Generally, tribal art is used to commemorate ancestors, gods, and otherwise convey or even produce magic. However much outsiders may appreciate tribal art, they usually can't feel the links between the magic and the form. In less substantive ways, religious art is supposed to embody a form of magic, too, and that's what gave rise to the iconoclastic rejection of graven images, etc. I suspect that most Westerners don't feel or expect any magic from art but can realize that it is/was important to others, as when they view ancient and some medieval religious art.
In the era of global discoveries, let's say from about 1400-1800, Western adventurers came upon a lot of tribal art. I suppose it was authentic and magical to its owners but it was also carried back to Europe where it was often placed into collections and those "cabinets of wonder" and subject to fanciful speculation and even aesthetic appreciation. That split the work into two modes of understanding, one magical and tribal, and one fanciful and aesthetic. Some tribal art, like that of the Mic-Mac of Nova Scotia, was made expressly for outsiders as trade products. Their amazingly intricate and strongly designed porcupine quill work was carted back to France in the 17C and became collected by others into the 20C. A similar history exists for much American Southwest and Mexican pottery in that almost all of it is now made as collectible artworks. Even the ceremonial and "magical" sand paintings of the American Indians are mostly made for exhibit and as displays of cultural heritage, for others. Ditto Eskimo art. And so on. My point is that the original, adornment (status), and magical (healing and power) purposes of tribal art, one so embedded in the work, is now almost irrecoverable, not only by their makers but by everyone else as well. They become artworks in the Western sense and as vague reminders of what was once integral to a culture. The evolution of these objects from magic to aesthetic is so thorough -- from magical to trade products to works of art-- that even their makers, who regard themselves as professional career artists, can't recover their original purposes. At best they now make symbols of ancestral magic, sentimental myth narration, exactly like the modern sculptor who carves a statue of Christ without for a second believing that the work IS Christ or can produce miracles. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, November 10, 2009 9:38:30 AM Subject: Reading Dutton Chapter 4 : Thought Experiments In the second half of Chapter4, Dutton sets aside the anthropological evidence, and introduces some "purely imaginary thought experiments" around the question: "Could we imagine a set of aesthetic values in another culture - its aesthetic sensibility or aesthetic universe - that is unavailable to our aesthetic perception, no matter how hard we apply our mind to it" Might there exist in a foreign culture a whole genre of art tht we could not directly perceive as such except by being told by a cultural insider that it is art?" First, he relates the speculation offered by Arthur Danto concerning two hypothetical African tribes. They both make pots and baskets, but for the one tribe, only the pots are sacred, and for the other, only the baskets. When all that stuff is put on display in a museum of natural history, what if visitors cannot distinguish which objects are sacred (and therefore 'art') and which were purely utilitarian? What if even experts cannot make that distinction? To quote Danto, "a whole genre or tradition of tribal art is to our eyes aesthetically indistinguishable from another genre or tradition of tribal artifact" However, Dutton then asserts that "in point of fact, that a whole art tradition might in the real world be indiscernible from a utilitarian artifact seems to me about as likely as a monkey typing Hamlet" --- because it is so unlikely that "the potters would themselves be unable to distinguish their creations from the utilitarian artifacts of another tribe" (and Dutton confirms this from his own field work with Sepik wood carvers in New Guinea) But this just means that when "our eyes" includes the eyes of the original makers, the resulting conclusions will be different. Which is exactly the point that Dutton was trying to disprove! Then Dutton offers his own thought experiment, based on his travels throughout New Guinea , and asks us how unlikely it would be that a wood carving made with traditional tools for traditional purposes be indistinguishable from one made by a community that uses imported steel chisels to produce objects for sale at a nearby Club Med. And, yes, in that case, even a viewer who had never left Chicago could probably tell a difference if the pieces were placed side by side. But what if the same artisan makes some objects for ritual use and others for sale to tourists? Isn't that a likely scenario? Then, who could tell the difference? BTW -- I think this is the origin of many of the African pots shown in a large Chicago exhibit a few years ago. The pots were purchased by two collectors who traveled in the 1970's from one African marketplace to another -- some in big African cities, some in small towns. In order to keep these pots contextualized as primitive art, the names of the potters were not recorded -- although if the art museum really wanted to know them, I'm sure that they could still be found. Although, if they were found, the potters, instead of receiving recognition for their work, would be dismissed as inauthentic. Dutton concludes that "trained perception, the ability of tribal peoples themselves or see systematic differences between expressive art and utilitarian artifact - and the ability of the informed eyes of Westerners also to learn to perceive perceive differences - is fundamental" And this sets up his attack on Danto's claim that "interpretations are what constitute works" (or, as Saul would put it, "Diverse, linked texts") "The interpretation is not something outside the work; work and interpretation arise together in aesthetic consciousness" Dutton counters with "that these tribal objects are intended to amaze, amuse, shock, and enchant is part of the artistic interpretation that constitutes their very being as works of art... the actual constituting interpretations of real tribal artists normally entail perceptual distinctions" (unlike a Duchamp readymade) So "learning a primitive art genre is thus not a matter of acquiring knowledge of a cultural context... it is a matter of gaining cultural knowledge in order to see aesthetic qualities which have intentionally been placed in the objects to be seen. An obvious empirical corollary to all this would be.. that the objects which mean the most to a tribe will usually be the very ones in which the most perceivable content is packed.. and provide a more powerful visual experience" But what about all the junk-art that constitutes almost all of contemporary American Roman Catholic liturgical statuary? Even if it has been packed with all the meaning that 2000 years of Christianity could give it. Or -- if you're willing to look critically at "primitive art", the same could be said about most of it as well (and not just by me -- otherwise our art museums would likely have much larger displays of "primitive art") So while I join Dutton in rejecting "interpretations are what constitute works" (a self-serving claim made by professional interpreters) -- I would also recognize that an authentic cultural context is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the creation of a "powerful visual experience" And the eagerness to pursue, collect, discuss, and cherish such an experience, regardless of cultural content, is what sets modern Western culture -- or, at least a part of it -- apart from those other societies that "don't have our concept of art". ____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss Program Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/c?cp=W_d5ad34zw2NMtmCKjOnjgAAJz6c l_zTaptgNR5c8Mer1v9kAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEUgAAAAA=
