In attempting to view a piece of art by way of a postcolonial lens we must assume that the statement made by the work is relevant to all cultures, by considering the ideas of race and ethnicity of primary importance, and the work must be looked at from the point of view of its specific culture 2. With postcolonialism the hermeneutic problem exists in terms of a culture’s geography. This is in contrast to the hermeneutic problem in terms of Hegel as his question related to the separation of forms of art by their specific cultures time period. Postcolonial theory, however, relates this question to geography instead of time 1. Postcolonialism insists on globalization and challenges the hermeneutic problem of how we understand something if we do not share its conditions. I feel this is important to consider when looking at the globalization of the art world. I will also address how the things people create reflect the ways in which they make sense of the world around them. The artwork I will be using for this purpose is Alhalkere Suite (1993) by Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996). I want to give a summary and brief definition of postcolonialism and apply it to a work of art, while pointing out what I perceive as the positive and negative aspects of this theory.
Through my study of postcolonialism I have found it to have strengths and weaknesses when applied to works of art.