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Tensions: Contemporary Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Anne-Marie Delaunay-Danizio
A Capstone in the Field of Museum StudiesFor the degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
Harvard University Extension School
March 2015
1
Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................1
Encyclopedic Museums and Contemporary Art.................4
Section I................................................12
What is Contemporary Art?................................12
Section II...............................................24
EL Anatsui Black River: A Golden Bridge over Murky Waters. . .24
Section III..............................................45
The Walrus in the Depths.................................45
Conclusion...............................................51
Works Cited..............................................55
ii
List of Figures
Figure 1.................................................19
Figure 2.................................................24
Figure 3.................................................26
Figure 4.................................................29
Figure 5.................................................30
Figure 6.................................................35
Figure 7.................................................46
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Introduction
The perceived role of the encyclopedic art museum is to be a
safe haven from the harshness of the outside world, a place to
contemplate and learn about timeless masterpieces. However,
contemporary art of the last three decades presents art forms
that radically challenge the concept of what “art” is, according
to encyclopedic museums, and some acclaimed contemporary artworks
are aimed at provoking and creating unease in the viewers, so
that integrating contemporary art in such a traditional museum is
a source of tension.
The opening in September 2011 of the Linde Wing for
Contemporary Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)
shows how an encyclopedic art museum adjusted to the present
times. Assuming that museum visitors are often confused
about contemporary art, director Malcolm Rogers explained
that contemporary art is a continuation of the past (MFA, The
Year 2011). In the case of the MFA, Rogers and his curatorial
1
team were successful in creating a viewer-friendly yet
challenging exhibition of contemporary art.
Although the contemporary art galleries at the MFA are
well organized and successful, the deeper issues and tensions
between the encyclopedic museum and the global contemporary
art world are far from being resolved. These issues and the
resulting tensions will be explored in this capstone paper.
The first section, What is contemporary art? will discuss the
definition of contemporary art by European, North American
and African scholars, notably the German art historian and
curator Hans Belting, British art critic Julian Stallabrass,
museum curators Karen Kramer from the Peabody Essex Museum in
Salem, Massachusetts, Christine Lalonde, museum curator of
the Indigenous Art Galleries at the National Gallery of
Canada, Ottawa, and African art critics and curators Okwui
Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu. The paper will then analyze
how the MFA offers its own definition of what defines today’s
art as contemporary through its curatorial practices and
strategies.
2
The second section titled, A golden bridge over dark waters,
will review a wall sculpture by African artist El Anatsui.
Changing, shimmering, flexible, this complex tapestry of
plastic caps from liquor bottles and aluminum foil bottle
wrappers, owns a chameleon quality. This attractive piece
delivers a poignant message about history and post-colonial
issues that will be further analyzed in this section. Thanks
to its formal beauty and because of its questioning of
history, Anatsui’s Black River is an engaging work that creates
a link between the past and the present, between the art and
its viewers. The MFA selected the piece to advertise its
contemporary art galleries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, displays another work by Anatsui in its African Art
galleries titled “Earth and Heaven” (MET, YouTube.com), and
acquired a piece called Dusasa II for its Modern and
Contemporary Art Department that is presently not on view
(MET).
As a western-educated veteran artist who came of age
during the dawn of decolonization, the artist chose to assert
his African roots through his art, creating magnificent
3
hybrid works. Anatsui’s works are recognized in encyclopedic
museums and in cutting-edge galleries. They belong to global
contemporary art galleries, to African art galleries, and to
galleries focused on the arts of the African diaspora all
over the world, in private and public institutions (October
Gallery; Royal Ontario Museum). This work was selected
because at a time of difficult and often controversial art,
it owns a peaceful, contemplative and unifying quality, while
being a work of the time and delivering a poignant message.
The third section titled, The walrus in the depths, discusses a
serpentine stone sculpture of a walrus carved by Inuit artist
Nuna Parr, which is not in the contemporary art galleries,
although it was created by an internationally known living
artist. The Walrus, located in the Native North American Art
gallery situated at the lower level of The Art of the
Americas Wing, will be the focal point to discuss the status
of traditional indigenous art in encyclopedic museums and
within the global art scene (MFA, Walrus by Nuna Parr).
4
Encyclopedic Museums and Contemporary Art
5
The encyclopedic museum presents itself as a place to learn
about art from the past, from a Eurocentric aesthetic and
chronological perspective. The European-based “Global
Contemporary” trend put the emphasis on former voiceless artists
from all over the world, who often confront the public with
socio-political and personal issues. It challenges the
Eurocentrism of the encyclopedic museum. Hans Belting, co-
curator of the exhibition, The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989,
which occurred at ZKM (Center for Arts and Media, Karlsruhe,
Germany) in 2012, and editor of a series of essays related to the
exhibit, claims, “There exist today competing histories
(religious ethnic or postcolonial) that deconstruct an exclusive
significance of “art.” Nevertheless museums still qualify as
outposts of what is considered to be art” (254).
Yet encyclopedic museums are becoming more inclusive,
displaying the art of twentieth century international artists
including artists from minorities and indigenous artists. The
opening of the Art of the Americas Wing in 2010 and of the
Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art in 2011 at the MFA,
6
illustrates how the museum is adjusting to its times while
still adhering to a Eurocentric grid.
North American museums are becoming more inclusive and
European based curators and collectors champion non-western
and minority artists. However, indigenous artists and
artisans using traditional media are excluded from the global
contemporary art scene. The reason given for this exclusion
is that traditional arts and crafts are tainted by their
colonial past. As Belting states, “Today ethnic arts and
crafts, which had been the favorite child of colonial
teachers and collectors, no longer continue as a living
tradition even as they survive as a commodity for global
tourism” (250).
While Belting states that contemporary art is post-
ethnic since ethnic art is part of the colonial past, North
American researchers have been working with native and Euro-
American experts to give native cultures and histories back
their dues. In their 2008 work American Encounters, Art History, and
Cultural Identities, Angela Miller, Professor of Art History at
Washington University, St. Louis, and her co-writers are
7
showing a shift in perspective concerning Native American,
African-American and Latin-American history, and the complex
multicultural exchanges that shaped and are shaping America’s
history and cultural identity (Miller).
In the United States and Canada, exhibits focused on
native artists from the two American continents and on
international indigenous artists working in a range of media
are proof that native art is alive and thriving in the global
age. The 2012 Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art
exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem,
Massachusetts was a large thematic and non-chronological
exhibition of Native American art from 200 BC to the present
(Kramer). The 2013 Sakahàn at the National Gallery of Canada
in Ottawa brought together eighty contemporary indigenous
artists from sixteen countries (Hill). The Peabody Museum of
Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard aims at presenting native
art in its larger context.
While this paper topic is too limited to delve into the
complexities of international indigenous art, it is important
to mention the subject as the background of this research in
8
order to situate the three main trends in contemporary art.
As the example of the MFA shows, traditional encyclopedic
museums are trying to adjust to the times. In Europe, the
“Global Contemporary” trend focuses on post-colonial issues
and on the plea of the individual artist, but excludes and
dismisses traditional forms of indigenous art. In North
America, a group of interdisciplinary and multicultural
researchers participates in the revitalization of native
cultures by including diverse forms of arts and crafts. It is
important to connect these three main trends and to show how
they are rooted in the Eurocentric past of the western
museum.
As Andrew McClelland, Associate Professor and Chair at
the Department of Art and Art History at Tufts University
states, the origin of the encyclopedic art museum began with
the creation of the Louvre as a public institution during the
French Revolution in 1792 Paris. As McClelland explains, in
the hands of the leaders of the French Republic “What better
use could be made of the nation’s new-found artistic and
cultural wealth than to display it for the benefit of public
9
instruction and pleasure? And what better use for abandoned
churches than to house such collections?” (92).
The Louvre then became an object of national pride and
propaganda, a place of refuge in which to escape the outside
turmoil of revolution and war. It became a place where the
hidden artistic wealth of the European clergy and aristocracy
became accessible to every citizen. It also became a space
where artists had privileged access to the collections and
could reserve time to copy masterpieces (101).
However, McClelland also points out that the French
government during the Revolution had two important issues to
address to present the art to the public: the allegoric
glorification of the French Royalty by canonical masters such
as Rubens and the religious iconography of Catholic art
(109). The solution to this dilemma was to “restore”
artworks by painting over symbols of the French royalty, such
as the fleur-de-lis (white lily) and to organize the artworks
by school and chronology, shifting the emphasis from function
to form (112-113).
10
From its inception, the encyclopedic art museum was far
from the politically neutral space it claimed to be. Art
history books published from the 1920s to the present have
been mirroring the layout of museums to convey the message
that art was western art, from Greek antiquity to Modern art.
The first four volumes of a series of works by French art
critic and historian Elie Faure, published in 1921, offer a
survey of European art history as art history. The first
volume is about Antiquity, the second about Medieval art, the
third volume concerns Renaissance art and the last, Modern
art (Faure). The omission of the period between Renaissance
and Modern art might be the consequence of the ideology of
the Louvre during the French Revolution, which banned Baroque
and Rococo art from it galleries. Such art was deemed
“effeminate” and symbolized the decadent French monarchy in
the eighteenth century (McClelland, 103).
The fifth volume published two years later in 1927 is
titled L’Esprit des Formes (The Spirit of Forms) and offers
comparative visual analyses between different forms of art
from different times and different parts of the world in an
11
attempt to demonstrate the universality of art and beauty
(Faure).
A more recent book titled L’Aventure de L’Art au XXieme Siècle,
published in 1987, relates year by year the adventures and
transformations of art in the twentieth century from a
linear, progressive, western perspective. It begins with the
French Impressionists and the French academic painters who
were very popular at the turn of the last century. It ends
with all the different trends of European and North American
art in late twentieth century (Ferrier et le Pichon).
Until the late 1980s, art historical narratives and
encyclopedic art museums followed the same chronological
evolutionary grid. The MFA, founded in 1876, has been
including European and American art within a chronological
frame until the late 1970s, excluding indigenous art from its
permanent collections.
However, a first shift occurred in the 1990s with the
opening of two small galleries: the Arts of Africa and the
Arts of Oceania galleries. The modest inclusion of works
that were labeled as artifacts or as primitive art at the
12
MFA, shows the museum’s willingness to include art forms that
belonged to ethnographic museums.
The MFA experienced a second shift with the opening of
the Arts of the Americas Wing. What makes the Arts of the
Americas Wing innovative according to director Malcolm Rogers
is the inclusion of minority artists from the two continents
and the dialogue between different forms of art and crafts
(Klein; Rogers). However, the vertical organization of the
galleries still reflects the Eurocentric grid of the museum.
The lower ground galleries include the Ancient Mesoamerican
Art and Native North American Art galleries, as well as
seventeenth century Colonial art, crafts and period rooms.
The third floor galleries focus on late twentieth century
North and South American artists (MFA Guide).
The display of contemporary Native American art in the
lower ground galleries, rather than on the third floor seems
like an inconsistency regarding both the chronological grid
and the inclusiveness of the museum. This choice might be due
to the fact that this is a small gallery and that the
contemporary art is traditional in its choice of material and
13
iconography. Such a curatorial choice may also reflect the
unease in classifying art that is both contemporary and
“ethnic,” like the sculpture of a walrus by Inuit artist Nuna
Parr (MFA).
The walrus sculpture, created in 1992, does not belong
to the contemporary art galleries at the MFA and does not
belong to the late twentieth century American art galleries.
This artwork does not fit the criteria of what contemporary
art is according to leading European curators like Hans
Belting, and to the MFA curatorial team. Neither does it
make a political statement, although selling art to western
collectors is strongly linked to the economic and cultural
survival of indigenous cultures (Inuit Art Foundation). To
Belting, as quoted earlier, the sculpture of a walrus by an
Inuit artist belongs to a sub-category of art labeled as
“commodity for global tourism” (250). Moreover, Inuit art is
still “local” while the concept of the contemporary artist is
of a mobile, uprooted and cosmopolitan artist. Belting
defines the art produced by international artists from 1989
to the present as “Global Contemporary.” Global contemporary
14
artists interact with each other and exchange ideas by
exhibiting in temporary international art fairs known as
biennials and make use of the widespread information
technologies to communicate and to increase their public
exposure. According to Belting, and his co-writers, the
recent explosion of art production, the challenge of old
values, and the global means of communication have
transformed the way artists create and the public sees art,
making the traditional museum obsolete (246-258).
However, as will be further developed in this paper,
museums select contemporary artworks based on the commercial
success and celebrity status of “global artists.” So that it
is, as British art critic and curator Julian Stallabrass
points out, the global art world and art market that now
inform the type of artworks that are on display in
contemporary art and encyclopedic art museums (Stallabrass).
Such a context does not allow a work like Nuna Parr’s Walrus
to be labeled as a contemporary artwork.
While the MFA displays the works of many highly
successful global artists, Rogers states that to his “own
15
very personal definition,” contemporary art is “anything that
was produced during the lifetime of the oldest person in the
room” (Rogers and Giuliani). Initially, the 2011 contemporary
art galleries even displayed a 1962 work by Picasso titled The
Rape of the Sabine Women and the famous 1876 work by Monet, La
Japonaise. According to Rogers, these two works were added as
references to ease the viewers into the transition from
French Impressionism and Modern art to American contemporary
art.
Presently, the MFA contemporary art galleries include
works by Warhol, Segal, Chuck Close, and Ellsworth Kelly, all
leading white North American male artists in the 1960s and
1970s.
The director of the museum explains the opening of the
contemporary art galleries as a necessary evolution for an
international encyclopedic museum like the MFA. His emphasis
on the continuity between past and present art betrays his
attempt to make contemporary art fit in the context of the
museum. Rogers also assumes that the museum visitors are
“afraid to ask” about contemporary art (MFA, the Year 2011).
16
However, thanks to a clever selection of well-crafted
pieces from internationally acclaimed artists and a playful,
non-chronological organization of the works, the MFA
contemporary art exhibits are successful. Based on
observations of the audience, intergenerational viewers show
interest for the artworks on display and do not seem to be
that unfamiliar with contemporary art.
Yet the underlying tensions between the traditional
encyclopedic museum and the global art scene are far from
being resolved. In its contemporary art galleries, the MFA
gives to its audience samples of works from acclaimed
artists, which are for most of them viewer friendly. The
museum’s definition of contemporary art is a compromise
between western values and the values of the global art
scene, which acclaims young international artists who focus
on personal experience, or socio-political issues. Such an
approach excludes contemporary indigenous artists who choose
to work on craft or traditional media.
It is difficult to know now whose artists and artistic
currents will be remembered in the future. It is possible
17
that the turn of the twenty-first century will be
characterized by the rise of indigenous art. Indeed, North
American exhibitions like the 2011 Shapeshifting (Kramer) and
the 2012 Sakahàn (Hill), may represent a middle path to the
extremes of the traditional western museum embodied by the
MFA and of the “Global Contemporary” movement rooted in
Europe.
18
Section I.
What is Contemporary Art?
Although it was created in 1992, and is defined as a work by
a contemporary artist, the traditional sculpture of a walrus by
Inuit artist Nuna Parr’s is not in the contemporary art galleries
at the MFA. What is the definition of contemporary art, as art
that belongs with the contemporary art galleries? The example of
Nuna Parr’s sculpture shows that such a definition is not simply
chronological.
German art historian Hans Belting defines contemporary
art as a “polycentric” art that “flagrantly contradicts the
old claim to a single, universally valid idea of art” (28-
29). Contemporary art since the 1980s is, according to
Belting, “global” and is “an art that is expanding all over
19
the world.”(28-29). However, this definition does not include
ethnic art and crafts because such art has “been the favorite
child of colonial teachers and collectors,” and no “longer
continue as a living tradition even if they survive as a
commodity for global tourism” (250).
According to Belting, “global art” is now “post-ethnic,”
and “post historical” (250). Belting states that, “this
absence of primitive art opens a space that contemporary art
invades with its double character as post historical with
respect to the west and as post ethnic with respect to
colonial history” (250). Until recently “the significance of
museums was based on their role to relate a master narrative
that was shared by their audience,” but now, Belting writes,
museums embody the old western-dominated concept of universal
art, and are becoming obsolete or in need of radical change.
Moreover, museums are local, while art is global and
transnational.
Global contemporary art is transitional, borderless and multi-
faceted, as the explosion of International biennials all over the
world shows (28-29; 250-254).
20
However, in his work “Contemporary Art: A very short Introduction,”1
British photographer and Marxist art critic Julian
Stallabrass, Reader in Art History at the Courtauld Institute
of Art in London, challenges some of the ideas associated
with the concept of global contemporary art defended by
Belting. Where Belting states that art is polycentric and
diverse, Stallabrass writes:
Art concerns are also various, touching upon feminism, identity politics, mass culture, shopping, and trauma. Perhaps art’s fundamental condition is to be unknowable(that concepts embodied in visual form can encompass contradiction), or perhaps those that hold this view are helping to conceal a different uniformity (101).
While Belting writes that biennials are opening or even
transcending borders by letting the world know about non-
western artists and minorities, Stallabrass asserts that
“biennials tend to address the cosmopolitan art audience
rather than the local population. Their structure was
inherited from the model of the international art or trade
show in which nations compete to show their most prominent
cultural wares” (28). Stallabrass writes, “Furthermore, the
curators of these shows, nomadic specialists, are creatures 1 Previously published as Art Incorporated
21
of the global art system” (28). Thus the art selected by
international curators is aimed at a global elite, and “the
filtering of local material through the art system ultimately
produces homogeneity” (29).
Despite their apparent differences, there are areas
where Stallabrass and Belting agree. In a 2004 interview,
Stallabrass recognizes the fact that biennials actually have
made minority and non-western artists visible:
Another major thing that's been happening in the art world, especially in the nineties, has been that it globalised itself, especially through the rise of all these biennials. There are ways of being suspicious of why this has happened and look at the economic motives behind it and so on. One of the things that has come out of it has been a great deal of visibility for artists who have come from what we once would have called the Second or Third World. Much of that art has an intensity and complexity and political awareness, which is quite other than anything that comes out of, well, certainly the UK. Those artists are really fascinating. There's a danger perhaps that they're onlyseen in venues that get seen by elites, cosmopolitan, globe-trotting art world figures. But still I think this stuff shows that the art world is leaky. Here is something healthy and salutary going on in that diversity of production and diversity of views (3:am, web).
Belting acknowledges the role of the global market in the
filtering and selection of artworks when he writes
22
“globalization, on the other hand is a power struggle where
markets, in the end, become an obstacle to the world’s growing
together” (29). In addition, he sees the link between
contemporary art and the global corporate market:
The new economy has produced a global clientele of billionaires who, as collectors no longer go for a specific art taste and no longer represent a specific social class. The majority of them collect contemporary art because they regard it as a global symbol of their lifestyle (29).
To Stallabrass, global capitalism and the art market are
intertwined, and “third world artists” are now visible,
thanks to the explosion of biennials, which are themselves a
product of global capitalism. Stallabrass writes “Art prices
and the volumes of art sales tend to match the stock markets
closely, and it is no accident that the world’s major
financial centres are also the principal centres for the
sales of art” (4). However, the presence and power of non-
western artists, in biennials, shows that the art world is
“leaky”(3:am).
To Belting, the international “Rise of New Art Worlds,”
is slowed down by the market. Belting and Stallabrass discuss
23
the art market but assume there is only one art market, the
market of corporate billionaires speculating on contemporary
art. Belting dismisses ethnic arts and its association with
global tourism. Stallabrass alludes to the commodification
of native art indirectly by mentioning a Cuban artist who
associates tourist art and sexual tourism. Stallabrass
writes, “In his piece for the 2000 Havana Biennial, Santiago
Invites you for a Drink, the artist made a barbed comment about the
likely relations of power and exploitation between art-
tourists and natives by paying prostitutes to hide in boxes
that had been set up as benches” for the biennial visitors
(Stallabrass, 28).
Not all art critics dismiss tourist art the way Belting
and Stallabrass do. While in their book, African Art since 1980,
African scholar and curator Okwui Enwezor, founding publisher
and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and his
colleague, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Assistant Professor of Art
History at Princeton University focus on contemporary African
artists, they also acknowledge the presence of different art
markets and different art forms that exist concurrently with
24
what is defined as “contemporary art.”
By contemporary artists, the authors mean artists who
use contemporary materials and new technology, mix different
styles and address present issues. The presence of such
artists in biennials further reinforce their identity as
“contemporary.” However, Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu, write:
It is important to point out that the term ‘craft’ does not necessarily denote an inferior practice to contemporary art. But it should be recognized that these two types of creative processes operate in distinct discursive systems and circulate in different economies, namely in the market for souvenirs and utilitarian material on one hand, and in the exhibition circuits of the contemporary art gallery andsystems of museums of art and ethnography on the other.(12)
The authors also state that they “do not resist the term
‘traditional’ art.” This art “represents a storehouse of powerful
artistic achievements that continue to exert influence beyond
Africa” (13).
Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu did not mention the system of
biennials in their statement, but make the distinction
between the market for souvenirs and the systems of art
galleries and art and ethnographic museums. Their comment
25
reflects the western hierarchies between different art forms.
While Enzwezor and Okeke-Agulu write about African art, Karen
Kramer, curator of the 2011 exhibition Shapeshifting,
Transformations in Native American Art, at the Peabody Essex Museum,
points out in her preface of the catalogue of the exhibition
that:
The general public too often remains confortable with predictable approaches to Native American Art and culture in a museum setting, and frequently perceives Native art and culture as lodged in the past and in therealm of craft, function, and souvenir, or as a distinct and separate category: “contemporary Native American art.” And until very recently, thematic approaches and the integration of historic and contemporary works in Native American exhibitions and public and private collections have remained rare. (10)
The present divide within indigenous artists is created
by the distinction between artists who are deemed
contemporary and those who are not. Terri Smith, Andrew W.
Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory at
the University of Pittsburg, writes about the rise of
aboriginal art from the 1970s to the present:
In economic terms, the big shift from the early 1970s to now has been an upmarket one, from the intermittent provision of tourist artifacts to a fully fledged contemporary art movement. A network of nearly one
26
hundred art centers in remote communities all over the continent has grown up sustained by government funding,staffed by mostly white professional officers versed inlocal, national and international art worlds and overseen by aboriginal elders. These are key distributors to markets in capital cities, primarily commercial galleries specializing in contemporary aboriginal art, although there is much informal trafficking as well. An important part of the picture is art produced by aboriginal artists living in the cities, usually presented in hybrid styles and often devoted to issues of minority living and ethnic identity. (136)
Australian aboriginal art, according to Smith, moved from tourist
art to contemporary art in the late twentieth century (133).
According to Kramer, the general public associates
native art with crafts, function and souvenir, and is
distinct from contemporary Native American art. However, in
his work Inuit Art, a History, Richard Crandall, Professor at the
School of Humanities, Arts and social Sciences at Lake
Superior State University, Michigan, writes about the change
of status of Inuit art, “What started as inexpensive curios,
ethnographic objects, and handicrafts—which were found
primarily in souvenir shops—rapidly evolved into expensive
fine art, found in museums and art galleries” (9). Crandall
explains that Inuit art was created for the European market
27
after 1948 to ensure the survival of the Inuit, and to help
shape Canada’s cultural identity (66-74).
What transpires from Crandall’s writing about Inuit art
and Smith’s statements on aboriginal Australian art, is that
they both belong to the cultural patrimony of their
respective countries, and are strongly supported and
controlled by the governments of these countries. Crandall
writes that Inuit art got upgraded from tourist art to fine
art in mid-twentieth century (9), while Smith explains that
Australian aboriginal art moved from tourist art to
contemporary art in the late twentieth century (136).
A positive result of the interaction between the
Canadian government and the Inuit was the creation of
“Nunavut” in 1999, a new independent land for the Inuit
(Nunavut.com; Cultural Survival). Yet, according to Crandall,
the 1990s where a time of crisis for Inuit artists, faced
with the choice of following the model of contemporary
artists and create the work they wanted to create, and risk
not being able to sell their work or continue to create
28
traditional art, and have more chances to earn an income
(318-346).
Inuit art and contemporary aboriginal Australian art are
rooted in their native cultures while being modified to meet
western tastes. However, while traditional Inuit art does
not offer a critic of the interaction between native artists
and western buyers, contemporary aboriginal Australian art
does. Aboriginal artist Richard Bell from the Murri people in
Australia, embedded the words “Aboriginal Art—It’s a White
Thing” in his 2003 canvas Scientia E Metaphysica (Bell’s Theorem). The
work earned him the $40,000 Telstra National Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Art Award (Smith 133-134).
The subtitle of the work, Bell’s Theorem might be a pun
between the artist’s last name and an actual theorem in
quantum physics, adding an additional layer of complexity to
the work (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). The main
title Scienta E Metaphysica, may refer to the observations of
native cultures in late eighteen and early nineteen century,
by western explorers and scientists (Barami). The ZKM Museum
of Contemporary Art in Karlsruhe, Germany, purchased the work
29
in 2011. Scientia E Metaphysica was part of the 2011-2012 exhibit,
“The Global Contemporary Art Worlds After 1989,” co-curated by Hans
Belting. The long interpretative label states (see fig.1):
The art of Australian artist and political activist Richard Bell is a response to crucial issues in Australian social history and politics, such as discrimination and racism, as well as to the functioning of the art system and market.In his opposition to the usurpation of Aboriginal imagery and its commercial use in advertising campaigns, tourism promotion, etc. Bell appropriates styles and forms of Western Modernism, its painterly expression and iconography. The colorful, gridded patterns of Scientia E Metaphysica (Bell’s Theorem) are reminiscent both of Pop art and the styles evolved by Indigenous artists. They are inscribed with a text in the spirit of conceptualism that underscores a political message: “Aboriginal art –it’s a white thing.” Black and white dripping and fields of the same colors on both sides of the paintingbring into a concise visual formula the problems running through the sociopolitical history of black andwhite relations in Australia. The red “abstract” triangle refers to the existing “triangle of discomfort” from the critical text “Bell’s Theorem”[1] expressing the extent of exploitation of Aboriginal artists at the hands of unscrupulous dealers and middlemen.
The painting’s statement is directed against the commodification of Aboriginal art and against the control of Aboriginal culture by the non-Aboriginal Western art market. Bell’s adamant concern is with the struggle against the marketing strategy of the industrythat lobbies for Aboriginal art by selling typical “Aboriginal spirituality” and ghettoizing Aboriginal artists as “noble savages” (ZKM website; Belting 363).
30
Figure 1
Richard Bell Scienta E Metaphisica (Bell’s Theorem)
ZKM, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Karslruhe, Germany
Source, ZKM, Museum of Contemporary Art, online.
This interpretation of the work, which offers a
diatribe against the exploitation of indigenous artists by
“unscrupulous western dealers,” is true to the artist’s
statement. The “triangle of discomfort” relates to the fact
that aboriginal artists might only get ten percent of the
sale of an original work due to the distribution system
(Bell).
To Bell, everything is connected, the racism of the
Australian government, the objectification of native people
31
by western ethnographers, the financial exploitation of
aboriginal artists, the appropriation of aboriginal art by
western artists (to which he responds by appropriating
western art), the displacement of native people from their
land, and the status of urban artists deemed “unauthentic,”
versus the status of “authentic” local artists. While Bell’s
argument is justified, such a lengthy statement, with its
complicated formal and political analysis, feels overwhelming
for the viewer (Bell; Belting; Cultural Survival).
Terri Smith offers a different view on Australian
aboriginal art:
Essential points are that the artworks made available to the market are not secret ceremonial objects, but surrogate items deliberately made for circulation beyond the remote communities. They are intended to carry sacred meanings but not reveal the hermetic knowledge that would deplete their sources. They are anattempt by Aboriginal elders to communicate their spiritual truths to the kardiya (a term for white ones widely used by desert people), while protecting their essential separateness and strength. A bold and risky strategy, especially for peoples living in condition ofextreme scarcity (134).
32
While being sympathetic to aboriginal artists, Smith minimizes
the destructive impact of the commodification of aboriginal art
on aboriginal cultures. For the author, the visibility and high
market value of Australian aboriginal art is an “inspiring story”
that ensures the economic survival of the aboriginal cultures and
the economic prosperity of the Australian government (133).
However, according to Karen Kramer, the delicate balance
between cultural integrity and economic survival is the
hallmark of indigenous artists, whose works have been
stereotyped and devalued through their display in museums.
In addition, the present separation between past and
contemporary native art creates a new divide. In her essay
about the exhibit titled Raising the Bar, Kramer writes:
Typically arranged chronologically, geographically or by medium, museum exhibitions have focused largely on either historical or contemporary Native American art, with very little mixing of the two. This approach creates a disconnect between then and now, rather than exploring links and continuity. Further contributing toa sense of homogeneity in the public mindset rather than the art’s extraordinary diversity is the flattening and conflation of the native world by the media and in popular culture. (15)
33
While the exhibit created links and continuity between
the past and the present, this is not according to a western
strict chronological and evolutionary order, but rather
through association and affinities between different
artworks. The exhibit included ancient sacred and mundane
works, tourist works, works by famous and less known
contemporary artists, formal crafts and conceptual works,
video and photographs, works based on cultural roots or works
using western canons and medium. So that, the usual
separation between art and crafts, old and new, authentic and
hybrid art, became meaningless. Articulated around four
themes, Changing – Expanding the Imagination, Knowing –
Expressing Worldview, Locating – Exploring Identity, and
Place and Voicing – Engaging the Individual, the exhibit was
powerful and gave the viewer a sense of wealth and diversity
as well as a sense of cohesion and coherence.
Writing about the 2011 Sakahàn, International Indigenous Art
exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada, curated by Greg
Hill, Candice Hopkins and herself, co-curator Christine
Lalonde explained how the exhibit aimed at bridging another
34
gap caused by the divide between the artists who are present
on the global contemporary art scene and the ones who are
not. The curators also expanded the notion of indigenous
cultures by including indigenous artists from Europe (the
Scandinavian Sapmi), India, Africa and Asia. This enticed a
greater awareness of the presence of native cultures all over
the world. It offered a more complex grasping of the present
world than the assumed division of the world does, with its
separation between west and east, north and south, between
Europe/Euro-America then Asia/Middle East and finally the
Africa/Oceania/and Native Americas block.
In her introduction of the exhibit, whose subtitle is: At
the Crossroad of Indigeneity, Globalization and Contemporary Art, Lalonde,
recognizing the recent emergence of non-western artists in
the global contemporary art world, wrote, “A principle of
inclusivity is becoming an organizing force behind
international exhibitions, this movement began with
questioning of the flawed universality of modernism, the
quest for alterity and pluralism of post-modernism, and the
rise of post-colonial studies” (Hill 17).
35
However, Lalonde, while recognizing their greater
inclusiveness, is critical of the system of biennials.
In many ways, Sahakàn is in step with and a part of this larger movement. However, recognizing that the biennialmodel is an entrenched, Eurocentric one, our task was to work within the existing framework but modify it in a way that incorporates indigenous ideologies and realities as concurrent with contemporary experience (Hill 17).
According to Lalonde, one of the greatest divides among
contemporary indigenous artists is the Eurocentric separation
between contemporary and traditional art. Thus the exhibit
presented works by famous contemporary artists and by lesser
known traditional artists and artisans (Hill 18).
The North American curators of Shapeshifting and Sakahàn
worked along with native curators, art critics and artists,
to install their exhibitions. Such a cooperative work is also
part of the organization of exhibitions at the Peabody Museum
of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.
The current exhibit Wiyohpiyata, Lakota images of the
Contested West, co-curated by Castle McLaughin and Lakota
artist Butch Thunder Hawk, creates an immersion experience by
adding sounds of rain, thunder, galloping horses, and scent.
36
The exhibit presents the drawings on ledgers by Lakota
warriors who fought in mid-nineteen century “to preserve
their homelands, loved ones and their way of life” (Peabody
Museum, web). Five different unidentified warriors drew on
the ledgers, using the European paper instead of the
traditional hide used for tipis. The ledgers were hidden in
a burial chamber and found after the battle of Big Horn
(1876). The contemporary works of Butch Thunder Hawks are on
display along with the ledger drawings (Peabody Museum, web).
Exhibitions like Shapeshifting, Sakahàn and Wiyohpiyata,
indicate a shift in perspective regarding colonial history,
and tend to bridge the artificial divide between contemporary
and traditional, art and crafts, tourist and authentic art,
and by doing so, give more power to native artists.
37
38
Section II
EL Anatsui Black River: A Golden Bridge over Murky Waters
As an encyclopedic art museum, the Boston MFA responds
to the “Global Contemporary” trend and the native art trend
in different ways. It values the works of non-western
artists by using the work by an African artist as the
centerpiece of its contemporary art galleries. The Museum
also presents Native American works of art in a holistic way
in its small Native North American gallery.
One of the most attractive pieces of the Linde Wing For
Contemporary Arts at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a
shimmering, golden wall sculpture by Ghanaian artist El
Anatsui, who lives and works in Nigeria. However, the
apparent lavishness of the work is deceptive. A closer look
at the piece reveals thousands of gold, silver, red and black
plastic bottle tops and small pieces of golden scrap metal
attached together. Black plastic strands seem to run towards
the bottom of the sculpture on the left side and red strands
on the right evoke blood flowing (see fig. 2).
39
Figure 2
El Anatsui Black River Boston MFA
Source, badgerdog unbound.com. Web.
In a video interview about an exhibition of his works at
the Clark Museum in 2011, the artist reaffirms the concept
embedded in his works by stating that the plastic bottle caps
are symbolic of the slave trade between Africa, Europe and
the Americas “linking the three continents” (Clark Museum
online).
This piece is part of a thematic gallery titled How’s it
made? As the MFA explains, “With so many materials and
methods for artists to choose from, how an artwork is made is
more than a part of its history—it’s part of its meaning.”
(MFA How it’s made? Web). While the wall sculpture evokes
40
Ghanaian chieftain robes, Anatsui chose to use plastic bottle
tops and aluminum foil bottle wrappers as its primary
materials.
According to Lisa Binder, co-curator of the retrospective
touring exhibition of Anatsui’s works, When I Last Wrote to You About
Africa, organized by the Museum of African Art, New York, and
editor of the catalogue of the exhibition, these materials convey
the history of migration and consumption (17).These associations
between African history (the chieftain robe) and the corruption
and disruption brought to Africa by European settlers (alcohol,
slavery and pollution), are reinforced by the MFA interpretation
of the work, through a series of hints:
Anatsui worked with a team of assistants to assemble discarded liquor-bottle caps and wrappers into a metallic tapestry. When pinned to the wall, its rollinghills and valleys recall a topographical map. At center, a black river-is it oil? people? water? alcohol?--seems to seep across a border. Liquor wrappers with names like “Dark Sailor” and “Black Gold”hint at Africa’s long history of slavery and colonialism, as well as today conflicts over resources,especially oil. The pattern made by some of the wrappers at lower right resembles traditional Ghanaian Kente weaving (MFA label).
41
Due to its high aesthetic appeal and its non-western
origins, the work is an ideal piece for advertising the
contemporary art galleries at the MFA. The picture selected
by the MFA shows a young man of African descent and a young
blond woman looking at the sculpture (see fig. 3).
Figure 3
MFA Contemporary Art Galleries Illustration
Source, MFA Online
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.
Photography © Tony Rinaldo.
42
This indicates a marketing strategy aimed at attracting a young,
multicultural audience to the museum. Moreover, this photograph
emphasizes a sense of connection between the artist and the
viewers through the artwork and implies a shared moment between
the viewers, two strangers looking and admiring an artwork at the
same time. Concerning the artist’s works, Lisa Binder writes
that, “the basic things that connect us together as human beings
remain a central focus in Anatsui’s practice” (13).
At the MFA, Black River is the only example of contemporary
African art that is part of the permanent collection. Created
in 2009, this work was a gift from the artist to the Center
for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria, and was sold to the MFA
in 2010 (MFA, Black River).
Within the museum and the contemporary art galleries,
Anatsui’s piece assumes multiple functions. Presented as a
contemporary piece of African art, rooted in a tradition, it
offers a bridge between the past and present as Malcolm
Rogers mentions in his presentation of the contemporary arts
galleries (MFA, the year 2011). The creative use of recycled
materials allows the curators to display this work in a
43
thematic gallery focused on how the works are done. It is
also a piece that promotes a greater awareness of the
tensions between the West and its former colonies. It is in
addition, suited for all audiences, and can be the basis for
educational activities (Brooklyn Museum).
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Arts (MET) on the
other hand, owns two pieces by Anatsui. One is titled Between
Earth and Heaven and is on view in the Main Africa gallery (see
fig.4). Created in 2006, it was acquired by the museum in
2007. The other piece, Dusasa II, executed in 2007, was acquired
in 2008, and was on display in the Modern and Contemporary
Art gallery but is not presently on view (Met Online, El
Anatsui).
At the MET, Anatsui installed Between Earth and Heaven
himself, and spoke about his approach in a video posted on
youtube.com by the museum (MET, youtube.com). At the MFA,
the artist gave the curators freedom to fold the piece and
change it the way they wanted. The example of the MFA is
consistent with Anatsui’s participation in the display of his
works. As Lisa Binder, co curator of El Anatsui touring
44
exhibition When I last Wrote to you about Africa points out, “the
possibility of movement has become integral to the artist’s
sculpture.” She also notes, “Anatsui encourages curators,
along with institutional and private collectors, to install
his sculptures as they see fit” (17).
Alicia LaGamma, Head of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and
the Americas Department and Curator of the Department of
African Art at the MET, defines the work Between Earth and Heaven
as a “metallic tapestry” and a “billowing textile.” LaGamma
explains “we wanted the artist to be present and fold the
work himself” (MET Youtube.com). This is an unusual process
since Anatsui’s approach is to let the curators and the
patrons fold his pieces the way they want to. To LaGamma,
Anatsui’s work belongs to the main Africa gallery because it
is a piece of “stunning beauty” that speaks “ so eloquently”
about the achievement and “vitality of
contemporary African art.” This piece, according to LaGamma,
interacts with the “masterpieces of classical African art” in the
African art gallery (MET, youtube.com). In addition, Between Earth
and Heaven was initially part of an exhibit about African textiles
45
curated by LaGamma. Linked by LaGamma to ancient African
sculptures and to African textiles, this work by El Anatsui is
both art and craft (MetMedia).
The display in the African art gallery at the MET, and
in the contemporary art galleries at the MFA, of Anatsui’s
works, shows different curatorial approaches. Where do the
works by a famous contemporary African artist belong? Why
did the two pieces by Anatsui belong to two different
departments at the MET, then why is the piece which was
displayed in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries not
presently on view? La Gamma explained why the work belongs to
the African Art galleries and according to the Department of
Modern and Contemporary Art at the MET, Dusasa II is not on
view because of the frequent turnover of exhibitions and the
need for space (MET).
46
Figure 4
El Anatsui Between Earth and Heaven
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Main Africa Gallery
Source, arnet.com Magazine. Web.
47
Dusasa II, the piece not on view at the MET, was one of
Anatsui’s three pieces on display in the summer of 2007 at
the 52nd Venice Biennale, where the artist born in 1944,
gained international recognition (see fig. 5). Dusasa I and II,
were shown as a pair in the Venice Arsenale as part of the
international exhibition. The third piece, even more
monumental in scale, titled Fresh and Fading Memory was draped
over the façade of the Palazzo Fortuny (Binder, 18).
Okwui Enzwezor selected Dusasa I and II as pivotal artworks
in a compilation of 200 major contemporary art works created
from 1987 to 2010 and selected by eight leading international
curators. Concerning the artist’s wall sculptures, Enwezor
states that Anatsui thinks of these works as sculptures.
“Even comparing them to tapestry is anathema to his formal
intentions” (Birbaum 396).
48
Figure 5
El Anatsui Dusasa II.
New York Metropolitan Museum of Arts (not on view)
Source, pictify.com. Web.
While being filmed installing Between Earth and Heaven at the MET,
Anatsui however, did not contradict LaGamma when she compared his
work to a “metal tapestry.” Speaking of his work, the artist
emphasized the craft, collective involvement, and patient labor
involved in the making of Between Earth and Heaven. In an additional
video, the artist presented himself in his Nsukka home studio in
49
Nigeria, not as an artist rigidly directing his apprentices to
fulfill his vision, but more as a guide, giving his assistants
the flexibility to bring their own input (MET youtube.com; Art
21, El Anatsui Studio Process).
Flexibility, adaptability and communal work are key
works in Anatsui’s vocabulary, about the process and the
product. According to the artist, the finished works are not
“fixed.” Anatsui likes to talk about his latest works as
“indeterminate” and open to change and variations in the way
they are displayed. In the artist’s words, his works are
like “human relations,” changing and “not fixed” (METMedia;
youtube.com).
The emphasis on change and indetermination in Anatsui’s
works might relate to the worldwide exchanges and population
displacements that began with the first contacts between the
European, American and African continents. These exchanges
intensified at the turn of the last century. Kobena Mercer,
Reader in Art History and Diaspora Studies at Middlesex
University, London, points out in the introduction of her
work Exiles, Diasporas & Strangers, that the political upheavals that
50
characterized the first part of the twentieth century caused
the worldwide displacement and intermingling of international
artists. Exchanges-albeit unbalanced- between artists from
different cultures imbued the modernist movement (Mercer).
In their work, African Art since 1980, Okwui Enwezor and his
colleague, Chika Okeke-Agulu, state, that “African artists
have been working internationally since the early twentieth
century,” so that the exchanges between Europe and Africa
were two ways (13).
However, mainstream art historical interpretations of
Modern art explain that European artists like Picasso,
“discovered” African masks, and integrated them in their work
in order to create new art forms. Such an interpretation put
the emphasis on the European artist, who in his creative
genius used “primitive” art forms, created by ‘anonymous’
artists.
Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu also define the appropriation of
African art by European Modern artists as “deskilling.” To
the authors, the term represents the revolt of European
artists against European academic standards, but also a
51
gesture, which according to conservative critics of
modernism, affected traditional African art. As Enzwezor and
Okeke-Agulu write, “In theorizing the origin of contemporary
African art, there is something of critical value to be
extracted from the idea that the degeneration of traditional
styles as the result of the emergence of contemporary art
meant the death of the great traditional art of Africa” (13-
14).
However, according to Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu, the end
of African great traditional art was caused by the political
upheavals related to the destructuration and recreation of
Africa by European colonial powers, on one hand, and the
commercial exploitation of African art and crafts on the
other hand (14).
The life and struggles of expatriate South African
artist Ernest Mancoba (1904-2002) are a striking example of
the inner tensions and contradictions of a young African
artist coming of age in the early 1920s. Ntongela Masilela,
Professor Emeritus of Creative Studies at Pfizer University,
explains in a web article titled Ernest Mancoba, a New African Artist,
52
that black South African artists like Mancoba, who were born
in an urban environment and had a Christian background,
“could not assume that they had knowledge and understanding
of the aesthetics of African traditional art just by virtue
of being born Africans.” (6). Thus, Masilela continues, “Like
other young New African intellectuals and artists, Ernest
Mancoba had to undertake a historical rediscovery of his
cultural roots” (6).
For Mancoba, such a rediscovery began through the
mediation of a European lens. To learn more about African
art, the young Mancoba dared to go to the National Library in
Cape Town, frequented by white patrons, to borrow a book on
African art written by a European expert. Mancoba did so on
the advice of South African sculptor Lippy Lipschitz, who as
the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, was himself a displaced
European artist. Interviewed in France toward the end of his
life by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mancoba confided, “Paul
Guillaume’s book, Primitive Negro Sculpture, spoke with deep
respect about the expression of Africans, when I wasn’t even
considered as a full human being in my own country” (374-
53
375).
Before becoming an expert and dealer of African art,
Paul Guillaume, according to Christopher B. Steiner, author
of African Art in Transit, was originally a clerk working for a car
appliance dealer in France. The car appliance store had a
small African sculpture on display in its window. Steiner
writes that the French artist Joseph Brummer convinced the
young clerk to sell him the object and to “show him regularly
the ‘fetishes’ received by the clerk’s firm through its
colonial rubber supplies.” (6). A year later, Paul Guillaume
left his work as a clerk and became one of the major
suppliers of West and Central African art to French dealers
and collectors. Steiner writes, “From the 1920-30s onward,
the trade in African art became increasingly structured and
organized on the side of supply. By this time, African
artists had already started reproducing objects expressly for
the export market” (7).
In 1936 South Africa, ten years after the publication of
Primitive Negro Sculpture, Mancoba was offered a work, which
54
consisted of carving “native art” for European export, and in
recruiting and training young men to increase the production
of “native art.” He politely declined. As he said in his
interview with Obrist:
The first reason for my leaving South Africa was probably when I understood that I would not be able to become either a citizen or an artist in the land of my fathers, especially after a meeting I had with the Commissioner for Native Affairs in Pretoria who, after seeing some of my works reproduced in a newspaper (The Star, I think it was), decidedthat I should take part in the upcoming British ‘Empire Exhibition’ (Johannesburg, 1936). The idea was, at first, toshow visitors the production of folkloric art by natives, and, secondly, to develop a whole indigenous art trade by selling all sorts of pseudo-tribal figures for tourists (376).
For the young artist, who could not find his voice in his native
South Africa, Paris represented “a centre of artistic concern and
responsibility, unique in the world, as I had been told by the
artists who had emigrated from Europe ” (376-77).
Trying to achieve a synthesis between African and
European art, while still living in South Africa, the artist
had created in 1929, at age twenty-four, a sculpture of the
Virgin Mary, titled The Bantu Madonna, which was the first
representation of the Christian icon as an African young
55
woman (see fig. 6).
Figure 6
Ernest Mancoba Bantu Madonna
Source, Causes: Stop Colorism. Web.
56
Mancoba explained the meaning of this sculpture in his interview with Obrist:
I worked along certain European or classical canons, whichsome believers in the conception of ‘progress’ in art will judge outdated. In the ‘Madonna’, I followed a certain canon that was in contradiction with the newestCubist or abstract ways and forms (which I, at the time, hardly knew) but without ever stopping my struggle with a style that was foreign to me. And the viewer, I hope, if I am lucky enough to have been understood and heard, can feel under the surface of theclassical mould an African heartbeat. At times, the inner spirit breaks through, first in the very innovation within the South African context, of taking a black woman to represent the Virgin Mary, and secondly in the warmth of the pulse that, though provisionally contained by the strictness of the style,speaks up, under the skin or surface, and threatens to burst free (382).
When he created this sculpture, the young man did not
have any formal training as an artist. There was no art
curriculum offered in South African schools at the time. An
Anglican nun, Sister Pauline had taught him how to carve wood
when he was a student at the Anglican Teachers Training
College, in Pietersburg. After Pietersburg, the young man
attended the University of Fort Hare at Alice, a little town
57
in the Eastern Cape. Fort Hare, where Nelson Mandela later
studied, was imbued by “religion and a certain form of
humanism.” Attending this institution “was a tradition shared
by the ‘black elite’ (as they were expected to become) and by
white liberals, many of whom belonged to the clergy” (373-
74).
Mancoba developed a spiritual and humanistic view on art
and life based on his Anglican Education and Ubuntu roots. “I
for my part,” the artist said, “have only relied throughout
my life on two ideas—one, from the deepest heart of Africa
which constitutes the basis of Ubuntu: ‘Man is man by and
because of other men,’ and the other the precept of Christ:
Do onto others as you would have done unto you.’ I do not
bother with anything else” (379).
Born 40 years after and 3886 miles away from Mancoba, El
Anatsui’s vision of art and humanity echoes the older
artist’s. The two men shared an Anglican religious
background, which was part of their complex identities. As
he explained in a lecture and discussion with Alisa LaGamma
58
and Chika Okeke-Agulu at the MET in 2008, El Anatsui first
frequented a mission elementary school in Ghana, whose
principal was the artist’s maternal uncle, an Anglican
reverend. The young boy, raised by his uncle, later
frequented an art school affiliated with Goldsmith College in
London (Binder 15; MetMedia).
As a member of a British colony and an art student at a
British university, where the teachers were for the most part
Europeans, the young man felt disconnected from his roots.
Alienated from the Eurocentric art curriculum, Anatsui did
not feel any interest in “copying Greek sculptures and still-
lives,” and made a deliberate effort to observe the works of
the local craftsmen and women around him (Binder 24-25;
MetMedia).
The artist told LaGamma and Okeke-Agulu, that during a
school visit to an exhibition of kente textiles, the young
art student became absorbed into the adinkra symbols embedded
in the cloth. After graduating from art school as a sculptor,
he started a series of works based on adinkra symbols. Going
59
to the local fish market, El Anatsui bought locally
handcrafted wooden trays, used to carry fish, and began
carving symbols out of the tray. Anatsui worked on tray
carvings and adinkra symbols for five years from 1972 to
1975. During the lecture, the artist elaborated on four of
the symbols. One represented the “Soul,” the other “God’s
Omnipotence,” the third one “Unity,” and the fourth,
“Seriousness.” (MetMedia).
In 1975, El Anatsui moved from Ghana to Nigeria to teach
art at the University of Nsukka, where the artist still
presently lives and work. At Nsukka he found fertile,
creative and intellectual ground. Ghana had gained its
independence in 1957 and Nigeria in 1960. The whole continent
was trying to redefine itself and create a new cultural
identity and the Nsukka artists were at the foreground of the
artistic innovations that helped reshape Africa’s new sense
of identity.
As Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu write, “In Africa, the period
before 1980 represents a moment in which the attempt at
60
cohesion engendered by decolonization produced many new
schools of thoughts on how to be free, African, and Modern-
and with that, the desire to construct, as it were forms of
national culture (18).”
One of these major schools of thought was embodied by
the creative process of Uche Okeke, who was the Head of the
Art Department at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Enwezor
and Okeke-Agulu explain how Uche Okeke started an influential
art movement called Uli. The term Uli came from “a mural-and
body-painting tradition mostly practiced by Igbo women in
Southeastern Nigeria” (18). Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-
Agulu write, “Typical Uli patterns deploy abstract,
ideographic painting styles, applied directly on adobe walls
of shrines, houses and bodies as decoration” (18). This style
could enrich the canon of abstract forms “that could more
easily be read as modernist in the Western sense.” Uche
Okeke translated the two-dimensional patterns into “three
dimensional sculptures and wood carvings,” creating a
synthesis between African and Western art. Following Uche
61
Okeke, Anatsui, with his colleague Obiora Udechukwu and a
group of artists, organized AKA Circle of Artists, a movement, which
promoted the Uli type of sensitivity in annual exhibitions
(18).
From 1975 to 1982, Anatsui created a series of clay
works that New York Times critic, Holland Cotter describes as
“ceramic sculptures in the form of shattered and patched-
together versions of traditional pots, their interiors filled
with seething, snakelike forms” (Cotter). During the MET
lecture, the artist describes the pots as symbols of decay
and regeneration that retain their power and spiritual
values, even when broken. The titles of the works are in
Pidgin English, the hybrid language of former English
colonies. The traditional pots, broken and patched together,
are a reflection on the decay, transformation and
regeneration of post-colonial Africa (MetMedia). Anatsui
finds the English language too restrictive and precise and
has also been using the Ewe language of his Ghanaian
forebears in his work, especially when he was working with
62
the adinkra symbols in his native Ghana (MetMedia; Binder;
Art21).
Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu explain that the 1980s were
characterized by economic turmoil and post-colonial
disillusion for the whole African continent, a background,
which paradoxically encouraged artistic experimentation. It
is a time when according to the authors, African artists
became “contemporary artists.” As Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu
explain “Rather than imitate a succession of period styles,
contemporary artists generally develop their practice by
constituting strategies, working with whatever is at hand,
across all artistic media. To be contemporary also requires a
self-awareness of the possibilities and the fault lines that
defines the present through self-reflexive reanimations of
methods of creative inquiry (21-22).
In this time of turmoil and artistic experimentation,
Anatsui did thrive. As Cotter writes, “In the 1980s his
reputation in Africa was building. He worked nonstop and
produced a lot, experimentally moving among and combining
63
mediums in ways that few of his colleagues were” (Cotter). An
important experiment in Anatsui’s artistic career was his
adoption of drills and chain saws to make sculptures, a
technique he developed during a 1980 residency at the
Cummington Community in Massachusetts (Cotter; Binder;
MetMedia).
The first big international break for Anatsui occurred
when he was chosen with four other African artists for the
1990 Venice Biennale. Cotter states:
The occasion was historic; it was the first time sub-Saharan artists had been in the Venice show. And the experience was invaluable. Not only was his art seen inan international forum, he also got a sweeping look at what the European-American market was promoting, much of it installation art on a spectacular scale (Cotter).
After chancing upon a trash bag filled with liquor bottle caps in
1998, Anatsui “had found his ideal material: locally made, in
ready supply and culturally loaded” (Cotter). From then on
Anatsui became the international star he now is, widely exhibited
in private galleries and museums.
Alisa LaGamma speaks about the stunning beauty of
64
Anatsui’s work Between Earth and Heaven and asserts that this
work belongs to the African art gallery with the “classical
African masterpieces.” Anatsui in the same video claims that
beauty is the outer expression of inner beauty, that his
works have a deep inner beauty (MET youtube.com). His words
echo Ernest Mancoba’s who said “But for the African artist it
is not so much the abidance by certain rules (though he too,
generally, works according to particular canons), that makes
a thing beautiful, but its capacity to evoke the inner being
by the strength of the outward aspect” (Obrist 382). Cotter
calls Anatsui “a social and spiritual activist” (Cotter). The
same can be said of Mancoba, who thought that art was a
factor of social and spiritual change, a way to affirm our
common humanity (Obrist 382). Each artist wanted to redefine
their cultural identities by creating a synthesis between
Africa and Europe through their art.
Yet, the triumph of Anatsui and the quasi-oblivion of
Mancoba, show a shift in perspective on the western
perception of African art. Salah M. Hassan, Goldwin Smith
65
Professor of African and African Diaspora Art History and
Visual Culture in the Africana Studies and Research Center,
and in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies at
Cornell University, writes “as in the case generally with
non-Western artists based in the West, Mancoba’s achievements
have not received the critical recognition they deserve, and
they have remained sidelined in art historical texts on
twentieth century art” (Hassan 452).
At the turn of the last century, which was a time where
“art” was European art and avant-garde European artists were
vehemently rejecting European academic canons, Mancoba got
involved in a debate and a fight, which were not, and could
not be his. As the artist relates in his interview with
Obrist, yearning to be recognized as an artist, and looking
for “his brothers,” he moved to Paris, then the artistic
center of the world. Interned in a Nazi camp during WWII,
Mancoba moved to Denmark with his wife, the Danish artist
Sonja Ferlov, after his release. The two artists became part
of the Danish CoBrA (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam)
movement, which claimed an abstract orthodoxy. Feeling
66
ostracized by the group, Mancoba and Ferlov went back to
France, and relinquished their South-African and Danish
nationalities to become French citizens.
In Europe Mancoba gave up sculpting for painting
abstract and semi-abstract works. In Paris, he met his wife
and his “brothers.” The exiled South-African sculptor Gerard
Sekoto, and the French-Italian sculptor Alberto Giacometti
were two of his close friends (Obrist, 379). However,
engulfed into the Eurocentric modernist movement, Mancoba,
cut off from his roots, and lacking non-western artistic
references, was not able to create the synthesis between
Africa and Europe, he was yearning to.
In his interview with Obrist, Mancoba praised his mother
and the great influence she had on him. He pointed out that
she was a potter who created and fired her own earthenware
with the other women in her community. Yet, he said, “she
was not an artist” (Obrist, 373). Born four decades later,
El Anatsui, coming of age at the dawn of decolonization, was
able to create a powerful new art by observing and
integrating the indigenous crafts he saw around him. In one
67
interview, Anatsui states that “European artists go to
museums to see the works of their forefathers,” but for him
the living artisans around him “are my museums” (Art21 El
Anatsui Language and Symbols).
However, regarding contemporary non-western artists,
western encyclopedic museums are still clinging to their
Eurocentric grids. The MFA recognizes El Anatsui as a major
contemporary artist by using one of his works as its
centerpiece. Yet by placing the work in a thematic gallery
about “how the works are made,” The MFA places the emphasis
on the form rather than the content, and situates the work
out of context, among many other late twentieth and early
twentieth-first century works.
As Professor McClelland points out, the organization of
works through their formal characteristics, rather than their
context, is borrowed from the Revolutionary Louvre and has
become the standard procedure in museum curatorial practices.
The Louvre had two systems of organization: thematic, by
schools and styles and chronological (212-213).
68
In addition to the organization of the works into
thematic galleries, Rogers’ insistence on presenting the work
as a continuation to the past, further betrays his
Eurocentric bias. In his video presentation of the
contemporary art galleries, the MFA director compares
Anatsui’s work to a traditional Ghanaian kente weaving as if
the kente weavings were part of the past, when they are still
part of the present, albeit a faltering tradition (Ghana News
Agency).
Anatsui’s process is not about drawing from the past but
from the present, and from multiple, complex sources. Asked
at the end of the lecture at the MET, how he felt about his
works being shown in western museums, Anatsui said, “ there
is more to my works than kente weavings.” The next and final
question was by a museum docent. She told the artist that
during her guided tours, the viewers saw an African mask in
the weaving, and wondered whether representing a mask had
been part of the artist’s intention. Anatsui moved his head
backward, squinted at the screen, and said “Oh okay, I see it
69
now, well it is an abstract work, so people can see whatever
they want to see in it” (MetMedia).
While the MFA places Anatsui among other contemporary
artists, one of his works Between Earth and Heaven is in the
African art gallery at the MET, and the other, Dusasa II, was on
display in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries, but is
presently not on view. The work in the African Art gallery
is very well documented, while it is very challenging to find
any information about Dusasa II that seemed to have disappeared
from view after being one of the centerpieces of the Venice
biennial in 2007, and acquired by the MET a year later. The
New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) also owns two works by
Anatsui, Bleeding Takari II, created and donated to the museum in
2007, and Diaspora acquired the year of its creation in 2012,
which are also not on view (MoMA). Diaspora is in the Prints
Department. After enquiring, Katherine D. Alcauskas,
Collection Specialist, Drawings & Prints, at the MET,
explained in her e-mail that Diaspora did not fit with the
current exhibits of Toulouse Lautrec and Dubuffet. On the
other hand, a monumental work called Broken Bridge II, graced New
70
York City High Line from January to September 30, 2013
(Cotter; Olson Kundig Architects).
One of the great advantages of the contemporary
galleries at the MFA is the gentle way the museum introduces
its visitors to late twentieth, early twentieth first century
artists. The display of a work by El Anatsui as a
centerpiece might be an opening and an invitation to learn
more about the artist. Emphasizing the work of a contemporary
African artist represents a big shift in perspective.
Furthermore the work has been in place since September of
2011, a long time in comparison to the frequent turnover of
exhibits at the MET and the MoMA. Even though the whole
organization of the contemporary arts galleries still retains
its Eurocentrism.
On the other hand the ambiguous status of El Anatsui’s
works at the MET, reveals an even more Eurocentric
interpretation of the artist’s work. Placing his work in the
African art galleries and comparing it to “classical African
masterpieces” has several implications. While such a
comparison shows the artistic achievements of Africa, the
71
emphasis on ancient masterpieces reinforces the assumption
that good African art is ancient African art.
However if the work of Anatsui is at the same level of
“stunning beauty” as the ancient African art from Nigeria,
what happened to African art from its “decline” in the early
twentieth century, to its “revival” in the second decade of
the twenty first century? In addition to being compared to
classical masterpieces, the work is also linked to
traditional kente tapestry, so Anatsui’s work is both art and
craft. In western encyclopedic museums, El Anatsui, a highly
talented and innovative non-western artist, still has to fit
into a narrow Eurocentric grid.
72
Section III.
The Walrus in the Depths
The MFA, by using a work by an African artist as the
centerpiece of its contemporary art wing, is moving towards
inclusiveness. However, the display of one of Anatsui’s works
in the museum African art gallery at the MET shows how
challenging displaying and interpreting works by non-western
artists still can be for western encyclopedic museums. Such
is the case of a serpentine stone sculpture with removable
ivory walrus tusks by Inuit artist Nuna Parr, created in
1992.
The sculpture of the walrus is on display in the Native
North American art gallery situated next to the ancient Mayan
73
art galleries at the lower ground level of the Art of the
Americas Wing. The MFA label reads (see fig.7).
Contemporary artists have kept the ancient Inuit art of stone carving alive. Nuna Parr lives just below the Artic Circle and maintains a traditional livelihood of hunting and carving; his lively animal figures exploit the grain of the serpentine stone to lyrical effect. (MFA)
The MFA itself does not always display in its
contemporary art galleries, the works by artists labeled as
“contemporary.” The walrus is displayed and interpreted as a
piece of traditional Inuit art. However, traditional Inuit
art is a new form of art. It is based on older art forms,
modified to meet the western taste and concept of what
traditional Inuit art is. In his book, Inuit Art: A History,
published in 2000, Professor Richard C. Crandall from the
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Lake
Superior State University, Michigan, offers an exhaustive
survey of the history of Inuit Art.
74
Figure 7
Nuna Parr Walrus (1992)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Native North American Art Gallery
Source, photograph by Anne-Marie Delaunay-Danizio
According to Crandall, due to a combination of factors,
the recognition and development of Inuit art as a legitimate
art form as opposed to native craft began in 1948. One of
these factors was the vanishing, in the 1940s, of the Inuit
traditional way of life, which had already been destabilized
by trading with Europeans (whaling and fur trade), and
disease. Crandall writes “By the late 1940s trapping as a
75
way of life was also vanishing because of over-trapping and
changes in the south that decreased the value of the pelts of
many-fur bearing animals.” The life condition of the Inuit
was so harsh, that it became necessary to develop Inuit art
as an economic base. Developing and marketing Inuit art
“would allow the Inuit to survive in a contemporary, western
economic system,” and help them preserve their culture (62-
63).
A second factor was the urge for the Canadian government
to assert its cultural identity as distinctive from England
and the U.S.A by integrating Inuit art as part of its
cultural patrimony (65). The recognition and promotion of
Inuit carving as a legitimate art was also due to the
relentless effort of Canadian artist and writer James Houston
and of his wife Alma, combined with the involvement of the
Canadian Handicrafts Guild and of the Hudson Bay Company (70-
80).
While the late 1940s and early 1950s witnessed the
expansion of Inuit sculptures, the western market in large
part represented by James Houston, dictated the style and
76
motifs of the works. Crandall writes that in 1951, the artist
“Koperqualuk said that he carved walruses because he was paid
$6.50 each and could carve four in an afternoon and feed his
family for two weeks. However if he carved what he wanted,
he might spend two weeks on a carving and only receive $10 to
$15” (87).
James Houston nevertheless presented Inuit art as “an
original and uncorrupted art form. The art was original for
several reasons, including the use of primitive tools and
indigenous materials, the fact that no two pieces were alike,
the lack of art instruction” (86-87). Even though he was
often personally involved in improving the native artists
technique.
Crandall describes the Houstons as a courageous and
passionate pair, who braved the harshness of the artic and
lived among the Inuit, but the author also points out the
fact that Houston created and perpetuated the myth of a
spontaneous and uncorrupted Inuit art. In fact, by western
standards, the Inuit carvings were of unequal quality, and
Canadian dealers discarded the majority of them. Only a few
77
items were deemed worthy of the American and European markets
(80-90).
In addition, with different parties involved, the opinions
on the quality of the works differed. Crandall points out the
conflicts between Houston and Tinling, the director of the Hudson
Bay Company trading post at Povungnituk in the early 1950s,
regarding the works that could be kept, and the works that should
be discarded. As a result, the Inuit artists who needed to
satisfy western expectations in order to survive, must have been
confused about what was “good” and “bad” work (79-80). So, soon
after Inuit craft was recognized as art, selecting artworks for
the market was a challenge and a source of conflicts.
In late 1953, the Canadian government founded the
Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources
(DNANR). The DNANR created permanent settlements with western
schools and hospitals, to implement a 1939 Supreme Court
decision that “gave the Inuit the same rights as Canadian
Indians in education, health and welfare.” (Crandall 103-
104). However, settlements “destroyed much of the whole way
of life,” and partly because of the lack of western works
78
available and because of the spread of tuberculosis due to
the increase of population in close quarters, the Inuit
population in settlement became increasingly dependent on
welfare. The government soon encouraged the creation of
crafts centers and artist cooperatives, to create a new
source of income for the Inuit. The first cooperative was
the community craft center in Cape Dorset founded in 1956. As
a result, in addition to carving, a new form of art came to
the fore – Inuit Prints (103-105). The active involvement of
the Canadian government in Inuit art was both a form of
welfare and a way to assert the uniqueness of Canada cultural
identity.
For these reasons, Inuit art is widely represented in
Canadian museums, including western encyclopedic museums such
as the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (91). Moreover,
the 1999 creation of Nunavut, an independent territory in
Northern Canada, where eighty-two per cent of the population
is Inuit, further shows the Canadian government support of
indigenous cultures (Cultural Survival, web).
79
The situation is quite different for the Boston MFA. In
regard to the greater context of Inuit art, the display of
the sculpture of a walrus by Nuna Parr, seems like an
oversimplification and idealization of the work, and unlike
the case of the NGC, and its exhaustive Inuit art gallery,
the opening of a small permanent gallery of Native North
American art only occurred recently at the MFA.
The 1992 Walrus is a 2007 gift to the museum by Jan and
Lawrence Dorman who had purchased the work from the Gallerie Le
Chariot in Montreal, Canada. (MFA). Although the description
of the artist as “maintaining a traditional livelihood of
hunting and carving;” seems right, according to different
galleries websites (Spirit Wrestler Gallery; Inuit.net), the
assumption that “contemporary artists have kept the ancient
art of carving alive” (MFA label), reflects the early
idealistic representation of Inuit art by James Houston.
On one hand it is accurate to write, “contemporary
artists have kept the ancient art of carving alive” (MFA
label), on the other hand they did so because it was a matter
of survival for them, and in some case, like the case of Nuna
80
Parr, the income from their art, allows the artist to choose
their own way of life.
The walrus itself, lying on its back, seems to be
playfully ready to slide on the ice, and is indeed a lively
and moving artwork, although it would be dismissed as tourist
art, according to scholars like Hans Belting (Belting, 250).
According to the Gallerie le Chariot, which represents him, Nuna
Parr is still creating in 2014, sculptures of “polar bears,
walruses, human figures and craws” (Gallerie le Chariot).
Nuna Parr and El Anatsui were born around the same time
in 1949 and 1944 respectively, in opposite parts of the
world. In 2014, their works are on display in the same
museum, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A, in different
locations and in different departments. El Anatsui is
internationally acclaimed as a contemporary African artist,
and his work is the centerpiece of the contemporary art
galleries at the MFA. According to one source, Parr, is “the
most prolific and recognized Inuit artist alive today” and
another source mentions the sale of one of his works, titled
Dancing Bear, at a 2009 auction for $8,744
81
(Inuitsculptures.com; Mutualart.com). Yet, because of their
common non-western backgrounds and “primitive” roots,
according to western systems of classification, El Anatsui
and Parr’s works could also have been placed in the Arts of
Africa, Oceania and the Americas Wing at the MET. What now
separates the two works at the MFA is the divide between what
is defined as contemporary art and what is not.
82
Conclusion
The global contemporary art trend includes non-western
and minority artists, yet creates a new Eurocentric hierarchy
among artists according to the type of work they do. Belting
opposes the free, open system of biennials, to the rigid grid
of western art history in encyclopedic museums, and sees the
art market as an obstacle, preventing the “world to grow
together.”
According to British critic Stallabrass, the art world
is inextricably linked to global capitalism and forces
museums to follow the corporate model of entertainment
centers rather than public institutions. The author of
“Contemporary Art: a very Short Introduction” writes:
Throughout the 90s biennials and other art events were founded across the globe, while cities built new museums of contemporary art, or expanded old ones. The activities of these museums became steadily more commercial as they adopted corporate ideals, establishing alliances with businesses, bringing their products closer to commercial culture and modeling themselves less on libraries than shops and theme parks(10).
83
To Stallabrass, the global elite dominates the art
market, and the apparent diversity of contemporary art works
conceals a “different uniformity.” However the author is
surprised by the strength of non-western art within the
system of biennials (Stallabrass101; 3:am).
The two European scholars dismiss tourist art, because
tourist art is the sign of the exploitation of natives by
European colonists and tourists. However, such art has allowed
and still allows indigenous cultures to survive culturally and
economically. The ability to adapt, survive and express
themselves through art, and fight for their rights, resulted in
the better visibility of native artists in North American
museums.
The case of the MFA exemplifies how a specific museum
responds to the larger context of global changes. In its
contemporary galleries, the museum endorses the distribution
system of biennials by displaying works by internationally
recognized artists. However, its approach is both
conventional and discriminatory.
84
In an interview with critic Charles Giuliani, Malcolm
Rogers insisted on selecting artworks, which were as old as
the “oldest person in the room” and works that would stand
the test of time, aesthetically and conservationally, rather
than focusing on “cutting-edge and wet paint.” As a result,
the museum displays works by Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Frank
Stella, George Segal and Ellsworth Kelly, all white American
male artists from the 1960s and 1970s (Malcolm and Giuliani).
On the over hand, among the younger artists whose works
are on display, figure many women, like Palestinian refugee
Mona Hatoum, Columbian Doris Salcedo, American Kiki Smith and
Tara Donovan, and African-American Kara Walker. The MFA also
represents international and minority artists like the Indian
Anish Kapoor, African El Anatsui, and African-American
artist, Fred Wilson.
Mixing older white American male artists with a more
diversified group of artists might show how things are
changing, whether this was the original intention of the MFA
curators or not. The curatorial strategies insist on the
formal aspects of the works in thematic galleries with titles
85
such as How it’s made or Familiar-Altered, a traditional way to
focus on the form of the object rather than the context, yet
the succinct and clear labels respect the vision of the
artist, as the label on the work by El Anatsui shows.
The selection of a work by El-Anatsui as the centerpiece
of the contemporary art galleries further demonstrates the
museum’s subtle response to the issues of its times, while
keeping its integrity. The piece is striking, beautifully
crafted and it delivers a difficult message. With the
contemporary art galleries, the MFA managed to create a
smooth transition and compromise between older western values
and a greater openness to the complexities of the present
world.
Non-western artists, artists from minorities and female
artists, are better represented in the MFA contemporary art
galleries. Yet, contemporary indigenous artists are
conspicuously absent. However, the recent creation of a
Native North American gallery in the Arts of the Americas
Wing further proves that the museum is becoming more
inclusive. The combination of ancient art, tourist art from
86
the mid-nineteen century, and traditional contemporary art
like the serpentine stone sculpture of a walrus by a well
known Inuit artist, may represent a more holistic approach
and a greater sensitivity to the past and present of native
cultures.
In this way, the very modest gallery mirrors the efforts
of other Boston–area art and ethnographic museums like the
Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, and the Harvard Peabody
Museum. Exchanges between the MFA and the Harvard Peabody
museums happened in the past. In 1958, Perry T. Rathbone the
director of the MFA and John Otis Brew, the director of the
Harvard Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, worked
together to bridge the “divide between art and ethnography.”
This collaboration resulted in a joint exhibit at the MFA
titled “Masterpieces of Primitive Art.” There were plans for a long-
lasting collaboration between the two museums, but this
“arrangement lasted only about decade” (Lutz 25).
In this regard, the creation of a small gallery focused
on Native North American Art as a recent development at the
MFA, might rekindle the past cooperation between the MFA and
87
the Peabody museums. This would expand the visibility of
Native American artists at the MFA, give a research museum
like the Peabody more insights about the functioning of an
art museum, and further bridge the gap between the
artificially created distinctions of past and present, art
and craft, authentic and inauthentic art.
It would fulfill the mission of the MFA as an
institution which “celebrates diverse cultures and welcomes
new and broader constituencies, as a place in which to see
and to learn,” and which “stimulates in its visitors a sense
of pleasure, pride and discovery” by providing “aesthetic
challenge” and leading “to a greater cultural awareness and
discernment.” (MFA Mission Statement). Ideally, a fair
representation of the different cultures of the world should
be part of every museum’s mission.
Belting writes about the world “growing together.” This
phrase implies that the world should be growing at the same
pace. By thinking so, the author makes the same mistake that
western art historians and anthropologists have made,
thinking about the whole humanity as growing together in a
88
linear way towards progress. When will humanity be granted
the right not to grow at the same pace? When are we going to
understand that the basic global human right should be the
right of different people and different cultures to grow at
their own pace? There is no such thing as global homogeneity,
although there is one thing that scientists agree on, that is
the amazing homogeneity of the human species.
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95
