What role should art history have in the debate on decolonization?

Majluf N. · Archivo Espanol de Arte (2025) · DOI: 10.3989/aearte.2025.1525

Resumen

This article, commissioned by the editorial team, answers the following question: What role should art history have in the debate on decolonization? As a specialist in Perú’s colonial and post-independence periods with ample experience in university and museum settings, Natalia Majluf offers a uniquely insightful and critical perspective on a thorny topic that, she argues, requires thoughtful historical nuance. In particular, she maintains that anchoring decolonial discourse on historical knowledge, rather than buttressing it with facile dualistic categories that derive from contemporary debates, allows for the complexity of colonial experiences to emerge. For the author, art historical studies are essential in the proposed move to encounter and examine colonialities on their own ground to understand and project their insidious inheritance in the present.