be embodied in physical objects,
but they require properties that physical objects do not necessarily
possess, such as being  intentionally composed  in some artistic
medium in a particular historic context informed by ideas, values,
and technical skills and means offered by the culture. Works of art
retain their identity in important respects, but may also undergo
change when transferred from one culture to another. The identity
of a work may be enriched and expanded to incorporate features
acquired as a result of its being interpreted in a new cultural setting.
An expanded and clarified account of culture is required to give a
fuller  characterization  of  the  cultural  properties  that  comprise
works of art and to support the view that cultural identity in some
sense transcends a culture of origin. Culture is a multi-phased con-
cept involving at least three related elements. First, there are the
particular art cultures consisting of art-making and their attending
strategies of interpretation found in the art worlds of various soci-
eties. Secondly, the culture of a people consists of the broader soci-
etal, political, economic, religious, ideological, and other practices
that define a culture. An additional element is world or global cul-
ture consisting of the features of art that enable people from diverse
cultures to interpret and appreciate art from other cultures. Within
81
Moni tor  ISH (2017), XIX/2, 81–110
Izvirni znanstveni članek
Original scientific article
1 Dr. Curtis Carter is a Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University.
Email: curtis.carter@marquette.edu.
05 - CurtisLCarter  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 81
these frameworks, the identity of art works is open and cumulative,
with the result that they continuously acquire new properties over
the duration of their existence.
Keywords: art, globalization, cultural identity
UDK 7:005.44
Globalizacija in kulturna identiteta umetniških del
Izvleček: V nasprotju s tem, da bi bila zgolj fizični ali perceptivni
predmet, so umetniška dela primerno okarakterizirana kot kulturni
objekti. Kot takšna so lahko umetniška dela utelešena v fizičnih
predmetih,  a  zahtevajo  lastnosti,  ki  jih  fizični  predmeti  nimajo
nujno, na primer da so namerno sestavljena v nekem umetniškem
mediju v določenem zgodovinskem kontekstu, ki se napaja z ide-
jami, vrednotami in tehničnimi znanji ter sredstvi, ki jih kultura po-
nuja.  Umetniška  dela  v  pomembnih  pogledih  ohranjajo  svojo
identiteto, a se lahko, ko se prenašajo iz ene kulture v drugo, tudi
spreminjajo. Identiteta dela se lahko obogati in razširi, da vključuje
lastnosti, ki so pridobljene kot rezultat interpretacije v novem kul-
turnem okolju. Potrebno je razširjeno in razjasnjeno mnenje o kul-
turi, da se lahko poda popolnejša karakterizacija kulturnih lastnosti,
ki sestavljajo umetniška dela,  in se podpre mnenje, da kulturna
identiteta v nekem smislu presega izvorno kulturo. Kultura je več-
fazni koncept, ki vključuje vsaj tri povezane elemente. Najprej so
tukaj določene umetniške kulture, sestavljene iz umetnostnega obli-
kovanja, in njim pripadajoče strategije interpretacije, ki jih je moč
najti v umetniških svetovih različnih družb. Drugo je kultura ljud-
stva, ki sestoji iz širših družbenih, političnih, gospodarskih, verskih,
ideoloških in drugih praks, ki določajo neko kulturo. Dodatni ele-
ment je svetovna ali globalna kultura, sestavljena iz lastnosti umet-
nosti, ki omogočajo ljudem iz različnih kultur, da interpretirajo in
cenijo umetnost iz drugih kultur. Znotraj teh okvirjev je identiteta
Curtis L. Carter
82
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umetniških del odprta in kumulativna, rezultat pa je, da skozi traja-
nje svojega obstoja kontinuirano pridobivajo nove lastnosti.
Ključne besede: umetnost, globalizacija, kulturna identiteta
0     0     0
Underlying the question of artistic understanding between the cul-
tures of East and West in the era of globalization is the problem of
the identity of works in art in relation to culture. With respect to art
and aesthetic values, the problem of cultural identity addresses the
question: In what sense might a work of art created in a western
culture such as ancient Greece be understood and appreciated in
contemporary China? Or in what is the basis for appreciating Andy
Warhol’s  image  of  a Campbell  Soup  can  created  in  the United
States in the 1960s when it appears in a Chinese cultural setting?
This problem is not simply a matter of developments in the twen-
tieth or twenty-first centuries. For example, in the early nineteenth
century the Parthenon Marbles of ancient Greece were welcomed
in London in 1800 as the Elgin Marbles when the British Lord Elgin
removed them from Athens. The Elgin Marbles were created as part
of the Parthenon in fifth century Athens. Since their transfer in 1800
they have resided in the British Museum in London. The question
for consideration here is, do the works located in their original set-
tings, respectively in Athens (the Elgin Marbles) and New York (the
Campbell Soup Can pictures), have the same cultural identity when
viewed in London or in Beijing as the art works had in their original
settings? The answer depends in part upon our understanding of
cultural identity and our view on how to accommodate the changes
resulting from a work transferred to a culture other than its culture
of origin and also sustain the identity of the art work.
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I propose to accept in principle the thesis offered by Joseph
Margolis and others that works of art are properly characterized as
cultural objects, as opposed to being merely physical or perceptual
objects. As cultural objects, works of art can be embodied in phys-
ical objects, but they require properties that physical objects do not
necessarily possess, such as being intentionally composed in some
artistic medium in a particular historic context informed by ideas,
values, and technical skills and means offered by the culture. Fur-
ther, it is my intention to argue here for the position that works of
art retain their identity in important respects, but may also undergo
change when transferred from one culture to another. This means
that the identity of a work may be enriched and expanded to incor-
porate features acquired as a result of its being interpreted in a new
cultural setting. 
An expanded and clarified account of culture is required to give
a fuller characterization of the cultural properties that comprise
works of art and to support the view that cultural identity in some
sense transcends a culture of origin. My proposal is to think of cul-
ture as a multi-phased concept involving at least three related ele-
ments.  First,  there  are  the  particular art cultures consisting  of
art-making and their attending strategies of interpretation found
in the art worlds of various societies. Secondly, the culture of a peo-
ple consists of the broader societal, political, economic, religious,
ideological, and other practices that define a culture. An additional
element is world or global culture consisting of the features of art
that enable people from diverse cultures to interpret and appreciate
art from other cultures. Within these frameworks, the identity of art
works is open and cumulative, with the result that they continu-
ously acquire new properties over the duration of their existence.
The plan for developing the remainder of the paper is as follows.
I will first undertake a critical review of the notion of culture as it
Curtis L. Carter
84
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appears explicitly or implicitly in the writings of the authors re-
ferred to above, and will propose modifications necessary to clarify
the cultural nature of works of art. Thirdly, I will consider the ques-
tion of criteria for judging whether a work retains its identity when
it is relocated in another culture, again relating the issue to the cul-
tural factors surrounding the identity of a work of art. The Elgin
Marbles and Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can paintings will serve as
examples to facilitate the discussion. The essay terminates with
brief comments on the implications of the discussion here for com-
munication of East-West aesthetic values.
I. The Elgin Marbles
Before taking up the broader issues outlined here, it will be useful
to consider for a few moments some aspects of the cultural and his-
torical information surrounding the Elgin Marbles. This informa-
tion will establish the Marbles as works of art and will also provide
a concrete reference for the theoretical points that are being con-
sidered here.
Nearly 200 years ago in 1800, Lord Elgin sailed to Constantino-
ple to assume the role of ambassador of Great Britain to the Turkish
Empire, which then included Athens as well as all of Greece. High
on the list of his priorities was the intent to take back to England
artists’ drawings and casts of the magnificent sculptures and reliefs
which had been installed in the Parthenon. Lord Elgin’s primary
aim was to elevate the standards of artistic practice and taste in
England by introducing these works to his countrymen. 
The Parthenon had been built on the Acropolis in Athens be-
tween 447 and 431 BCE under the direction of the architect, Ictinos,
during the administration of Pericles the Athenian ruler and was
intended to serve as the Temple of Athena, the patron goddess of
Athens. It was part of a program of public works intended to sym-
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bolize the glories of Athens as the center of Greek culture and of
political power. The temple itself was built of the finest-grained
white marble in the Doric order of Greek architecture, and with ex-
traordinary precision of workmanship, resulting in a perfection of
artistic form. The building was adorned by sculptured figures cre-
ated by or under the direction of the sculptor Phidias. These con-
sisted of groupings of figures carved in the round, representing
such mythical events as the birth of Athena and also a legendary
contest between Athena and Poseidon. On the outside of the tem-
ple, the panels or metopes were carved in high relief with scenes of
mythological gods, giants, Lapiths, and centaurs at war. Around the
inside was a frieze in low relief of the Panathenaic procession, a
major religious ceremony which occurred every four years in the
Parthenon. The centerpiece of the Parthenon was the statue called
Athena Parthenos.2 The figure, designed by Phidias, stood approx-
imately 12 meters high and was adorned with ivory and gold.3
By the end of the eighteenth century, the Parthenon was under
the reign of the Turkish Empire, and had undergone substantial
physical changes in its 2300 year history. The center of the building
had been destroyed in 1687, for example, during a siege by the Vene-
tians, and remnants of many parts of the temple were all that re-
mained. During  its  lifetime,  the building had also undergone a
variety of uses: including a pagan temple, a Christian Church and
a Turkish Mosque.
When Lord Elgin’s agents arrived in 1800, the Parthenon was
serving various purposes for the Turks occupying the Acropolis. St.
Clair details the state of things in his biography of Lord Elgin in
these terms:
Curtis L. Carter
86
2 St. Clair, 1967, 52. See also Smith, 1916, 180. 
3 Brommer, 1979, 60. 
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The Turks living on the Acropolis built their houses, vegetable
gardens, and fortifications round about the ruins, or made use
of them as it suited their purpose. Inside the Parthenon was a
small Mosque, and the spaces between the pillars of the Propy-
laea were half bricked up to provide a kind of castellation for
the guns. Everywhere it was obvious that for years the ruins had
been a main source of building materials.4
Although Lord Elgin seemed to have had no prior plan to do
anything more than to make drawings and casts and, perhaps, to
collect a few fragments, the deteriorating condition of the monu-
ment, together with the urging of his agents, led to an agreement
with Turkish authorities, which resulted in the actual removal of a
substantial portion of the principal remaining sculptures to Eng-
land. At  the urging of Elgin’s  secretary, Reverend Phillip Hunt,
Elgin agreed to the drafting of a firman, or official letter of permis-
sion. The document was sufficiently vague that it served the Eng-
lish to guarantee the following permissions and protections from
the Turkish government:
(1) to enter freely within the walls of the citadel, and to draw and
model with plaster the ancient temples there;
(2) to erect scaffolding and to dig where they might wish to discover
the ancient foundations;
(3) to take away any sculptures or inscriptions which did not inter-
fere with the works or walls of the citadel.5 It is doubtful that the
Turks  intended  to  grant  permission  to  actually  remove  the
sculptures, given the fact that Turkish policy had heretofore for-
bidden the removal of such, particularly from the Parthenon.
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4 St. Clair, 51.
5 Smith, 190.
05 - CurtisLCarter  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 87
But Hunt and his colleagues persuaded the chief Turkish offi-
cials to the contrary.
The removal of the Marbles was, at the same time, a controver-
sial event from the beginning. However, the objections and doubts
appear to have come from the British, rather than from the Greeks,
who were in a state of subjection and decline, or from the Turkish
officials, whose actions indicated that their primary interest was in
using the Marbles for political or economic benefit.6 Lord Byron,
who was traveling in Greece at the time the Marbles were trans-
ferred  to  England,  denounced  Lord Elgin  in  his  satirical  poem
“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” as well as in other poems and prose.
In “The Curse of Minerva” Byron refers to Elgin as a plunderer who
basely stole the treasures of the Parthenon.7
II. Culture, Cultural Objects, and Art
The interest of philosophers in works of art as cultural objects is
not new; rather, it is implicit in the philosophical treatment of art
by many philosophers including Plato and Hegel, who both recog-
nized that a work of art is shaped by the state of ideas and artistic
practice at the time it is produced. It is unlikely, however, that either
of these philosophers would have supposed that all or the most im-
portant properties of art could be exhaustively supplied by a par-
ticular culture without  incorporating an element of  the  form of
beauty or absolute spirit. The incorporation of form or absolute
spirit would have been their way of recognizing that the art can be
of interest beyond its immediate community.
Curtis L. Carter
88
6 St. Clair, chapters 6, 9.
7 Lord Byron, 43. See also St. Clair, 187–201.
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Over the past two decades, philosophers such as Joseph Margolis,
Andrew Harrison, and Arthur Danto have advanced the study of art
works as cultural objects. Margolis is a proponent of the notion that
works of art are culturally emergent entities embodied in physical ob-
jects and that the embodiment of cultural properties is a function of
the culture of origin.8Harrison also affirms that culture is the primary
factor in bringing works of art into being and establishing their iden-
tity. In practice this means that to identify a work of art is to lay down
what material events or particulars are to count as instantiating it.9
Danto addresses this issue by locating the identity of art works in a
matrix which consists of art history and theory operating within the
art world at a particular time.10Others who approach cultural identity
primarily within the context of interpretation theory include Michael
Krausz and Richard Shusterman. Krausz argues that art works are so-
cially constituted entities whose identity is determined by their place
within a given practice, sustained by their own aims, rules, and pro-
cedures, and sustained by interpretations of informed practitioners.11
Shusterman, following Rorty, locates the identity of a work of art in
the pragmatically identified propositions, which are provided by the
customary ways of talking about such works.12 The work of these au-
thors offers a point of departure for examining the effects of a change
of culture on the identity of works of art, and I will refer to them from
time to time as the discussion proceeds.
Among the philosophers who offer an account of art works as
cultural objects, Margolis has developed his views more fully than
89
Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works
8Margolis, 1980, 41. 
9 Harrison, 1967–68, 125, 127.
10 Danto, 1980, 111. See Margolis’ critique of Danto’s views, in Margolis,
1995, 256–266.
11 Krausz, 1993, 38, 39.
12 Shusterman, 1988, 408. 
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most. In his book Art and Philosophy (1980), he contends that works
of art are artifacts that can be identified only in reference to the
artistic and appreciative traditions of a given culture.13 They share
with other cultural objects the condition of being in some sense
(nondeductively and nonreductively) linked with physical entities
of some sort. Their existence depends upon the culturally informed
work of persons who intentionally produce the art works within a
specific cultural practice. 
According to Margolis, “‘cultural’ signifies the property of any
system in virtue of which certain entities emerge and exist, a sys-
tem in which both persons and what they may produce—a fortiori
works of art—exist or once existed. Such a system is at once rule-
governed, in that what is typically produced is intelligible only in
terms of rule-like regularities (traditions, customs, practices, insti-
tutions). …”14 It follows that works of art consist of culturally emer-
gent  properties  intentionally  embodied  in  a  physical  object
according to the rules, customs, and practices of an artistic medium
such as sculpture. Among the properties that might be assigned
within various practices are representational, expressive, abstract,
conceptual, or other stylistic features. The works embody features
that would enable an informed audience to grasp their meaning
and locate them within a recognizable artistic tradition. 
More recently, in his book Interpretation Radical but not Unruly
(1995) Margolis emphasizes that emergent properties, in this case
aesthetic values, consist of intentional properties which are “social
or societal or collective or historical” rather than individual mental
or neurological states.15 A corollary of this expanded version of cul-
Curtis L. Carter
90
13Margolis, 1995, 41.
14 Ibid., 46.
15Margolis, 1995, 52.
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tural identity is found in Margolis’ notion of unicity, a concept that
he employs to argue that the identity of a work of art embraces its
cumulative history of interpretation over time, in lieu of a fixed na-
ture established at its origin and intended to serve as a referent for
all future interpretation.16
Margolis’ views will serve as a starting point in the development
of the three-tiered structure (art culture, culture of a people, and
world or global culture) necessary to provide an account of cultural
identity for works of art that extends beyond the culture of origin
and addresses the continuing issue of identity for works of art orig-
inating in one culture and subsequently being relocated in another.
The account of cultural identity given in Art and Philosophy, em-
phasizing a tradition of art production and interpretation, fits the
notion of an art culture, which provides the rules of a practice nec-
essary to account for the cultural identity of art. Art culture repre-
sents the world of the practitioners and includes artists, critics, and
institutions responsible for training, interpreting, and maintaining
the traditions and developing new practices as the culture evolves.
It consists of a specialized culture focusing on the aesthetic, stylistic
and technological aspects of production. Art cultures do not exist
independently of the wider culture of which they are a part. In many
instances, a plurality of art cultures may exist as part of a whole cul-
ture, each with its own important links to the larger culture. In mod-
ern societies it is now common for fine art, folk, and popular art
cultures to exist simultaneously. Similarly a plurality of fine art, folk,
or popular art cultures may exist within a single larger culture. 
Applying this concept to the Elgin Marbles, one might say that
the Parthenon Marbles were the product of a particular artistic prac-
tice under the direction of Phidias and his artist collaborators in
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Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works
16 Ibid., 33–35, 46. 
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Athens of the fifth century BCE, which embodied them with the fig-
urative, naturalistic concepts of a style of representational art. 
There is merit in considering this aspect of the identity of art
works. It is favored by certain approaches to art history because it
lends understanding to the origins of the work and the practices sur-
rounding its production. In claiming that cultural properties are to
be understood as rule governed regularities of a particular tradition
of artistic production and interpretation, Margolis also favors a nar-
rower rather than a broader context in which to discuss the “rules”
governing the identity of works of art, such as is provided by an art
culture.17 However challenging it might be to come up with a coher-
ent set of rules governing an art practice for a particular art culture,
it would be even more difficult to do so for the culture of a people.
Nevertheless, there are serious problems with limiting our dis-
cussion of cultural identity to a particular art culture. Such a limited
view would isolate what is occurring in the larger community (cul-
ture of a people). Moreover, a history of art which deals only with
the art culture surrounding the origins of a work of art in an art cul-
ture would necessarily exclude a significant portion of the life of
the art work which follows from its interpretations and uses in his-
tory. Hence the specialized art culture in which a work of art is pro-
duced does not account for all of the cultural properties that are
important, namely those which derive from the larger culture of
which the art culture may be a part. Most importantly, ‘art culture’
does not adequately explain how a work of art sustains a continu-
ous identity when it is removed from its culture of origin and relo-
cated within another culture.
Hence it is necessary to introduce at this time the notion of the
culture of a people to broaden the context for considering the cultural
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92
17Margolis, 1980, 47–49.
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identity of art. This sense of culture might include myth, language,
philosophy, recreation, and technology, as well as the institutions of
politics, economics, law, and education. A culture in this sense covers
formal and informal ways of behavior, including the thinking, feeling,
and doing expressed through day to day involvement in the various
practices and institutions. Art practices of particular cultures func-
tion within, and interactively, with these other aspects of the culture
of a people. Therefore it is necessary to take account of the interactive
influences from the larger culture on the practices of art when con-
templating the cultural identity of works of art.
In traditional tribal societies works of art are closely linked with
community life, where they incorporate the values of the commu-
nity  and also participate  in  the processes of  social  integration.
Sculptures are used in certain African communities, for instance,
to symbolize harmony among the members of the community and
to invoke ancestor presence as a means of establishing continuity
between past and present members of the community. Mythical im-
ages incorporated symbolically into tribal art may also relate to the
cycle of life and death.18
With respect to the Parthenon Marbles, the primary reason for
their coming into being lies beyond the particular art culture that
produced them. As we have seen earlier, it was the desire of Pericles
and his fellow citizens to produce a monument that would embody
the achievements of Athens and symbolize for all the world its su-
perior political, material, and spiritual achievements. This aim led
Pericles and his followers to appropriate their own treasures, often
coupled with the treasures of their unwilling allies to create a cul-
ture with unsurpassed art and architecture at its very center. Even
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Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works
18 Botombele, 1976, 22–23. See also Bahoken, 1976, 14. World Conference
on Cultural Policies: Problems and Prospects, 1982, 31. 
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the ruins of Ancient Athens still command the awe of Greeks and
generations  world  wide,  and  have  generated  unending  debate
among critics and historians particularly over the significance of
the Parthenon Marbles. This debate and the attending historical
events have extended their significance far beyond the particular
art culture of their origin. As Melinda Mercuri’s impassioned re-
marks imply, the cultural identity of works of art is integrally linked
to the culture of a people:
“We are talking about the unity of a unique moment which is
part of the culture and democracy of Greece. The Marbles are
part of a monument to Greek identity … our roots, our continuity,
our soul.”19
The extension of cultural identity of art works to include the cul-
ture of a people would appear to go beyond Margolis’ initial formu-
lation  of  cultural  identity  in  Art and Philosophy,  which  was
essentially linked to the art culture of origin. However, Margolis’
more recent version of cultural identity found in Interpretation Rad-
ical But Not Unruly, with an emphasis on the societal, historical,
open-ended sense of cultural identity, appears to be, in principle,
consistent with recognition of the broader culture of a people as a
necessary component of the identity of art works. There, Margolis
notes that the intentional, which is the agent of embodying cultural
properties in physical forms, has already internalized “… the Lebens-
formen of a particular society.”20
The purpose of drawing attention to the larger scope of culture
found in the culture of a people is to point out that at least some of
the important cultural properties embodied in works of art are a re-
Curtis L. Carter
94
19 Touhy, Milwaukee Journal, June 27, 1983.
20Margolis, 1995, 52.
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sult of arts connections to the religious, mythical, political, economic
and other values and activities that are important to the general cul-
ture of a people. This notion expands our basis for understanding the
cultural identity of works operating within a particular local culture.
Yet it does not account for the identity of works in a new culture, such
as the case of the transfer of the Parthenon Marbles to England.
The relocation of the Marbles (now referred to as the Elgin Mar-
bles, after Lord Elgin who arranged for the entry of the Marbles into
England) offers insight into the process by which a work of art from
one local culture enters into another local culture, and the implica-
tions of such changes for the cultural identity of the work. The first
of the Marbles arrived in England in 1806. The critical and inter-
pretive responses of the British art world and the public at the time
of their arrival are well documented. Their arrival generated sub-
stantial enthusiasm among England’s artists and critics and the
public. The responses of the British art culture were immediate and
intense. Critics debated the specific properties of the Marbles in a
context of ideas about classical art based on their familiarity with
such work as the “Apollo Belvedere”, located in the Vatican collec-
tion in Rome, and the “Venus de Milo”, housed at the Louvre in
Paris. The British art world was startled by the contrast between the
vital, life-like properties embodied in the Marbles and the more ac-
ademic, ethereal properties of the Apollo and the Venus. At that
time, the critics were unaware that these works were Roman copies
or Hellenistic statues rather than classic works of the fifth century. 
Leading English artists of  the  time, such as Benjamin West,
Thomas Lawrence, and J. M. W. Turner, immediately acclaimed the
significance of the Marbles, and may have been influenced by their
imagery. “There is in them,” said Lawrence, “an union of fine com-
position and very grand form, with a more true and natural expres-
sion of the effect of action upon the human frame than there is in
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the Apollo or any of the other most celebrated statues.”21 On the
other hand, critics such as William Hazlitt brought to the Marbles
a new set of interpretive properties by presenting them in the light
of their own interpretive theories. Hazlitt applied a variant of British
Romanticism to the Marbles in these brief excerpts:
This is the great excellence of the Elgin Marbles, that they do not
seem to be the outer surface of a hard and immovable block of
Marble, but to be actualized by an internal machinery, and com-
posed of the same soft and flexible materials as the human body.22
Their “amazing vitality and “life-like appearances” led Hazlitt to ex-
tend further his attribution of the qualities of nature to the Marbles.
Nothing remains of them but their style; but that is everything,
for it is the style of nature. Art is the imitation of nature; and the
Elgin Marbles are in their essence and their perfection casts
from nature—from fine nature it is true, but from real,  living,
moving nature, from objects in nature, answering to an idea in
the artist’s mind. …23
Ennio Quirino Visconti, director of the Capitoline Museum at
Rome and later director of the Louvre in Paris, and Antonio Canova,
a leading European sculptor and critic, visited the Elgin collection
in London and responded with high enthusiasm concerning the au-
thenticity  and  artistic  importance  of  the Marbles.  Their  views
brought international confirmation of the favorable responses to
the marbles from the English art world.
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96
21 Report from the Select Committee of the House on the Earl of Elgin’s
Collection of Sculptured Marbles. Also cited in St. Clair, 254.
22 Hazlitt, 1822, 154.
23 Hazlitt, 1934, 100. 
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There were also less favorable critical interpretations applied to
the Marbles. Richard Paine Knight, a leading English critic, was
steadfastly unenthusiastic about the significance of the Elgin Mar-
bles. He maintained that they were in fact from the later period of
Hadrian, and in such poor condition that they were of relatively sec-
ondary interest. His cryptic remarks convey his sentiments: “You
have lost your labor, my Lord Elgin; your Marbles are overrated—
thery are not Greek, they are Roman, of the time of Hadrian, when
he restored the Parthenon …”.24 But Knight’s interpretation failed
to carry the day and did not significantly affect critical or popular
understanding of the Marbles in England.
The responses to the Marbles within the British public were sub-
stantial. Debates in Parliament over the purchase of the Marbles,
as well as questions about their artistic merit and ownership had
brought the matter of their role in English culture to wide public
attention. Additional interest and awareness had followed public
exhibitions of the Marbles beginning soon after their arrival in Eng-
land. The result of the processes of incorporating the Marbles into
the art culture and the culture of the British people was to firmly
establish a place and a meaning for the Marbles in their new cul-
tural home. The principal change from the Greek understanding of
the Marbles was the substitution of British for Greek cultural inter-
ests. The British interpreted the Marbles in reference to their own
national interests, viewing them as “proud trophies” of British pres-
tige.25With respect to their artistic status, the Marbles were widely
admired as works of fine art which the British found no difficulty
placing in their most prestigious showcase at the British Museum.
Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that the issues of national
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24Messman, 1973, 71.
25 Smith, 1916, 35.
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honor and their significance as works of art were important factors
in the deliberations of the select committee and in parliamentary
debates  over  the  legitimacy  of  their  official  acquisition  by  the
British nation.
In summary, the strong reception of the Marbles in England as
works of art suggests that they did retain their cultural identity as
works of art through the change of cultures. The closing words of
an editorial exchange in 1941, between the editors of the Burlington
and the Connoisseur art journals over the return of the Marbles to
Greece, attests to the extent to which the Marbles have been assim-
ilated into British culture: “What we have we will hold.”26
Having shown by example that such cultural transfers do exist
and that the works continue to have meaning outside their cultures
of origin, it remains to account for this phenomenon. First, it is nec-
essary to look further into the question of identity for the trans-
planted Marbles. Let us begin by inquiring into the relationship of
the “Elgin Marbles” located in the British Museum to the “Parthenon
Marbles” that formerly resided at the Parthenon in Athens. Here it
is necessary to ask, do the two terms refer to the same work of art?
Throughout this disucssion, the Marbles have been represented as
composite objects; consisting of a set of physical objects (pieces of
marble) embodied with intentional properties (their form given by
the artist operating within various levels of culture), as well as inter-
pretive properties acquired throughout their life.
Suppose we limit the discussion for a moment to the culturally
embodied physical object. Among the accepted criteria for the iden-
tity of culturally embodied physical objects is identity of parts and
spatio-temporal continuity. If we mean, do the terms ‘Elgin Marbles’
and ‘Parthenon Marbles’ refer to the same configuration of natural
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98
26 Granville Fell, 1941, 220. 
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marble and technical and stylistic markings, the answer would be
a qualified yes. The qualification derives from the fact that the Elgin
Marbles were initially attached to the temple on the Parthenon as
part of a larger work, and from possible physical alterations result-
ing from faulty cleaning, or aging over time. Nevertheless, the major
parts of the Marbles have remained continuous throughout their
history, and their form is intact. For all technical and formal pur-
poses, they retain the same numerical identity.
On another level, the situation here recalls Frege’s classical for-
mulation of the problem of identity of meanings. Gottlieb Frege ar-
gued  that  identity  is  to be  interpreted as a  relation between  the
names of objects rather than as relations between objects themselves.
I take this to mean that for identical objects the descriptions that
apply to one will apply to the other. Applying this notion to the Elgin
Marbles, it follows that the cognitive sense of Elgin Marbles will vary
in some respects from the “sense” of Parthenon Marbles, even though
they refer to the same numerical entity. The difference follows from
the fact that “Parthenon Marbles” refers to the Marbles as seen from
the Greek perspective, whereas “Elgin Marbles” encompasses the
British perspective at a given moment in their respective histories.
Thus far, our analysis suggests that the cultural identity of the
Marbles incorporates the interpretive properties derived from an
historical understanding of their culture of origin and, additionally,
those properties which derive from its life in the new culture. One
way to view the matter, as I do, is to adopt the view that the cultural
identity of a work of art encompasses its entire history of produc-
tion and interpretation. From my perspective, all of the interpretive
properties that have been associated with the Marbles, including
their Greek and English cultural histories, and even the interpreta-
tions brought by visitors from other cultures, become a part of their
evolving identity. The cultural identity of the work is necessarily
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open ended in the sense that it includes past, present, and future
properties. Changes that occur in the properties of a work can be
additive as when the work is interpreted in a fresh light, or selective
when taking on the interests of particular interpreters. The British
may at a particular time choose to add to, ignore, or suppress the
special interpretive properties which the Greeks may have invested
in the Marbles, or vice versa, but this action does not alter the fact
that the respective properties are a part of any complete account of
the identity of the Marbles. It would not be necessary, however, that
any one person contemplating the Marbles should have in mind all
of the possible interpretive properties, only a sufficiently rich sam-
pling grounded in first hand experience and augmented by critical
discussions as required by the viewer’s purposes. An art historical
comprehension or a critical assessment of the works would obvi-
ously call for perusal of a greater range of interpretive properties
than would be sufficient for a casual tourist’s needs. 
This requires the acknowledgment that some of the properties
contributing to the cultural identity of works of art may originate
outside their culture of origin, a view contrary to Margolis’ initial
view. This would imply also that the understanding of art works ex-
tends beyond particular cultural boundaries, and calls for an ac-
count of their appreciation and understanding when viewed outside
a particular culture of origin. As far as I can determine, Margolis’
view of cultural identity does not explain how a work can be under-
stood outside its culture of origin, although he does not deny that
works of art can have meaning beyond  their cultures of origin.
Without some common ground among the interpreters extending
beyond a particular local culture, an historical understanding of cul-
tural identity that embraces, in principle, the entire range of activ-
ities surrounding the work is insufficient to explain how a work can
have meaning outside its culture of origin.
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100
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To remedy this deficiency, I would introduce the notion of world
culture or global culture as providing a level of understanding that
extends beyond the scope of particular local cultures or culture of
a people. The problem remains how to explain that the cultural
identity of a work produced in one of these cultures transfers to an-
other and retains a continuous identity sufficient to provide mean-
ingful interpretation and understanding. There are two possible
answers. First, the possibility that the works are embodied with ex-
pressive, formal, or other world cultural properties that contribute
to their being understood at some level by persons, irrespective of
variations in the rules and means governing local cultural practices.
Secondly, this would require of persons that they possess, or are
able to acquire through learning, the necessary attitudes and apti-
tudes  for  transcending particular  cultural  languages,  including
those of the arts. Cases like the successful relocation of the Elgin
Marbles in England demonstrate that art works do successfully
transfer, and the entire world system of museums is predicated on
the premise that such cross cultural understanding is possible. 
Many  philosophers  have  alluded  to  the  necessity  of  some
broader frame for human understanding which would extend be-
yond local cultures. An ancient philosopher such as Plato or Aris-
totle might have centered the discussion of global properties in
terms like beauty, truth, and goodness. But for us these terms do
not say as much. With the possible exception of beauty, they have
lost their richness and are afloat in a quest for clarity and specificity
through philosophical analysis. 
Hegel, perhaps, understood better than most the importance of
world culture when he  linked art  to  the realm of spirit.27 Hegel
wisely did not provide any strict rules for producing or identifying
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27 Hegel, 1979, 413–414. Also, Hegel, 1975, 56–58. See Carter, 1986, 239–256. 
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the properties of art that might be used to sustain universal interest
from one culture to another, a task far more demanding than giving
rules to a particular art culture, or to the art of a people. Instead, he
relied on a typological outline marking the particular stages in the
world historical development of art as an important manifestation
of the disclosure of world spirit or absolute spirit. In his scheme,
there is no break between developments in particular historical
epochs and the world spirit. Individuals, civilizations, and the ab-
solute all participate in a common milieu, which at least in principle
might accommodate communication between cultures and allow
for transcultural understanding.
Karl Popper alludes to a possible structure for  locating the
foundations for transcultural understanding of art works in his
discussion  of  objective musical  work,  in  conjunction with  his
“world 3,” which he characterized as consisting of objective con-
tents of thought, derived from actions in worlds 1 and 2; or the
physical and the subjective respectively.28 Such objective entities
would represent the results of solutions to problems that arise in
particular historical conditions, but transcend the limits of local
cultures, thus suggesting another possibility for transcending the
bounds of local cultures. 
Gadamer’s hermeneutic approach to the understanding of cul-
tural works relies on a “fusion of the horizons” that melds an un-
derstanding of the historic past with our own comprehension of it.
This process includes a universal or classical perspective to facil-
itate communication across the boundaries of particular historical
cultures. Perhaps this universal element of human communication
could be useful for the purpose of deciphering the meaning of an
art work from another culture. He also holds the view that “the very
Curtis L. Carter
102
28 Popper, 1976, 60–68. Cited also in Krausz, 1993, 35, 36.
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fact of human communication signifies the universality of human
nature.”29
I do not point out these views here for critical examination or
commendation. Rather, it is to note that an appeal to transcultural
conditions of human communication, as a means of accounting for
crosscultural understanding, is not without its serious proponents.
Among recent work on this problem of cultural identity, Margo-
lis’ account of “radical history,” based on a critical synthesis of an-
alytic, hermeneutic, and poststructural developments in twentieth
century philosophy, offers an alternative to traditional views. Mar-
golis eschews all claims to changeless universals or  invariantly
structured cultural identities for art works, proposing instead to re-
place these with narrative devices or socially shared histories of in-
terpretation.30 The  historical,  in  this  instance,  incorporates  the
actual events as historicized over time, and most importantly, the
experience of the interpreter at a given moment in time. Applying
this notion to the problem of cultural identity for art works means
that identity would be established at any given moment by consult-
ing an informed societal concensus “grounded in the habits of life”
of the community. This tactic might well be suited for identity ques-
tions within a particular local culture, but it remains unclear how
Margolis’ latest proposal would account for the cultural identiy of
art works outside the particular society or on a global basis.
There is one possible answer. That would be to adopt a global
understanding of community, in which the boundaries of all local
communities are dissolved into one world community. This is in
some sense what Hegel has in mind as an ultimate strategy, and
103
Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works
29 Gadamer, 1975, 337. See also Gadamer, 1976. Margolis offers an extensive
critique of Gadamer throughout Interpretation Radical But Not Unruly.
See especially 48–52; 76–81. 
30 Margolis, 1995, 52.
05 - CurtisLCarter  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 103
perhaps Popper and Gadamer in their respective ways as well. I am
not at all certain that this is what Margolis has in mind, but other-
wise his insistence on restricting the exploration of cultural identity
to  the  limits of  local cultures could not adequately address  the
larger issues of cultural identity, that is, how to account for cultural
identity beyond local cultures.
Clearly the struggle between local cultures and global culture
has become one of the major issues of the late twentieth century.
We cannot hope to resolve all of the issues of political and eco-
nomic dominance that this struggle entails. But it is possible that
one small step toward global understanding is to continue explor-
ing ways to make the art works of a particular culture accessible to
the people of other cultures.
In this analysis, I have attempted to identify three aspects of cul-
ture that enter into the cultural identity of works of art. First, art
culture, which supplies the technical and formal elements of art pro-
duction. Secondly, the culture of a people, which links the art work
to the various other components that form a particular community.
The third is the idea of a world culture, which addresses the fact that
the interest in art works is not necessarily limited to the particular
culture in which they emerge. Each of these levels of culture respec-
tively contributes to cultural identity.
The use of the Elgin Marbles as a case study has, perhaps, been
helpful in making clear some of the issues that are involved in ques-
tions concerning cultural identity. With respect to the historic sit-
uation  surrounding  the  Marbles,  I  have  shown  that  the  Elgin
Marbles share an identity with the Parthenon Marbles, an identity
which was reconstituted in England during the early nineteenth
century, and which is reconstituted from time to time as a focus of
the debates over their artistic significance and the question whether
they rightly belong in England or in Greece. Their identity must be
Curtis L. Carter
104
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viewed as consisting of their on-going cumulative history, which
begins with their production in fifth century Athens and embraces
their new life in England. Like all truly great works of art, the Mar-
bles do not belong to a particular people, but are to be shared in a
broader world culture. Great art speaks from the viewpoint of an
encompassed humanity, albeit produced through the seemingly
abridged elements found in our various local cultures.31
Bringing the focus of the discussion closer to our time, aesthetic
values have undergone radical changes as western art has under-
gone substantial changes from modern art to pop art, leading to
the emergence of a highly pluralistic art culture. The changes have
been so radical that it is difficult for many people to comprehend,
let alone appreciate some of the new developments. The radical
changes in pictorial composition introduced by Picasso’s cubism,
the pop art paintings of Warhol in the 1960s, and the post-modern
aesthetics of late twentieth century media arts are but a few markers
of  changes  in  the  arts  and  aesthetic  values.  Who  would  have
thought that any one could think of selecting a commercial com-
modity, such as a soup can, as a subject for art? And yet Warhol cat-
apulted to world wide fame by introducing into his work symbolism
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Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works
31 As for the present dispute between Greece and England, there is no sup-
port in this analysis of the identity of the Marbles for the nationalistic
claims of either country. There is no question that the role of England in
preserving  these  works  has  been  immensely  important  in  their  past
preservation. From this it does not, however, follow automatically that
their claim is forever. The issue must be decided on other grounds: that
is, in the best interest of preservation and the proper display of the works
for the world’s appreciation and understanding. The decision is best left
to the responsible members of the world arts community who are, one
hopes, able to distinguish national interest from more fundamental issues
of art conservation and the interpretation of these important works for
the world community. 
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drawn from the everyday experiences that caught the spirit of mid-
twentieth century America. In this work he followed the imagery of
mass advertising, focusing on everyday objects that were under-
standable to the masses, and also caught the attention of the art
world. At first Warhol’s art might seem the very antithesis of what
has been traditional in art, the images that are removed from every-
day life and focused on more high minded matters. What, we may
ask, would happen to this art in China today? Would it garner un-
derstanding and appreciation? What values does  it carry? How
would it be changed by being placed in the culture of contemporary
China? Given that there is already in place a Chinese pop art move-
ment, with its own culturally specific symbols and aesthetic values,
it might come to be appreciated. If the thesis offered here is viable,
the Soup Can painting would retain its original aesthetic values to
be  shared with  a  different  culture,  but Chinese  interpretations
would expand upon the meaning as the work became acclimated
to a new cultural setting.
In order to bring the topic of the cultural identity of art works
closer to home, it is useful to consider how the dominance of glob-
alization in contemporary world cultures has affected our under-
standing of cultural identity. There is no time here to develop this
issue, but perhaps an example will serve to point in a direction for
further research. As a closing reference, I will briefly consider cul-
tural identity as it applies to contemporary artists practicing in
China and elsewhere today. Chinese contemporary artists in par-
ticular must struggle with the question of how their work relates to
a near 5000 year tradition of aesthetics and art practices, as they
experiment with and modify Chinese art and culture of the past.
The central problem Chinese contemporary artists face is how to
build upon their Chinese cultural heritage and also connect to new
developments of contemporary life in China and throughout the
Curtis L. Carter
106
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world. It is on the mind of every serious contemporary Chinese
artist how to remain connected to their Chinese roots while creating
art that would be appreciated in a changing world, where East and
West are drawn ever closer. Addressing these changes is not a ques-
tion of Chinese art versus western art. Rather, the practice of art in
a global context has become a matter of enabling individual artists
to create by using the ideas and visual forms irrespective of their
particular cultural origin, while establishing relevance to contem-
porary Chinese culture. This means that there is at the artist’s dis-
posal  an  evolving  universal  vocabulary  of  artistic  means,
contributed over time from the practices of artists working in many
cultures throughout the world. Creating art today thus requires con-
sidering exactly such a universal visual language. The solution does
not lie in creating a new “International Style” reminiscent of the
Euro centered International Style, grounded in formalism and pro-
posed as the norm for western architecture of the modernist era.
Rather, the situation invites artists to continue to develop new ideas
for art, incorporating their cultural histories and those of others. 
Conclusions
What can be learned from this analysis about the question of com-
munication of aesthetic values between the respective cultures of
the East and the West? First, this analysis provides a framework for
understanding culture in terms of its multiple dimensions. These
dimensions include the idea of a culture based on the aesthetic val-
ues associated with a particular art practice (for example classical
representational sculpture or modern pop art painting), national cul-
tures such as ancient Greece or contemporary China, and global
world culture in which all persons participate by virtue of their com-
mon humanity. In this multiple framework, art has the possibility of
serving as an important means for communicating and understand-
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ing cultural values. Understanding the art of another culture is thus
one means of establishing communication among the different cul-
tures world wide. Art, apart from its culturally specific means, is also
grounded in common human capacities, such as the ability to rec-
ognize and value creative expressions of ideas and feelings. 
Secondly, the analysis offered here recognizes that the identity
of works of art is not static or fixed. As a work of art enters into an-
other culture, its meaning may change as it is seen in a different
cultural framework, allowing for new interpretations with reference
to the values of a new environment. Hence a sculpture from ancient
Greece, when seen in London or Beijing, or a Warhol Campbell
Soup painting in a cultural setting in Asia, may bring an opportu-
nity for communication of values. Finally, as artists from China in-
creasingly attempt to incorporate elements drawn from the visual
cultures of both East and West, discussions concerning the cultural
identity of works of art will have to expand to take these changes
into account.
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