Art and cartography: when artists redraw the world

01The map as an object of historical fascination

The history of cartography is inseparable from that of art. The earliest known maps, engraved on clay tablets in Mesopotamia over four thousand years ago, already testify to a desire to represent the world that exceeds strict practical utility. Medieval mappae mundi, such as the Hereford map preserved in the cathedral of the same name in England, are works of art in their own right, populated with fantastical creatures, mythical cities and symbolic representations blending geography, theology and imagination.

During the Renaissance, cartography became a scholarly art that mobilised the finest artists and engravers. The atlases of Abraham Ortelius and Gerardus Mercator are masterpieces of illustrated publishing whose original copies are now sought by collectors of rare books and graphic works. The marine charts, portolans and terrestrial globes produced between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries constitute a visual heritage of extraordinary richness that museums, from the British Museum to the Musee de la Marine in Paris, regularly present in exhibitions attracting considerable audiences.

This tradition offers the dealer a cultural foundation on which to build contemporary programming. Showing how today's artists situate themselves within this long history of representing the world makes it possible to create exhibitions that resonate with the public's curiosity for maps and travel, while bringing a critical and poetic dimension that scientific cartography does not permit.

02Contemporary artists and cartographic subversion

The contemporary scene abounds with artists who use the map as a starting point for plastic and conceptual exploration. Alighiero Boetti, the Italian artist affiliated with Arte Povera, created from 1971 his Mappa series, world maps embroidered by Afghan and later Pakistani artisans, where each country is represented by its national flag. These works, which have entered the collections of MoMA, the Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou, interrogate notions of borders, national identity and transcultural artistic collaboration. The Fondazione Alighiero Boetti in Rome continues to promote his work and collaborate with international galleries for exhibitions that reactivate the relevance of this practice in a world of permanent geopolitical recomposition.

Guillermo Kuitca, the Argentine artist whose work is represented by the gallery Hauser and Wirth, paints maps, apartment plans and architectural diagrams on mattresses, canvases and unexpected surfaces. His paintings of city plans, stripped of all toponymic indication, transform cartography into a geometric abstraction charged with a melancholy evoking uprooting and the loss of bearings. The emotional power of his work, combined with formal rigour, makes him a sought-after artist among institutional and private collectors.

Julie Mehretu, the Ethiopian-American artist represented by the gallery Marian Goodman and the gallery White Cube, creates large-format paintings that superimpose layers of cartographic, architectural and gestural signs. Her works, which were the subject of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 2019, transform the map into a palimpsest where the strata of history, geography and memory merge in an explosion of colours and lines. Her canvases reach prices that make her one of the most valued contemporary artists, and galleries presenting her work benefit from considerable institutional and media attention.

03Cartography and geopolitical stakes

Numerous artists use the map to interrogate power relations, contested borders and territories in conflict. Mona Hatoum, the Palestinian-British artist whose work is represented by the gallery Chantal Crousel in Paris and the gallery White Cube in London, has created several major cartographic works, including Present Tense, a floor installation composed of blocks of Nablus soap inlaid with red glass beads tracing the borders of the Oslo Accords. This work, of striking formal sobriety, condenses the tensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into an object at once domestic and political.

Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist whose work is distributed by several international galleries including Lisson Gallery and Galleria Continua, has used cartographic forms in several installations interrogating population displacement, migration crises and border policies. His work engages with geopolitical current affairs in a manner that mobilises an audience extending well beyond the usual circle of contemporary art enthusiasts.

The Lebanese artist Walid Raad, whose work is represented by the gallery Sfeir-Semler in Hamburg and Beirut, uses cartographic documents among other visual archives to reconstitute, deconstruct and reinvent the history of Lebanon and the Middle East. His Atlas Group, a long-term project blending fiction and documentation, shows how the map can become an instrument of historical questioning rather than geographical certainty.

04Cartography as visual poetry

Beyond the political dimension, some artists explore the map as a form of visual poetry. Qiu Zhijie, a Chinese artist and calligrapher, creates imaginary maps of conceptual continents where oceans bear the names of philosophical concepts and mountains those of artistic movements. His works, presented at Documenta in Kassel and the Venice Biennale, invite the viewer on an intellectual journey that diverts the cartographic form from its utilitarian function to make it a support for reflection and reverie.

Grayson Perry, the British artist and Turner Prize laureate, has produced several engraved and woven maps representing emotional and identity territories. His Map of Nowhere, acquired by the British Museum, and his cartographic tapestries exhibited at the Royal Academy, transform the map into a cultural and psychological self-portrait of remarkable richness. The gallery Victoria Miro in London represents his work, which reaches an exceptionally broad audience thanks to his television appearances and publications.

Matthew Cusick, an American artist based in Texas, creates collages composed exclusively of fragments of antique maps. His landscapes, portraits and abstract compositions, assembled from thousands of cut map pieces, transform geographical information into images of formal beauty that attract collectors sensitive to technical virtuosity and artisanal patience. The gallery Pavel Zoubok in New York has presented his work, illustrating how the map can become a pictorial material as rich as oil paint or watercolour.

05Programming a cartographic exhibition in the gallery

The dealer wishing to devote an exhibition to cartographic art has a wealth of curatorial possibilities. The exhibition can adopt a historical approach, tracing a thread between antique maps and contemporary works, or focus on a specific aspect of contemporary cartography, whether the political dimension, visual poetry or the exploration of new technologies of spatial representation.

The question of format is important. Cartographic works can take highly diverse forms: paintings, drawings, prints, floor installations, sculptures, video projections, textile works. This diversity of media makes it possible to construct a visually varied exhibition that avoids the monotony a too narrowly defined theme might engender. The dealer can combine two-dimensional works with spatial installations, creating a journey that invites the visitor to navigate the gallery space as a territory to be explored.

Mediation is an asset for cartographic exhibitions, as the public often possesses geographical knowledge that constitutes an entry point into the works. Explaining the context of creation, the cartographic sources used by the artist and the geopolitical or poetic stakes of the work enriches the visitor's experience without overloading it. Gallery handouts, extended labels and guided tours are particularly effective tools in this context.

06A buoyant and cross-disciplinary market

The market for cartographic works benefits from the interest of an audience extending beyond the usual circle of contemporary art collectors. Antique cartography enthusiasts, rare book collectors, travel and geopolitics devotees all constitute potential audiences that can be attracted by contemporary works in dialogue with the cartographic tradition. This cross-disciplinary appeal is a commercial asset for the dealer, as it allows broadening the collector base beyond the usual network.

Museum institutions show sustained interest in contemporary cartographic works, consolidating the heritage value of the pieces and offering artists prospects of institutional acquisition that strengthen their standing. The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou regularly enrich their collections with works that interrogate the cartographic representation of the world.

The technological dimension of contemporary cartography opens new perspectives for artists and dealers. GPS data, satellite imagery, navigation algorithms and geographic information systems offer artists unprecedented materials that renew the forms of cartographic art. Artists such as Trevor Paglen, whose work explores surveillance and the geography of power through photographs of satellites and secret military bases, or Laura Kurgan, who uses spatial data to create installations interrogating the aerial vision of territory, show how cartographic technology can become a tool of creation and critical reflection. The dealer who integrates these practices into their programming positions themselves at the confluence of art, science and technology, a territory that attracts an informed collector clientele curious about the most recent developments in contemporary creation.

The market for cartographic works also benefits from the decorative dimension inherent in these pieces. A map, whether subverted, reinvented or poeticised, retains a legibility and visual attractiveness that facilitate its integration into an interior. This formal accessibility, far from diminishing the artistic value of the work, constitutes a commercial asset for the dealer, as it lowers the entry barrier for collectors not yet familiar with contemporary art but sensitive to the beauty of maps and the fascination they exert.

For Artedusa partner galleries, presenting cartographic works on the platform offers visibility to an international audience naturally attracted to works dealing with travel, territory and the representation of the world. The universal dimension of the cartographic theme transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries, making it a programming axis particularly suited to digital distribution with an international vocation.