It would be difficult to ignore the precarious relationship between art, culture and politics. There is a certain sense of balance between them that ensure the ‘fair’ or ‘equitable’ operation of these establishments. Personally, I have seen and witnessed the direct impact of politics and commercialization on the art world. I worked in a large Toronto museum, where I worked directly under the curatorial staff; their responsibility is to organize and put together exhibitions or collections that enriches the gallery or museum. Sadly, museums in North America are not free nor are all of them open to the public, which turns the museum world into a money-centric institution. Curators work to create blockbuster exhibitions; ones that are heavily sponsored, ones that are heavily promoted, and ones that boast a large gift shop. This blockbuster exhibition is a double-edged sword.
Blockbusters: The Beginning of a New Museum Culture
I can personally attest to the impact that such exhibitions have on an audience; while I had always expressed a fondness for the art world, my infatuation quickly developed after visiting a Monet, Turner and Sisley exhibition at the Musee des Beaux Arts in Montreal; for many years I called the Impressionists my favorite painters, and familiarized myself with them. Of course, now through my studies, my tastes have changed and developed, but it is through the exhibition that my passion took full-fledged flight. While I have purchased, time and again, objects from a museum gift shop, I have to wonder just how far this commercialization of art will go. Can we truly say that we are promoting art by selling a Water Lilies umbrella? Or are we really bastardizing the idea of art, and its unique and original properties? Are we not, in many ways, turning art into mass-produced objects? On that note, is it proper for institutions to charge outlandish prices for reproductions in art history books? How can an art institution charge five dollars for a print of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and yet charge an author well over two hundred dollars for a small two by three inch print?
Those Who Get Left Behind Get...?
Perhaps my own personal opinion of blockbuster exhibits clouds my judgement; I feel that these blockbuster exhibits thrust specific artworks and genres into the public, whom are told that those specific works are the best the art wold has to offer. It isn’t because artists like Berthe Morisot were not good, it is because those who wrote about artists were biased, and mostly wrote about artists which appealed to their own tastes (not to mention the blatant sexism and racism that has impacted the art world and its history). It is through this thought process that museum collections take shape: the art generally appeals to the curator or to members of the board, and though there is some pressure by the academic community to present a varied and unbiased collection, it is inevitable that a curator would pick an art work that appeals to his or her personal taste rather than one that does not. The art that we see in museums and that are quoted as being part of the art world canon is not the only art from that time period. So while one can assume that there are numerous artists that have produced beautiful and accomplished works throughout the years, they have simply never been recognized as part of the canon or even acknowledged by the art world, and often times, when one tries to emend the holes in history, we often witness an unfortunate effigy, much like with Wifredo Lam’s masterpiece,The Jungle, being hung in the hallway that leads to the coat room of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He’s included. Partially. Almost. Not really. Ivan Karp and Corinne Kratz’ Reflections on the fate of Tippoo’s Tiger: Defining Cultures Through Public Display touches on this, noting that the way that museums chose to display artworks, artifacts and objects can greatly impact the cultural context of the object. There are two ways in which museums achieve this sense of otherness; either by exploiting the exoticism of an object, or by assimilating it and relating it to Western culture. Tony Bennett mentions the configuration of an exhibit as being a ‘spectacle’; it is condescending that mid-1900 exhibits feel the need to ‘dumb down’ the content in its presentation. I must interject and note that while I have been to countless museums before beginning my studies as a Specialist in Art and Culture (Curatorial strand), before my studies and subsequent acceptance into the ‘art world’ or in the ‘academic’ world, I had never read a curatorial statement or read a curatorial essay. Most catalogues do not offer very much insight into the art work.
No, No, You Won't Like That... Trust Us.
More recently, I was shocked at the state of the European Gallery at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. One specific room was painted red and the art works were displayed a la mode de ‘Salon’; the most shocking thing? None of the paintings have a label. In my first year of curatorial studies, I took a class that focused almost entirely on labels; a label is meant to be informative and not patronizing, it is meant to help the viewer gain insight and learn about the art work, a label is meant to help guide the viewer. As an art history student who, at the time, was fully immersed into European art, I was lost. I can not imagine how completely lost I would have been had I had little to no knowledge about European art.
This patronizing attitude is precisely what museums should avoid.
To claim that museums can not survive without gift shops, is, in fact, erroneous and a gross generalization. Most museums are funded and supported by private or corporate donations, or through government funding. In fact, the ICOM code of ethics addresses this with great interest; one of the first subjects that is broached is the ethical procedure of finances. So what is the purpose of these gift shops? Is it solely the trivialization of the museum objects? Are the ‘gifts’ merely gateways to the art world? Does this fabricated industrialism trivialize the culture that it is representing? Is that Water Lilies umbrella bastardizing french modern culture? Does a Kimono purchased from the Royal Ontario Museum gift shop represent an insulting appropriation of a culture and its traditions? These elements turn the processes of visiting a museum into a spectacle. It cheapens the culture that is being portrayed, and brings down the cultural significance and relevance to the same level as a piece of gum. It becomes disposable, dismissible, and in many ways ridicules the culture that these objects are meant to represent.
Exoticism and the Accurate Portrayal of Culture
What institutions like ICOM do, in theory, is set a standard by which all museums must adhere to. This creation of a institutional median is what transforms the museum into the 21st century. The code of ethics is as much as a means of protection for the establishments, as they recourse to the code of ethics (in association with UNESCO) whenever there is discussion of their actions. So then why are these gift shops not mentioned in the ICOM code of ethics? Are the gift shops separate from the institution? ICOM states:
4.2 Interpretation of Exhibits
Museums should ensure that the information they present in displays and exhibitions is well-founded, accurate and gives appropriate consideration to represented groups or beliefs.
The code of ethics delves greatly into cultural sensitivity and highlights important aspects such as provenance and cultural heritage. That being said, most of these markers are very loose and the only responsibility that a curator really has is to acknowledge that they feel that they have properly interpreted the points set forth by ICOM. Because, essentially, is this not what it boils down to? Personal interpretation? Where I don’t see an issue, another might, and where someone else doesn’t see an issue, I might. An accurate depiction of a culture is an incredibly hard feat, but remains one of the sole purposes of a curator and of an institution.
Historically, museums have been seen as means to showcase wealth; whether it be to display the riches of a particularly wealthy family, or flaunt a nation’s exoticism. The British Museum has, since its inception, been a model institution, one that most western establishments hope to mirror. It is worrisome, in many ways, that most museums are modeled off a wholly imperialist institution; one that saw no wrong, and gave itself the authority to rip from its root cultural treasures. Colonization and the industrial revolution enabled empires to pick and choose the best of other cultures, and to, in a way, enable their own riches.
The Elgin Marbles Plundering
The most famous case regarding museums, ethics, artifacts and culture would be the Elgin marbles. The classical Greek marbles were unceremoniously ripped from the Parthenon underneath the pretense that the Lord of Elgin, Thomas Bruce, had received permission to remove the marbles. This 18th century transgression is still widely debated, and so far, no conclusion has really been reached; it is the feeling that the Greeks were, undoubtedly, robbed of their cultural treasure, while others argue that had the
British Museum not taken in the collection, and conserved it over the past few centuries, the marbles would have surely fallen apart. Who is right or wrong in this situation? Do we favor the ones who cared for and preserved the marbles, the ones that made the marbles accessible for no charge to millions of people? Or do we favor the ones whose culture is responsible for these testaments of history? If Lord Elgin was given permission all those centuries ago, did he ask for permission to the right people? Were they in a position to grant such a request? Essentially, the British Museum has been able to base a large part of its success and patronage because of the Elgin marbles, and additionally, the cultural treasures of countless other cultures. Does this amalgamation of cultural theft trivialize the culture itself? Much like Karp and Kratz articulate in Reflections on the fate of Tippoo’s Tiger, the process of ‘stealing’ a culture and portraying it in a museum somehow makes it fictional. This altruistic portrayal of classical Greece does it no favors, and in more ways than one, sheds a very unflattering light on British society.
I believe that it is important to touch on Mieke Bal's exploration of museum presentations. Mieke Bal often encroaches upon the relation between history and tradition, culture and academia, and how these factors pull and shape the way that exhibitions are displayed. Often times, it is possible that academia is too closely entrenched in its interpretation and ideal of culture that it sometimes dismisses the idea of approaching non-academic sources. A member of a culture who belongs to the academic world may very well have a differentiating opinion on his or her culture than a member who is not an academic. The historical diction of tradition and an oral history, for example, will greatly vary. So which one is more accurate? How do we make the distinction and do we find a compromise?
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to discerning how a museum operates. While there are certain comities such as ICOM set up to help regulate and maintain a museum’s integrity, it is important to remember that there is generally no black and white answer to cultural ethics; the lines are blurred by the ethnography being portrayed or represented.
My Spoon is your Cultural Gold. Or Something.
What makes the exploration of museums so particular is the subject matter; the objects. Of course, it is important to question the role of the museum; they are meant to be records of culture and house art work, objects of cultural significance. Often times we have to wonder why certain things are being displayed in a museum. While for certain peoples, the aforementioned object might foreign, exotic, and unfamiliar, for others it is merely an object that they encounter on a day to day basis. With that in mind, how do we properly attribute it the right title? This also brings up the distinction that is made between Anthropologists, Art Historians and Historians. All three fields, while they may seem to be similar in theory, represent such vastly different fields, and they belong to specific museums. Does a fork really have a place in a museum? Is it offensive to display a fork from an ‘exotic’ country? Does it not come across as “Wow, they use forks? I thought they were savages? But wow, they are just like us!”?
The Post-Second World War art world shifted drastically, with importance being placed in the hands of contemporary museums and galleries, bypassing the traditional venues and embracing more of a postmodern practice. The greatest example would be the Abstract Expressionism movement, which was mainly advanced by Clement Greenberg. Mostly, Abstract Expressionism speaks of reclaiming art and appropriating it as a singular, independent identity. Though the Ab-Ex movement did not have a solid or written in stone ‘members list’, those who belonged to this modern art movement did often associate themselves with Greenberg, choosing to forgo the curator or the museum, and deal with an art critic. Despite being a movement of artists expressing their own political explorations through art, and despite being artists who singularly hoped to challenge the institution and to break tradition, much like the Impressionists did before them by forgoing the Salons, the Abstract Expressionists belonged to a government program (American committee for Cultural Freedom) whose intentions were to push a critical point of view of communism all the while promoting capitalism. Ironically, capitalism does not promote art as much as communism has, historically. In a bizarre way, Greenberg’s own chastising of Avant-garde art as being a resistance to culture produced by capitalist propaganda. So what does this mean? Is this an indication that there truly is no black and white in the art world, and that where there is money, there is opportunity, no matter how vehemently one opposes to the manifesto?
Voice of 'Fired'
Abstract Expressionism is seen as one of the most ‘elitist’ art movements, and in the 1990s, the Canadian National Gallery made the acquisition of a Barnett Newman painting. This painting was purchased by the National Gallery for 1.76 million dollars, a very large sum which was paid for in large by Canadian taxes sanctioned by the government. The problem with this acquisition was in parts the subject matter; as an Abstract Expressionist and Color Field art work, there is a sense that many people (Canadians) did not particularly enjoy or understand this art work, and many voiced that anyone could paint three stripes on a canvas, however in the global art world, such a painting greatly boosts the
Canadian National Gallery’s status. In order to contend with other large Museums such as the MOMA and the Tate, Canadian Museums often have to collect art works that are not Canadian art works. This, again, is part of the problem. The Canadian media cried wolf and ran a large feature- why are taxpayers funding such a purchase? Why this art work? It’s just a bunch of lines on a canvas!- in a admittedly bad move, the museum spoke out to the media saying that they wouldn’t bother explaining the reasoning behind the purchase of 'Voice of Fire' because the general public wouldn’t understand the purchase, Robert Murray, a Canadian artist and someone who worked with artist Newman was of the opinion that most people simply did not understand the painting, and asked “Should their opinions carry any weight?” in regards to those crying out about the seemingly expensive artwork. By debasing Canadians, he added fuel to the fire, making the general populace who were usually of the opinion that what the museum did with its money was its own business, suddenly furious. The artwork was not Canadian, it did not support the Canadian art scene, it did not speak to the people, nor did it particularly address the needs of the gallery. So should the Canadian National Gallery have purchased this art work? Instead of explaining the advantages of owning such an art work, the administration chose to live up to the elitist behavior often attributed to the art world, and further alienated its public. So here we have an art work whose ambiguous meanings bore the Canadian public, and who is presented to the public ‘as is’, with no attempt to explain the artwork to the visitors. This is what Anthony Alan Shelton mentions as paternalistic behavior, and the blatant subordination of the people who are viewing the artwork.
Insuring that an exhibition is culturally sound is one of the most important parts of curation, and while it can be challenging, it remains one of the most important responsibilities of museums and galleries. No matter how well versed one thinks they are with the specifics of a culture, consulting an important member of a community helps ensure a culturally sensitive exhibition, and one that does it justice.
