Appiah articulates the fundamental difference between the postmodern and modern interpretations of African art, “for modernism, primitive art was to be judged by putatively universal aesthetic criteria” while the postmodernist believes that “African art should not be judged in terms of someone else’s traditional criteria.”[1] European modernists could not appreciate African art using the aesthetic values of the west until they appropriated African art in order to critique their own rationalized modernity. The modernist’s universal application of western aesthetic values seems invalid to the postmodernists for whom artwork could not be evaluated outside of its original context.
The postmodern interpretation views art objects of the other as an exchange between two cultures that establishes a discourse about identity and cultural biases. Yet there is still a problem with the postmodern interpretation because the art of the other is being used to uncover the past misinterpretations of the dominant culture without evaluating the art of the other as an art in its own right. Furthermore, the postmodernists prefer to judge a work of art using the values of the culture that produced it; however, as Hal Foster writes, “If it is true that we live today in a near-global economy, then a pure outside can no longer be presupposed.”[2] Africa or any other third-world country is not really the other, because Africa is not outside of the cultural reaches of the first world. The defining characteristic of this new interconnected global world is that ideology, culture, and industry is not limited by formal boundaries. Therefore life in Africa is conditioned by developments in Europe and the United States just as cultural developments in the first world are conditioned by a new understanding of the third world. To evaluate the art of the other becomes a reflexive exercise of self-evaluation. This trap that the postmodern interpretation succumbs to is similar to the modernist primitivist appropriation of the other in that both exploit the art of the other to evaluate the practices of the dominant culture instead of examining the art of the other within its own context to understand more about the other.
When Picasso came across the African masks and in 1907 first incorporated their aesthetic qualities into his work The Ladies of Avignon, he was guilty of what Foster would call “ethnographic self-fashioning.”[3] Meaning that Picasso did not understand the function of this foreign art object within its own society so he freely attempted to endow it with significance, a significance that was false. Picasso corroborated the African mask as a symbol for a more primordial state of being that was supposedly unmediated by rational culture and thus was a truer account of human nature. In doing so, Picasso learned nothing of the true purpose of the mask; instead he simply used the object to project his own feelings and values onto it as an oppositional symbol to rationalism. He was ignoring the fact that Africa was very much affected by the rational discourse of Europe. Africa was not a wholly separate, uncorrupted “other,” rather it was invaded by European powers, had continued cultural and economic contact with Europe and therefore was conditioned by Europe.
Appiah uses the Man on a Bicycle example to prove this relationship. European commodities like the bike had thoroughly infiltrated Africa and were thus not viewed as a foreign invention, a symbol of the West, but rather as an integral part of modern Africa. History has witnessed this cultural appropriation before, take for example, the horse which was not native to America, but now the cowboy on horseback is symbolic of America. When the horse first arrived with the Spanish it was certainly seen as foreign, the traditional transport of the European, but now the horse is a quintessentially American symbol. Although the horse originated elsewhere, American culture has appropriated it as an American symbol. Similarly, Africa has appropriated the bicycle as African and therefore to understand the African bicycle simply as an invasion of European culture is to ignore its everyday function in the lives of Africans.
Too often, the developed world forgets that the undeveloped world is not culturally stagnant. Older art objects are deemed to be more authentic because they supposedly reveal anthropological facts about the history of the other, however, this assumption ignores the fact that Africa is a current, living culture. Art objects have a short life in African culture just as the latest fashions of the modernized West also have a short period of applicability because the culture is constantly shifting. Therefore, it is ironic that the Western consumer of “other” art objects prefers what he deems to be a “traditional” piece over a modern piece when the modern piece is no less traditional than a “traditional” piece, but rather the modern piece has the potential to reveal significantly more about actual life in Africa. “Traditional” African art objects are frequently unused in Africa because they represent past figures and events, furthermore, if it wasn’t for Western demand, “traditional” art objects would not be produced in Africa. For the Africans contemporary art objects are traditional, they tell the story of Africa as those who now live there know it to be. Therefore, the Man on a Bicycle depicts a scene that is now traditionally African.
It’s important to point out that the majority of research being down on postcolonial art is being conducted by African-Americans, American-Indians, Japanese Americans, other individuals of mixed ethnicity, or by third-world nationals educated in the West. These individuals are products of globalization and the increasing mobility of people and accessibility of information that has created a hyper-awareness of national identity and international identity. In addition to national identity, a new transnational identity of individuals from multiple parts of the world has been created. The new transnational individual is conceived of as a hybrid of two cultures. Many of the scholars investigating postcolonial art are of this hybrid identity, and thus, are assumed to be more familiar with the works on an innate level because of their cultural heritage. Often these scholars are educated in the rationalized West even if they reside in the third world; therefore, the works of the other are being interpreted through a perspective that is not entirely western but certainly is not within the paradigm of the other either. These scholars act as cultural mediators in that they transmute Western values to the third world and vice-versa. It has become necessary that these scholars acknowledge the extent to which their identity is or is not a hybrid of western culture and the culture of the other. It is assumed by many that being of a hybrid identity equates to a greater understanding of the other. Arguments by scholars that don’t address their own cultural biases inevitably fail because their conclusions cannot be trusted if they are developed within a cultural paradigm that is strictly foreign from the culture within which the art object was created.
The consequences of the Western art historian’s desire for the art object of the other destroys any attempt to understand the object. For example, a headdress is a costume in Mali where it is used in ceremony, but to the art historian the headdress is sculpture and the ceremony is performance art.[4] In a Western museum, the headdress is displayed alone as an art object instead of as a component of a costume that corresponds with a culturally significant ceremony. Without any understanding of context it is impossible for the Western museum patron to understand the importance of the mask and to evaluate it on its own terms. In Africa the object had a distinct function, but now within the museum, the object is devalued to the African because it is useless as an independent object. The significance of the object is endowed through its use in ceremony, not by placing it behind glass and charging for admission. It makes sense to put a Western art piece in a museum because in the West art is akin to fetish, but in Mali there is no word for art and certainly no concept of art for arts sake.
Ironically, the Western desire to commodify African art contributes to the mystery of understanding it because the original purpose of the art object has been corrupted by the lack of context. Consider the Mali headdress, it was intended to be used during ritual dance as part of an elaborate character-driven costume, but now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[5] What this amounts to is a perversion of the art object when removed from its original context. In the west, the work is no longer valued by its usefulness as it was in Africa but rather by its monetary value, which is determined by the degree to which the art object satisfies western aesthetic tastes.
The exhibition “Primitivism” In 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern at MOMA was the first Western exhibition that displayed tribal art alongside modern masterpieces. The goal of the exhibition was to show the aesthetic influences that tribal art has had on the development of modern art. The show has been rightly criticized, however, because it portrayed tradition of tribal art as less significant than that of Western art. Tribal art was evaluated solely by its influence on Western art with no inclination to consider tribal art as an art in its own right. Therefore the ultimate significance of tribal art was determined by its ability to reinforce the aesthetic values of modern art. Through this relationship, tribal art was subjugated to modern art. But even more troublesome is the complete ignorance of cultural context when evaluating the “primitive” art object.
This lack of knowledge about the context of the art object voided the object of all significance. The lack of significance that the art object now held allowed its purpose to be easily corroborated so that it was only valued as an influence of modern art. Although the show intended to elevate the value of African art objects, the criteria by which the art objects were evaluated was false because in most cases the object was not intended as art, was decontextualized, partially represented, and misinterpreted as being pure, simple, and unmediated by academic tradition. The notion that the “primitive” art object was “pure” ignored the fact that these objects were mediated by their own cultural values just as much as Western art was mediated by Western society. Characterizing these art objects as simple is ignorant of the craftsmanship that created them as well as their purpose within their culture. And finally to assume that African art objects are unmediated by academic tradition is to refute the cross-cultural flow of information that is the defining feature of globalization. Surely the Man on a Bicycle piece is proof enough of this international dissemination of knowledge.
The postmodern response stresses that the art of the other must not be evaluated on the terms of the viewer but rather within the context that the work was created.[6] The primitivists were guilty of evaluating African art in European terms. That crucial mistake would ultimately lead to the downfall of the primitivists because they failed to understand the cultural significance of the aesthetic from which they appropriated and thus the aesthetic’s meaning for them was ultimately only self-reflective. The African aesthetic was only used within a western context to critique the west. Therefore, its use was severely limited by misunderstanding because no new truths could be found within the meaning of the objects aesthetic. However, as the postmodernists realized, if the object is evaluated within its own context, then it can elucidate truths about the other culture as well as their own cultural biases. The postmodern awareness of the other allow for a greater understanding of the self, while the modern ignorance of the other contributed to their own lack of understanding. It is the most ideal hope of the postmodern that this cycle of awareness and understanding will only multiply exponentially to reveal hidden truths and promote tolerance of the other. Yet in practice this is not what happened. For both the modern primitivists and the postmodernists have repeatedly held the art object of the other up as a mirror in which their own culture could be evaluated. The ignorance of the value of the art object within its own culture only contributes to an ignorance of the other.
Works Cited:
Appiah, Kwame, “Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Winter, 1991), pp. 336-357. Accessed 11/29/09. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343840
Bamana Peoples, Mali. Headdress. Wood, metal bands, 19th-20th century. Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/sfw/ho_1978.412.435.htm
Foster, Hal, “The Artist as Ethnographer?” pp. 302-307.
[1] Kwame Appiah, “Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Winter, 1991), P. 347. Accessed 11/29/09. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343840
[2] Hal Foster, “The Artist as Ethnographer?” P. 304.
[3] Foster, 304.
[4] Bamana Peoples, Mali. Headdress. Wood, metal bands, 19th-20th century. Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/sfw/ho_1978.412.435.htm
[5] Bamana Peoples, Mali. Headdress. Wood, metal bands, 19th-20th century. Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/sfw/ho_1978.412.435.htm
