ABSTRACT
Cosmopolitanism is the product of an idea of the world and an ideal form of global citizenship. This chapter argues that the need to give form–to make a world–out of the extremities is a persistent feature of critical imagination and that its contemporary manifestations are more clearly grasped through the concept of aesthetic cosmopolitanism. It discusses five artistic themes and tendencies that are expressive of an aesthetic cosmopolitanism – a cultural phenomenon that is borne from a productive tension between globally oriented networks and locally grounded practices. The chapter outlines the emergence of aesthetic cosmopolitanism by tracing the rise of interest in the issues of denationalization, reflexive hospitality, cultural translation, discursivity and the global public sphere in contemporary art. The attention to contemporary artistic practices is more concerned with the proposition that the process of world making is a radical act of the cosmopolitan imaginary.
