Skizze einer politischen Ikonologie von Großräumen

According to Carl Schmitt's account in (The Nomos of the Earth) the modern political and legal era begins with a new image of the world). The globe, the spherical model and iconic representation of Planet Earth brought about all kinds of imaginations of its political and geographical division (Teilung). Nomos, space, and political iconology are closely connected in this interpretation. The article discusses examples of a political iconology of »great spaces« (Großräume) before and after the age of discoveries. It starts off with the first »division of space« in the 4th century Roman Empire and its epochal manifestation in the Hagia Sophia. The intertwinement of theology of history and political iconography in the High Middle Ages is highlighted using numerous examples. Drawing on 16th and 17th century political art and going beyond Schmitt's assumptions, the article argues that modern political thought on globality and sovereignty has deeply shaped the iconology of the greater space. This is true for the very different political representations of the colonial powers--but also of the emancipating colonies--in the landscape garden. And it applies today to the political representation of world art itself insofar as continues to claim its 18th century revolutionary political ideals. However, the »third world« is not a global »third estate«. The question of how the Global South should be represented in world museums has emerged with the European demarcation lines of the era of decolonization and leads right into the cultural political conflicts of the present. The article concludes with a reflection on Alexandre Kojèves idea of a »giving colonialism«. The re-stitution, the giving back of colonial objects indicates no less than a new spatial order of the world.