ABSTRACT
The programme of horizontal art history formulated by Piotr Piotrowski questioned the research paradigm built around the Western Centre and proposed a spatial turn in art history aiming to analyse the specificity of the speaking subject and their position in a horizontal, polyphonic, global and comparative perspective. Piotrowski perceived such an analysis as a political activity. He understood the work of a scholar as a specific strategy of resistance to power and oppression. Agonistic democracy and human rights, especially freedom of expression, were to provide a broader political matrix for his concept. However, it is difficult to reconcile these Western par excellence assumptions with the postulate of resistance against the hegemony of the Centre. That is why in this point Piotrowski’s concept needs a revision. In my opinion, such a revision would require supplementing the proposals for horizontal research on art with the horizontalisation of the political matrix. To this end, I indicate the possibilities of reformulating the universal approach to human rights in reference to the idea of cross-cultural dialogue and diatopical hermeneutics of Raimon Panikkar, developed by Boaventura De Sousa Santos. Their suggestions are used for a horizontal, cross-cultural analysis of the Western concept of freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression.
