While there has been an increasing amount of research into globalization since the 1990s, empirical sociological studies in this area remain all too scarce. By analysing specific cases in contemporary visual art, this article shows that the widespread art world discourse on globalization, mixing and the abolition of borders is to a large extent based on illusion. By objectifying the positions occupied by different countries in the field of art, the article brings to light a marked hierarchy that reveals that, beyond the development of international exchanges, the art world still has a clearly defined centre comprising a small number of western countries, among which the US and Germany are pre-eminent, and a vast periphery, comprising all the other states. The specific example empirically analysed here leads to a reconsideration of earlier studies of cultural globalization, most of which are essentially abstract.