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The Smithsonian Institution

How Museums Define Other Cultures Author(s): Ivan Karp Source: American Art, Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Winter - Spring, 1991), pp. 10-15 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109026 . Accessed: 15/04/2014 17:55
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Another Perspective

How MuseumsDefine OtherCultures

Ivan Karp

Towardthe end of President tenure,the MiamiNewspublisheda remarkable Reagan's cartoonby Don Wright,which showedsilhouettesof Ronaldand Nancy Reaganin grass shrine(fig. 1). Ronaldholds a goat to be a sacrificial skirtsdancingaroundwhat appears the astrologer in Ronald each hand. a chicken overhis head,Nancy sayto says,"What's the goat, singe the chickensand pound the lizardto Answer:"Sacrifice do next, Nancy?" powder!" of the popularimagery The cartoon's echo, quite deliberately, imagesof the Reagans with Years Five travel book Victorian the witch doctor.HerbertWard's1890 Congo similarillustration, containsa strikingly Cannibals thoughdrawnwithout the same clothedin sketchy a so-calledwitch doctor,similarly satirical intent (fig. 2). It portrays a fetish his head over fire and a around costume,dancing figure. holding was copyingWard,but both drawupon a stockof I do not suggestthe cartoonist aboutthe "other"-the generalized deeplyheld and patentlyenduringculturalimagery and imperialencounter.Both the colonial of the side on the of losing conception people for witch the Ward and of the doctor, example,aredepictedin classic Reagans figures the other: of representing the that helpsexemplify paradox balletpositions,a similarity in termsthat arefamiliar. Differencecan only be communicated otherculturesor theirworksof art. areusedwhen representing Two strategies and the the culturalgroupbeing displayed between the differences showcases Exoticizing Whether similarities. the while culturalgroupdoing the viewing, highlights assimilating is eithermadestrangeby exoticizingor a text or an exhibition,otherness we aredescribing madefamiliar by assimilating.1 as an absenceof qualitiesthe of the otherareportrayed In exoticizing,the differences three In the cartoonand engraving, dominant,often colonizing,culturalgroupspossess. of civilizedman aremissingin the witch doctorcharacter: features rationality, symbolic and an orderlybourgeoissenseof prdpriety. (asopposedto true)animalsacrifice, Imagine weredressedin what little effectthe MiamiNewscartoonwould havehad if the Reagans vestmentsand placedprimlybehinda lecturnwith a holy book, "sacrificing" only bread and wine. as controlled so-calledsavages Both the editorialcartoonand the engraving represent fromreal is not isolated here to calculate unable emotions and rationally. Myth making by and Radio are other beliefs about our life;it is partof the processwhereby people shaped. televisionnews,for example,reportthat blackSouthAfricans belongto tribeswhen they arein conflictwith eachotherand to politicalpartieswhen they disputewith the white referto the leadersof Columbia'sMedellincartelof cocaine journalists regime.Likewise, dealersas partof a clan of closelyknit personswho act in concert.If the otheris different with socialgroupsthat claimhis is his identification from us, one featureof that difference calculation. loyaltiesin waysthat impederational

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Don Wright, What'stheAstrologer Say to Do Next, Nancy? Cartoon publishedin the Miami News, 1988

S. Northcote, Antics of the Charm Dancer. Engraving publishedin HerbertWard,Five Years with Congo Cannibals (London:Chattoand Windsor, 1890)

otherness can also be positivelyvalued.RecentwritingsaboutAmerican Conversely, Indiansor definitionsof Afrocentricity often romanticize minorityand ThirdWorld culturesas possessing a less aggressive attitudetowardnatureand a moregroup-oriented attitudetowardsociallife. Yet theseassertions still embodya depressingly familiar set of beliefs:The otherlacksthe rationality of modernman, or the other'sthoughtprocessis circular ratherthan linear.These imagesof the otherareturnednot so much on their headas on theirside.Assigningpositivevaluesto the othermay be novel, but the racial and ethnic stereotypes used to arrive at theseconclusionsareshockinglyfamiliar. The imageof the otheris derivednot only from assertions aboutculturaldifferences. The use of a balletpose to portray the Reagans and the Africanwitch doctorwas probably not consciouslyintended;neitherwas it accidental. Negativeimagesneed positiveassociations to makethem work.If familiar deviceswerenot used, the consumers of the image would havenothingonto which to graftcultural,racial,or ethnicdifferences. The politics of producingthe imageof the otherrequires a poeticsof difference andsimilarity. The familiar becomesthe bridgethroughwhich we understand the exotic. While all museumexhibitsdrawon the resources of publiccultureand popularimagery to producetheireffects,none drawon them more than exhibitionsof the artand life of the other.And exhibitsof exotic artand culturesareas much an arenaof discourse aboutthe otheras editorialcartoonsor travelbooks. However,becausethey drawon the authorityof museumsand the public'sgoodwilltowardmuseums,exhibitionshavea greater legitimacythan formsof popularculturedefinedas lesshighbrow.But all formsof aboutthe otheruse the organizing of difference and similarity communicating principles to producetheirimagery.2 Which of theseopposingprinciples dominatesan exhibition's accountor imageof a culturalotheroften determines how the otheris perceived. Alrecent describes the other as though scholarship being represented primarily through can be-and often is-used to assertthat the peopleof othercultures difference, similarity areno differentin principlethan the producers and consumers of theirimages.Striking differences canthenbe interpreted asmeresurface manifestations of underlying similarities.3 Exoticizingoften worksby invertingthe familiar-showing how a well-knownpractice takesan invertedformamongotherpeoples.The common beliefthatAfricans practice
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animismis an example.The anthropomorphictendencyof most Western religiousbeliefis inverted,thus creating the notion that thereis a classof people who worshipbeingscreatednot in their own image,but in the imageof nature. That such beliefshaveneverbeen documentedin a non-Western religionhas not stoppedlegionsof writersfromdescribing as animists. Africans areless easyto strategies Assimilating sense read.They appealto the audience's and natural. of the familiar They don't with such stop exhibitgoersin theirtracks that?" is world in the "What as thoughts a moresubtle is inherently Assimilating thanexoticizing.In the exhibitingstrategy so-calledprimitiveor tribalexhibitsin
fine art museums, art objects are usually isolated from any sort of context. Encased in a vitrine, they are provided with a label that reveals more about the collectors who donated them than about their maker, their iconography, or their history.4The governing assumptions behind these displays are that primitive objects mysteriously embody the same aesthetics as modern art forms and that curators and museum audiences are able to appreciate such objects because they are the heirs to a familiar aesthetic tradition whose history encompasses the primitives who make primitive art. What they truly inherit is a capitalist world system that has acquired things from other peoples and transformed them into objects of modern art. The controversial 1984 MOMA exhibition "'Primitivism' in 20th Century Art" provides us with a classic example of the assimilating strategy. Objects were brought together either because they were known to provide models for modern artists or because they were known to exhibit perceived affinities. For William Rubin, the curator of the exhibition, affinities exist because artists working independently on similar formal problems arrive at similar solutions. This is a pure structuralistinterpretation. Considerations of content, such as iconography, or questions about intention and purpose, such as the religious role of an object, or even the examination of the contexts of production and use are omitted as possible factors that influence the final form of the object. History is omitted from consideration. Objects are defined as the products of individuals who accidentally derive their work from a limited stock of available forms. The result is assimilating because cultural and historical differences are obliterated from the exhibiting

Richard Long, Untitled, 1989. RiverAvon mud on blackpaper,14 x 22 in. Collectionof the artist

Earth and ochre sand painting by six artists of the aboriginal community of Yuendumu, Australia

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1991 Winter/Spring

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record.Rubin'sexhibitturnsthe African,AmericanIndian,and Pacificmakersof the in his exhibitioninto modernartists who lackonly the individualidentity objectsdisplayed and historyof modernart.5Given the curator's insistencethat contextis absolutely irrelevant to the exhibitionof affinitiesbetweenthe primitiveand the modern,the only placein historyallowedfor the artistsof otherculturesand theirworksis as a footnoteto the development of artin the West. Even Rubin'sdecisionto retainthe wordprimitivism stirscontroversy. The sensethat so-calledprimitives arewhatwe once were,our "contemporary ancestors" whose only definesprimitivhistoryis our past,can hardlybe avoided.The authorAnthonyBurgess ism as the "senseof a stumblingamateur strivingtowardsa hard-wonperfectionand not it." No matter how Rubin choosesto definehis terms,his methodsof quite achieving classification revealthe senseconveyedby Burgess's definition.6 Yet Rubin'sintentionis not to excludeprimitiveartistsfrom the historyof art.He on a parwith modernistaesthetics. In the end, simplydesiresto placeprimitiveaesthetics he assimilates the aesthetics of other cultural traditions into a however, merely particular momentwithin his own tradition. Other aesthetictraditions takeshapein culturalsettingsoutsideof such artmuseumsas MOMA. Thereare,for example,aesthetics that use politicalor religiouscriteria in judgmentsaboutwhat is good and bad. In some aesthetictraditions, the experience of viewing an objectmay be more thanjust a sensoryreactionto the visual,just as aestheticidioms may be appliedto objectsand actionsnormallyexcludedfrom the realmof museums. If Rubinhad chosento examinehow "tribal" artistsand Picassousedsimilarformsin combinationwith otherforms,or if he had inquiredabouthow theseobjectswerejudged by theirusersand makersin the contextof theircreation,he would haveproduceda more texturedand culturally diverseexhibition,while still remaining faithfulto his project.7 The PompidouCenter'sanswerto MOMA's"Primitivism" exhibition,the 1989 de la Terre" consistedof two entirehallsof artworks derivedfromvastly "Magiciens differentculturaltraditions, for the whole exhibitionasserted a yet the masternarrative fundamental in and intent the of such similarity underlying spirit among producers worksof art.8In this sense,the curators of "Magiciens de la Terre" did no better disparate than the curatorof "Primitivism." a work Richard with a sand By juxtaposing by Long artists(figs.3, 4), the curators conflatedLong'sattempt drawingby Australian aboriginal to returnto the elementalwith the Australian re-creation of an alternative universe-the "dream time"in which the cultural worldwaswrestedfrom nature.Given the audience's lackof familiarity with Australian cosmologyand art,the act of conflationbecomesan act of assimilation: the Australian artistsbecomeechoesof Long.As Yogi Berraonce said, "It'sdejavu all overagain." Thereis, in effect,no substantial difference betweenthe exhibition's of work with the Australian sand "Magiciens" juxtaposition Long's aborigines' and the "Primitivism" show's of Kenneth Noland's Circle drawing juxtaposition painting with a New Guineashieldexhibitingconcentricmotifs (fig. 5).9 the curators could be seen as moreegalitarian than the Nevertheless, of"Magiciens" curator of "Primitivism." that Third World artists and artists They deny contemporary differin self-consciousness. in their are conscious about the sourcesand All, view, equally it would be fairerto saythat all areequallynaive meaningsof the artthey create; perhaps aboutthe magicaland elementalsourcesof theirart.The cost of this egalitarian of strategy from assimilation, however,is the eliminationof culturalcontext,motives,and resources the record. All exhibitions,in fact all representations of the other,simultaneously exoticizeand but some museumsoften emphasize both exhibitingdeviceswithin the same assimilate,

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view of the exhibition 5 Installation in 20th Century "'Primitivism' Art:Affinityof the Tribalwith the Modern,"19 September198415 January1985, The Museumof ModernArt, New York

setting.The historyof the Smithsonian this in a grand Institutionillustrates manner.The NationalMuseumof AmericanHistorywas originally develof which the National out Museum, oped Uninwas a museumof natural history. nevertheless but I; en a ecwtsa. etentionally palpably,the apea maintains a nineteenthSmithsonian centuryevolutionistdistinctionbetween l partlx x\ modernculturesand those culturesthat arebest knownand exhibitedas partof American nature.The latter,primarily Indiansand peoplesof the ThirdWorld, and arethen subjectto the interpretations In of natural historyscholars. procedures are Americans contrast,white middle-class definedas possessing scienceand technology and as havingculturaland social historyexemptingthem froma similar examination in termsof natural history.'? No genreof museumhas been ableto escapethe problemsof exoticizingand inherentin exhibitingother assimilating cultures.That includesmuseumsthat restrict themselves to examiningdiversity within theirown societies.The same museumsthat makethe productsof in the historyof modernartalso treatthe artand artistsof othersinto a minordigression the sameway.What happensto an artistwho movesoutsideof the theirown traditions traditions Paris-NewYorkorbit?How do so-called"regional" get createdin the stories aredetermined Culturalcentersand peripheries tell in exhibitions? curators by museums, exhibitionsthat questiontheir not by nature.The only hope is to developmore reflective in anthropology and in the new research This would haveits parallel own assumptions. or the of be the of the Other" in what is to called "History history, "Anthropology coming livesthan an of people'severyday which is less aboutthe examination the Imaginary," and unknownworldscome to of how imagesand ideasaboutimaginary examination how the imageof the realand even effectwhat is real.This new field demonstrates appear otheris formedpartlyfromimagesof class,ethnicity,and genderin Westerncultures, and partlyfrom images partlyfromnegationand inversionof Westernself-images, frontiers." of cultural andimperial and other transmitted colonials, occupants explorers, by or new exhibiting The solutionwill not be to inventnew tropesof representation devicesfor museumdisplays.Everyventureinto the unknownis basedon an analogywith and assimilating areall we haveto reachout to the unknown.At the known.Exoticizing new formsof art; otherexperiences and to appreciate best, they enableus to approximate at worst,they preventus fromtrulylearningaboutotherculturesand theirworksof art. The erroris not in usingthesestrategies, but in failingto reflecton our own workwhen with the otherand in treatingourworksas if theywerenaturally makinganalogies of otherassociations. occurring-as if they did not also carrythe unacknowledged baggage

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Notes
ThePoetics Cultures: This column is developedfrom material publishedby the authorin Exhibiting originally and PoliticsofMuseum ed. Ivan and Steven D. Levine D.C.: Smithsonian Displays, Karp (Washington, CorinneKratz,RobertLeopold,StevenLavine, InstitutionPress,1991). I want to thankJoanneBerelowitz, MaryJo Arnoldi,and Sue Wargafor theircomments. 1 ed. JamesCliffordand GeorgeMarcus(Berkeley: See, for example,the essaysin Writing Culture, of California For an excellent accountof how European travelwritingaboutthe Press, 1986). University otherusesimagery that definesculturesas primitiveby reducingthem to nature,see MaryLouisePratt's on the faceof the Land;Or what Mr. Barrow sawamongthe Bushmen." essay"Scratches in Edward I differfrom the accountof how the otheris constructed Said'spath-breaking book Orientalism the negation of the imputedqualitiesof the West, (New York:Pantheon,1978). Saidstresses in the construction while I emphasize the mutualdependence of the tropesof similarity of and difference to referto what otherauthorstermidentity,though both identity any imageof the other.I use similarity in the strategy areasserted of assimilation, in note 5. and similarity discussed See SallyPrice,Primitive Art in Civilized Places (Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1989), or Marianna Torgovnick,GonePrimitive (Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1990). For an insightfulaccountof how the identityof the collectortendsto dominatethe presentation of primitiveartsin fine artmuseums,see Price. of primitiveartistsshowswhy I preferto use the termsimilarity My accountof Rubin'sinterpretation rather than identity. Evenassimilating concludethat similarity, not identity,is modifiedby strategies criticaldifferences. Rubin'sprimitiveartists,however,are"identical" to modernartistsexceptfor those features of modernartthey do not have.Thus, his initialassertion of identityconcludeswith a decaration of difference. AtlanticMonthly 261 (January 1988): 89. AnthonyBurgess,"NativeGround," See Rubin'sintroductory in "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art:Affinityof Primitivism," essay"Modernist the Tribalwith theModern, ed. WilliamRubin (New York:Museumof ModernArt, 1984), pp. 1-84, especially pp. 50-55. See the sumptuouscatalogue for this exhibition,Magiciens de la Terre Editionsdu Centre (Paris: 1989). Pompidou, For a description of the Circle and New Guineashieldjuxtaposition, see Karen Wilkin, "Making Sportof ModernArt,"New Criterion 8 (November1990): 75.

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10 The NationalMuseumof American Historynow includesexhibitson ethnic and racialgroups,but it still exhibitsthem in termsof the masternarrative of American history.For example,exhibitionson such definethesepeoplein termsof their topics as blackmigrationand the internmentof the Japanese to the dominant in American Moreover, relationship society. by locatingtheirculturaloriginsin groups the NationalMuseumof NaturalHistory,the Smithsonian presentsthe messagethat thesegroupshave statusthroughmigrationto the United States. escapedfrom inferiorcultural The establishment of the Museumof the AmericanIndiandoes not solvethe problemposedby the of representations of culturesat the Smithsonian Institution.The masternarrative of the hierarchy museumsstill asserts the dominionof natureoversomecultures.The emphasison fine artin the National Museumof African Art and on the collectionin whatwill be the NationalMuseumof the American Indianonly servesto underscore how the aesthetics and historyof the dominantculturedefinethe missionsof thesemuseums. 11 See the meticulousresearch in PeterMason, DeconstructingAmerica: (London: Representations of the Other and Paul, 1990). Routledge Kegan

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