Errington

Errington’s article is very interesting because it really points out and categorizes what to me is perceived about “art.” This is difficult to see because I am from a Western culture where these criteria is understood and then learned. After reading this, it makes me realize our preconceived notions about what art “is” and “isn’t” are built subconsciously within us to some extent. This is true even of the public, for when you enter a museum containing “art,” everything in this space is framed and displayed, adding to the preciousness of it. These things often do fall into the “five fine arts” categories: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and dance—the first two being the most popular and “precious” forms of high art, if such a thing exists.

What saddens me, no matter how idealistic or romantic, is that pieces from other cultures have to fit a certain criteria for it to be collected and displayed. Primitive art needs to fit into our western notion of what art is in order for it be considered art. Masks were accepted and collected because they were 3D objects that could be displayed, like that of European sculpture.

The requirement for it is to be portable and durable, and therefore consumable as a commodity by collectors and museums is also slightly disturbing. These objects were considered to be primitive art as long as they were authentic, i.e. used in a ritual or in a ceremony, built by hand, and used in everyday life. It had to qualify as art by appropriation, which are pieces that are deemed as “art” by museums, not as art by intention, which are pieces that are made to be framed, displayed, and collected. After being deemed authentic, the pieces need to be portable in order for it to be sold, collected, and displayed.

These pieces, after meeting these two requirements, have to then be made of durable materials. If they are made of all soft materials, which in turn deteriorate and do not last over time, do become considered art at all and are not really even considered. Those made of both soft and hard materials are considered art after the soft materials have been removed. This process sometimes makes the pieces lose their meaning, especially those used in ritual, and become something else entirely to us. They are therefore not really representing this culture accurately to outside audiences, like the western museum-goers.

What really is disturbing me most though is that behind all this, and more broadly Western culture, especially the United States, is the need for it to be consumable and for it to have value. This need for it to be authentically used in that culture not for art’s sake is preposterous in some sense. The criteria that have been created makes sense in a consumer-driven society, like many in Western culture, but yet completely nonsensical. For us to only be able to deem these pieces, essentially “low art” in western views, art worthy of being displayed in Western museums, high art, is back-handed racism. This art is in authentic when consumed in this manner, it is not to appreciate the other culture and often its meaning is compromised when “becoming art.” That’s why the business of making art by intention to pass off as art by appropriation in Africa like that of what we saw in the film we watched last class has evolved. They have played by our rules in a sense to make money. Now the question is who really has the power in controlling and deeming what is art? The collectors and museum curators or those from primitive culture?

Errington

Primitive art was something that started at the beginning of the 20^th Century as a Western construct, but after some time a focus on what was authentic developed. At first, authenticity was dependent on if the culture was untouched by Western ideas and cultures. Art can be categorized into art by appropriation and art by intention. The former refers to different objects made into art during the times of the museums, while art by intention is art was meant to be purely aesthetic. Art has always been associated with collection, permanence, mobility, and durability. In the 18^th Century during the time of Kant, art was framed off from reality to show it was a representation of real life. Modern artists looked to primitive art for inspiration. Primitive art could be classified as symbolic or decorative, but it was always prized if it was associated with an unfamiliar ritual in Western terms. Everyday functional items were not considered primitive art because rarity was what was prized about the art form. After a while, primitive art’s authenticity relied on how much it looked like modern art, or it’s ‘formal qualities.’ Authentic primitive art now relies on a certain look, and if it would be something modern artists would look to. Now, ethnic (meaning non-Western) arts are popular. As modern art’s look changes, will primitive art change as fast as the look? Do museums determine what is authentic or do buyers of the art?

response to Errington

Shelly Errington's "What Became Authentic Primitive Art?" discusses the growing popularity of what is considered 'primitive art' in history, as well as what, for better or worse, is to be considered 'authentic.' Due to the fact that people in the West are fascinated with this so-called 'primitivism,' the trend and importance of gathering and collecting primitive forms of art grew significantly. With this trend came the controversy over what makes the art authentic or not. In relation to the film we watched in class, "In and Out of Africa" (Barbash and Taylor, 1993), the people who sold these works of art to the West realized the importance of the market and began to create a sort of 'new/old' art form, selling it as 'authentic,' and old. They even went as far as to weather down the primitive sculptures that they had just created from wood using mud, and root to give it an aged appearance, and making multiple copies of these art forms as a means of mass consumption for the white Westerners who then sold them in high-end galleries. It's interesting to me that the same African masks which Picasso painted, as seen in his painting, "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon," which was highly controversial, became an increasingly popular form of art, through what was considered to be cultural objects that had a certain significant purpose or use through the specific culture.


Errington discusses the two categories "art by appropriation...and art by intention." (203) The way in which people decided which objects belonged in a museum, and the idea that any form of primitive object could be displayed in a museum, and therefore, is authentic, primitive art, is very interesting. The idea of art by appropriation basically means that any work of art that is framed and hung in a gallery "becomes "art" by being framed." (207) As I mentioned before, as the Africans created the weathered appearance of new wooden sculptures to sell to the Westerners, is similar to the way in which, in the 1920s, art dealers practiced a similar approach of altering objects to create a specific authentic appearance, as they used to "strip African artifacts of their soft and fibrous parts, rendering them starkly "modern" looking and preserving or creating a particular aesthetic." (204) African objects, which at one point, had a purpose or significance in the given culture and environment, once exhibited in a museum becomes meaningless and merely decorative. The objects which were favored to be exhibited were mainly described as "ceremonial" (212), which downplays as well as completely ignores the true significance of the objects, which are misunderstood and underrated by the Westerners. People in the West were mystified by the objects of primitivism, therefore concluded and assumed that all of the art displayed carried some sort of spiritual or magical power, as well as superstitions. To me, Errington's article discusses how the West took African and Oceania objects, put them on display, categorized them and placed them in specific genres of "ethnic" art, and continued to fascinate and mystify people on a culture they knew nothing of, other than what they were being told to think was "primitive art," otherwise known as Non-Western artifacts labeled and misconstrued by the White, eager to collect and create new meanings for a new kind of art.