The reading about anthropologists’ influence on Northwest Coastal art was very interesting. Although the infiltration of western ideas is practically inevitable in this every-shrinking world, the anthropologists described in this reading failed to perform the duties of the scientist, maintaining objectivity. The fact that this art was once considered traditional Indian art and then westerners deemed it “high art” shows this problem of categorization. Depending on who is looking at an object, that object may be labeled number of things. So, depending on whose eyes are doing the observing, the answer may differ.
The hierarchy of the senses described in the “Sensible Objects” reading is also something that I find very interesting. Not only do we have to create hierarchies of everything outside of ourselves, but we have decided that certain senses are more important than others. This is similar to the way we have created a hierarchy among our organs, the brain and the heart being the most important. These linear, top-down ways of processing knowledge do not leave room for other things. The hierarchical organization of the human body, for example, has created a very confused and inaccurate view of the human, which is really a whole complex system of different modules that all function together; some of these systems are not even considered “human” because they are microbes. Also, the fact that different cultures use their senses in different ways shows that a scientists cannot possibly accurately analyze someone else’s way of life when, on a base level, they perceive and process knowledge differently.
[sorry, can't post a new response for some reason..]
ReplyDeleteIn Ames' How Anthropologists Help Fabricate the Cultures they Study, the author describes how the transition the Northwest Coast Indian arts + crafts took from 'primitive craft' to 'high art.' The pieces had become a multi-million dollar industry, art collectors yearning contemporary pieces. Among the many reasons why Ames claims the arts + crafts have become so popular is that museum anthropologists have aided 'its genesis and governing its direction.' By calling the arts + crafts "fine" or "high art," they are classifying the pieces in a group that exhibits in the highest institutions of fine art. This calls into question the role of 'function' in the art, and how that function transforms over time. When these pieces were first being generated, they were created out of cultural tradition. However, over time, the pieces were stripped of their context, and instead assigned the function of being high craftsmanship of the artisan. This is not the first time that fine art attention was paid to pieces that were originally created without this intent. Most of the cultural artifacts on were initially created as tools, toys, or ritual adornments, but now sit on pedestals among fine art works like Madame X. When we assign great artistic value to these arts + crafts, are we dumbing down their scientific and cultural richness?
-C.Miller
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to read the article on How Anthropologists Fabricate Cultures, in Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes by Michael Ames, especially in light of the recent Vancouver Olympic Opening Ceremonies which celebrated the contribution and the spirit of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest for the world to see. In a global attempt to focus on inclusion and celebrate the history of the region, the contributions of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest were highlighted, forming the four distinct and separate, but equal flames to light the torch. It is remarkable to look at whether the contributions, milestones and significance of those unique cultures that formed the basis for present British Columbia have been embellished by the anthropologists that document and curate the history of the culture of the area. While the world watched on a stage that only comes to life once every four years, the celebrations of the native culture seemed forced, a ‘made for TV moment’ rather than a true celebration.
ReplyDeleteIs it perhaps because the native’s don’t have a well defined and understood culture to celebrate – since it, like the native art, has been reestablished through the work of the social anthropologists and exists largely in museum exhibits rather than in living cultural history passed down from one generation to the next. Were the Chinese, who so successfully hosted the summer Olympics in 2008, appalled at the ‘Disneyland moment’ when tens if not hundreds of dancers kept gyrating for what seemed like an hour under the moving arms of a large totem pole trying to find their roots? Too many special effects, a reemergence and adaptation of original culture – once deemed primitive like the Eskimo art, now reasserted as ‘fine’.
The pejorative term of ‘primitive’ although still used to describe some of the oldest, most beautiful and for their time, most technologically advanced cultural artifacts in the world (think the Pyramid of Djoser c. 2630 BCE, or the Terracotta Soldiers of China c. 220 BCE) has ceased to be applied to the art produced by the Northwest Coast Indian. They now prefer the term ‘fine art’, however not every buys into this new designation. In my opinion, it diminishes a culture to reshape it by current opinion. To transition, as Ames notes to a situation where the anthropologists have become the clients and the Indians the patrons is to capitalize on market demand. This situation fails to allow the art to stand on its own and as Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker noted in her review of Bill Holm’s two 1983 exhibitions of Northwest Coast Indian art in Seattle, “makes it difficult to judge a work according to general standards of aesthetics.” (72) If a work cannot stand alone after being removed from its culture to me it does not meet the criteria to be called ‘fine art’. The ability to exist and be recognized outside one’s own people and culture is what makes art enduring, and defines greatness.