Errington

The concept of what is authentic primitive art is discussed in the Errington article. In this piece, Errington analyzes how the view of primitive art has significantly changed since the turn of the 20^th century. She distinguishes between the words 'primitive,' 'authentic,' and 'art.' While many pieces can be both authentic and primitive, they can in fact have little to no value as art. She then goes on to examine what is art and how we can qualify an object made for function as a piece of high art. Most primitive pieces that are considered art are art by appropriation, not made for display but to be used. Further along, Errington makes the point that art and collecting go hand and hand, and collectors look for pieces that are portable and durable. Because much primitive art is made of 'soft' materials or are quite large, their value as a commodity goes down. Also, the inferiority of primitive art and primitive cultures is implied because the Western world covets durable, long standing works of art. They are a sign of permanence, of a place in history. Therefore one qualification of authentic primitive art is that which can be transported and stored easily which severely limits the objects included in this category. Another thing that Errington noted was that much of primitive art is of a religious or ceremonial nature. She also discusses the use, or lack of use, of iconicity in primitive art.

The article concludes with Errington's summarization of high authentic primitive art. These are usually ritual objects, made of wood and ideally collected at the turn of the century. Interestingly this category includes works of art that look as if it could have influenced western artists like Picasso. I find this interesting because we are qualifying primitive art based on how it possibly impacted Western art. Errington thoroughly examined how primitive art is categorized, but I would have liked her to expand on the primitive art that could have influenced Western artists. Why is it that primitive art is only considered art because it looks similar to a Western artist's work? Again this brings up the notion that Western cultures are superior, that our art pieces must validate a primitive object in order for it to fall into the category of art.