Forthcoming May 2025 from the University of British Columbia Press

Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America is a call to attend to the power relationships that underpin art and its circulation. The book centres visual art as a mediating force, exploring how art is intertwined with the negotiation of free trade in North America in the late twentieth century.

The book plays particular attention to the use of art to forge ties between Canada and Mexico, as well as how art was mobilized to construct and circulate ideas about North American identity. Beyond demonstrating how exhibitions communicated government-supported narratives about North American economic integration, Trading on Art also reveals how art served as a venue for dissent about free trade.

Comprised of six chapters, an introduction and an epilogue, the book addresses developments from the 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. Case studies include state-sponsored exhibitions that emerged in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and functioned as overt envoys of cultural diplomacy. Through analysis of art, exhibitions, and museum initiatives, the book demonstrates art as a vital media in which free trade and ideas about North America were negotiated.