The author focuses on the project exhibition, “The Potosí Principle,” curated by Alice Creischer, Max Hinderer, and Andreas Siekmann Initially installed in Madrid in 2010 and then traveling to Berlin and La Paz, the show cut across the institutionally defined and often rigorously guarded boundaries between curatorial practice, aesthetic expression, and scholarly research to explore global capitalism's dynamics from the perspective of the Spanish colonial empire and its distinctive imagery. However, despite the exhibition's creative installation techniques and revisionist history, it generated a considerable scandal when a self-organized group of La Paz-based artists and scholars committed to anticolonial practices accused the curators of continuing the logic through which the modern West has represented others. The author argues that this criticism parallels the often-fraught negotiations between artists, curators, and curated cultures at the boundary zones between art frameworks.

What does it mean to think and act radically, and how does this relate to forms of radicalism connected to earlier moments, for example, in the 20th century? What can be the role of radical art and scholarship under the conditions of late capitalism? More generally, how can art and artists serve the ongoing struggle for social justice and the agendas of emancipatory social change? Finally, what kinds of art criticism and art historical scholarship are necessary to address the great challenges of our uncertain future?