ABSTRACT
In a number of ways 1995 was an extraordinary year. It was made even more memorable for the author by a certain controversy, the debate concerning universals and particulars that surrounded the Venice Biennale. The Venice Biennale, the biggest international event in the art world, was marking its centennial that year. The overall theme of the biennale was “Identity and Otherness”, and the director was Jean Clair, the head of the Picasso Museum in Paris. Postwar democracy did not by any means demand that people use “universal” forms of expression. There was a belief that expression ought not to be determined by the accidents of birth or upbringing and that to demand universality or particularity of forms of expression was meaningless to begin with. When modernity was clearly in a dominant position over anti-modernity, pointing out and giving expression to those things that had been excluded from modernity was critical in character and stimulating.
