Published in the September 1974 issue of Artforum, my article “The Provincialism Problem” argued that a world art system, centered on the New York artworld, condemned artists elsewhere to misleadingly perceive their situation as necessarily subservient, and their art as lesser, secondary, and dependent. In fact, this system condemned all involved, including New York based artists, to a vicious cycle of mutual inequity. The article called for artists, critics, and curators to radically reimagine these relationships. Often cited in the decades since then, in recent years it is frequently used as a foil to demonstrate how, within the international artworld, the situation has improved significantly. In this essay, I review the acute awareness of these issues in the Australian artworld during the 1960s and 1970s, and the situation in New York in the early and mid-1970s that lead me to write the article in concert with other members of the Art & Language group. I note some of the critical responses to the article since its publication, explore key aspects of center-periphery theory, and conclude by arguing that the provincialism problem has not been solved—it has, rather, been globalized then neoliberalized, and thus remains problematic.

中文翻译：

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地方主义问题：过去和现在

我发表在1974年9月一期的《艺术论坛》上的文章《省主义问题》指出，以纽约艺术世界为中心的世界艺术体系谴责其他地方的艺术家误导性地认为他们的处境是屈从的，而他们的艺术是次要的，次要的，和依赖。实际上，该系统将包括纽约艺术家在内的所有参与者谴责为相互不平等的恶性循环。文章呼吁艺术家，评论家和策展人从根本上重新构想这些关系。此后数十年来经常被引用，近年来，它经常被用作展示国际艺术界情况如何显着改善的陪衬。在本文中，我回顾了1960年代和1970年代澳大利亚艺术界对这些问题的敏锐认识，以及1970年代初和中期纽约的情况，使我与Art＆Language组的其他成员共同撰写了这篇文章。我注意到该文章发表以来对该文章的一些批评性回应，探讨了中心外围理论的关键方面，并通过论证了地方主义问题尚未解决而得到了结论，而是先全球化后再新自由化，因此仍然存在问题。