» NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW art from the margins
NORTHWESTERN/ART/REV issue 6
SPRING 2011
northwesternartreview.org
NORTHWESTERN/ART/REVIEW
art from » the margins
BETSY FEUERSTEIN president betsy@u.northwestern.edu
ELISABETH RIVARD editor-in-chief
ONLINE & EDITORIAL STAFF
MADELINE AMOS, Featured Artist Editor madelineamos2013@u.northwestern.edu ANGELA WANG, Online Columnist
elisabethrivard2008@u.northwestern.edu
MORGAN KREHBIEL director of
communications
morgank@u.northwestern.edu
MEGAN LEE director of programming meganlee@u.northwestern.edu
MARNI BARTA director of finance marnibarta@gmail.com
MATTHEW KLUK web director
matthewkluk2012@u.northwestern.edu
angelawang2011@u.northwestern.edu
WILLA WOLFSON, Online Columnist willawolfson2013@u.northwestern.edu
MATTHEW ZEITLIN, Online Columnist
mattmagua90@gmail.com
NANCY DASILVA
nancy.dasilva@u.northwestern.edu
ELEANOR FISCHER
eleanorfisher2012@u.northwestern.edu
ERIN KIM
erinkim2013@u.northwestern.edu
SAMANTHA OFFSAY
samanthaoffsay2013@u.northwestern.edu
CAMILLE REYES
camillereyes@aol.com
Jeffrey Dziedzic
SAMUEL PAPE web director
jeffreydziedzic2007@u.northwestern.edu
samuelpape2013@u.northwestern.edu
DESIGN
CHRISTOPHER ADAMSON
christopher@polymathicmedia.com
MARCY CAPRON, Web NAR is a non-commercial journal published by students at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Images are copyright their respective owners, and from ARTstor.org and used within their Terms and Conditions. Written material is © 2010, all rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
marcy@polymathicmedia.com
art history department advisor
PROFESSOR CHRISTINA NORMORE art theory and practice department advisor
PROFESSOR LANE RELYEA
Âť NAR
is a student-produced journal based at Northwestern University dedicated to publishing undergraduate papers on art history and contemporary art trends. If you are interested in submitting a research paper or art review for publication in the journal, please contact our editor-in-chief at elisabethrivard2008@u. northwestern.edu. If you are an undergraduate at any institute of higher education and interested in contributing in other ways, please contact the president at betsy@u.northwestern.edu.
from the editor art from the margins
F
or hundreds of years, a number of conventions have shaped and controlled artistic production, from religious edicts, to guild regulations, to patronage. Thus, untold works of art created by those outside of the mainstream have never entered our classrooms or museums. Although the modern art world has come to increasingly embrace artists and subject matter from the fringes of society, the phenomenon of outsider art endures in our own time. The Spring 2011 issue of the Northwestern Art Review, “Art from the Margins” seeks to identify those individuals and topics in art history, and bring them into conversation, from Judith Leyster’s portraits as a female artist in the Dutch Golden Age, to the outsider aesthetics and politics of Argentine geometric abstract artists. Whether historical or contemporary, these essays reveal that the work of artists at the margins of society introduce numerous opportunities for discussion and debate. To stimulate this kind of dialogue is a goal central to the Northwestern Art Review as an organization and a publication. On behalf of the Northwestern Art Review, I would like to thank the Weinberg College of
Arts and Sciences, the Office of the Provost, the Northwestern University Art History Department, especially NAR advisor Christina Normore and Christina Kiaer, the Director of Undergraduate Studies. I would also like to thank the Northwestern University Department of Art Theory and Practice, especially NAR advisor Lane Relyea. In addition we are grateful for the support of the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, and look forward to new opportunities for collaboration in the future. Last but certainly not least, many thanks to our graphic designer, Christopher Adamson, and our Webmaster Marcy Capron. As a newcomer to the Northwestern Art Review, I cannot thank Margaret M.C. Whitesides enough for her guidance in my transition to the role of Editor-in-Chief. I would also like to thank current Publisher Betsy Feuerstein for her leadership, and the dedicated members of the Executive Board. In addition, I am so fortunate to work with a wonderful, talented editorial staff, including Jeffrey Dziedzic, Nancy DaSilva, Eleanor Fisher, Erin Kim, and Samantha Offsay. It is a genuine passion for art that drives each of these
members of the Northwestern Art Review towards encouraging both scholarship and involvement in the arts on campus. I would also like to extend thanks to each of the students across the nation who submitted their work to the Northwestern Art Review this spring. These essays ensure that the Northwestern Art Review can continue to serve as a forum for discussion and engagement with art among students. I look forward to discovering what the Fall 2011 submissions have to offer.
Elisabeth Rivard may 2011 Evanston, IL
table of contents 1on»
perspectives early chinese p h o t o g r a p h s of courtesans
o l y m p i a’ s oK d y10 s s e y T , by
elly
ang page
2political » the
intrinsically nature of abstract geometric art
in K by
ari
argentina
R ayner, page 22
3feminine » by
Sarah Schneider, page 34
4speaks » jimmie in present
a
touch durham the tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear uS nB d e, r44 w e a r
by
ophie
uonomo page
NOTES, page 58
page
10
page
22
page
34
page
44
Perspectives on Early
chinese photographs of courtesans »
Olympia’s Odyssey by
Kelly c. tang
university of california
- los angeles
he courtesan in art history has come a long way. An enduringly alluring subject, her persistent presence in the visual culture of the East and the West indicates a near universal fascination with her form. Between her head and feet is an expanse that has become a zone of contradictions, curiosities, and controversies.
T
»
chinese woman at rest — Liou-Seu
As a part of her appeal, she defies interpretive clarity. Chinese courtesan photographs from the period of the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries remain especially mysterious and enigmatic. Existing scholarship has demonstrated a tendency to group courtesan images in a hodgepodge of bride portraits, scenes of domestic life, and documentary evidence of footbinding.1 To make apparent the unique interpretive possibilities of courtesan photographs, this paper discusses one particular type of courtesan photograph that deserves further analysis: the reclining woman of leisure. An unidentified, unattributed, and tentatively dated photograph of a Chinese woman, assumed to be a courtesan, who poses reclining on a couch serves as the intersection of discussion on two other photographs and a painting of the same subject. Based on these comparisons, it becomes clear that the photographs func10
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tioned as emblems of the courtesans’ chameleon sexuality, one that held broad appeal for audiences near and far. The intertwining of empowerment and exploitation in the reclining pose of these selections constructs a more nuanced view of women during this period and a better understanding of a compelling but understudied photograph. In order to establish the reclining woman of leisure as a type, it is necessary to explicate the precise components of her posture and the concrete cues of her comfort. For this endeavor, it is helpful to look at a 1910 picture of a woman entitled Opium Smoker. This photograph originated from a private album belonging to collector Paul Fleury, now in the Getty Research Institute collections. Her radically foreshortened form emphasizes her horizontal orientation and reduces the composition of her body to the indistinct polygons of her ornately embroidered apparel. Downwardly sloping lines of
relaxation, languor, and quietude characterize these polygons, and segment her body into smaller, more precious proportions. The obvious attention paid to her head-to-toe appearance belies the casual gesture of her bent wrist holding a slender, flute-like pipe. This flute-pipe, perhaps a playful allusion to the female musicians of the imperial court, tilts seductively toward her mouth. Hanging scrolls depicting flowers frame her elaborate headdress, a soft lumbar pillow echoes her reclining form, and an elegant latticed panel completes the opulent interior. Altogether, one can identify a strong association between the reclining female and unrestrained, unapologetic decadence. Opium thematically heightens the perception of wanton pleasureseeking, and its harmful, addictive effects, which were widely known at this point, are literally out of the picture. The Fleury photograph is unrepentantly seductive. To assiduously ascertain the power of this photograph’s formal language is to begin to
— A nonymous c.1875
courtesan (?)
perspectives on early chinese photographs of courtesans:
olympia’s odyssey
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perspectives on early chinese photographs of courtesans:
olympia’s odyssey
articulate the charms of the courtesan, which adhere to the same tradition, albeit with intriguing revisions and sources. A postcard entitled Chinese woman at rest by Liou-Seu from Régine Thiriez collection similarly plays on the vocabulary of the reclining woman of leisure. Though opium is not included in this image, the abundance of plant life and embellished ceramic pots is an explicit indicator of material excess. Because Chinese porcelain was a highly coveted commodity in the West, the foreign viewer would likely have found this display eye-catching, exotic, and extravagant. Interestingly, there are eight potted plants surrounding the reclining woman. While a possible connection to Chinese numerology is attractive, it is more likely that the artist intended simply to surround her with a large number of plants. With these plants, it would be easy to evoke the pleasures of the garden, which
would likely have appealed to a Chinese audience. It is also significant to consider Chinese viewers because studios also entertained Chinese clientele. While the French and English captions of this photograph confirm that the image circulated among French-speaking and English-speaking viewers in China and abroad, an absent Chinese caption does not mean that the photograph never made its way into the hands of Chinese viewers. The caption is also inadequate in describing the subtleties of the picture, as “Chinese woman at rest” unsatisfactorily glosses over the intricacies of the image. This photograph demonstrates a case in which “we should not blindly trust the label or caption of a photographic print, especially when it appears as a general description lacking historical specificity.”2 Specificity is precisely what the photograph yearns for. If a picture is worth a thousand words, which words
belong to this photograph? Central to the photograph’s composition are the model’s playful, tantalizingly crossed legs. Highly suggestive, her legs entice the viewer in a state of potential uncrossing. The legs grant tentative access to her body, even as she tries to coquettishly hide herself by sliding her hands in between the folds of fabric. Richly patterned, the fabric invites the eye to wander the peaks and recesses of her body and discover a piece of cloth that curves over her thigh and through her legs before draping languidly on the edge of the couch. Her legs, crossed in a “daring or challenging way,” and the fabric, strategically positioned to titillate the viewer even further, make the sexual subtext of the photograph explicit.3 Further suggestions of her sexuality come from the stuffed cat, deliberately placed at the end of the sofa. For the Chinese viewer, cats would have likely connoted courtly luxury. Cats,
playful and entertaining, were often depicted in Chinese paintings and especially in colorful court productions. A cursory glance at the painted background of the photograph reveals that there exists an evocation of the idyllic atmosphere of the imperial compound. A small cat certainly contributes to this display. On the other hand, cats are a well-known symbol of lust and promiscuity in the Western art tradition, and the title’s lack of direct reference to the cat might have been perceived as a politely humorous comment on the woman’s occupation. A similar series of attributes can be found in an infamous French painting. Edouard Manet’s Olympia of 1863 startled the art community with its unrepentant candor about Olympia’s profession, its bold, near-reckless appropriation from the art historical canon, and its realistic rendering of the female body. Primary sources from the time clearly demonstrate the extent 14
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to which the painting was written about, parodied, and shared. Throughout Europe, viewers simultaneously lauded the painting for its refreshing take on an ancient subject, and derided the work for its lack of artistic and thematic polish. In Olympia, writers saw “some kind of indeterminacy in the image: a body on a bed, evidently sexed and sexual…they talked... of violence done to the body, of its physical uncleanliness, and of a general air of death and decomposition.”4 Olympia shocked not because the subject was a prostitute, but because of the evidence of prostitution on her body, the wear and tear of modernity’s licentious pleasures that overwhelmed acceptable bourgeois sensibilities. As for the cat in Olympia, Manet clearly quotes Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) in which a small dog curls up near the woman’s feet. With its arched back, dark fur, and glowing, sinister eyes, Olympia’s cat suggests the less savory side of
modernity’s taste for sex. Manet’s replacement of the dog, a symbol of fidelity, with a cat, a symbol of lust and promiscuity, is another aspect of his reinterpretation of the conventions for depicting nudes at the time. Long acquainted with the presence of odalisques and courtesans in art, Western viewers could not identify Olympia’s connection to mythological canon nor could they find the nonconfrontational sensuality that permeated the academic style of painting nudes at the time. This new, uncomfortable intimacy with a subject that, in the social order of the 1860s, was “formerly confined to the edges of society,” pointed to the reality that prostitutes were “making the city over in their image,” and that “the difference between the middle and the margin of the social order [was becoming] blurred.”5 The indistinguishable nature of the painting connected Olympia to early photographs of Chinese courtesans, most likely as a source for Western viewers to interpret them. Courte-
olympia
perspectives on early chinese photographs of courtesans:
olympia’s odyssey
— Edouard Manet 1863
san photographs, like the one clothed courtesans, it necessary mentioned earlier, exemplified a to recall that it was not the nanew stage of modernity in which kedness of her body that startled the edges of the world, including viewers, but the forwardness of distant locations like China and her nudity in evoking the physiIndia, were suddenly becom- cal traces of prostitution. In esing intertwined with European sence, viewers were accustomed centers through economic and to nudes with bodies, pliant and diplomatic interactions. While accessible to the eye’s exploitaOlympia displays a nude figure tion. With Olympia, Manet preand all the photographs depict sented an empowered nude that 16
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made difficult the indulgent consumption of her flesh. Though viewers likely had Olympia in mind when viewing photographs like Chinese woman at rest or the similarly unattributed photograph of a courtesan, without further analysis of primary sources from the period, it is impossible to know whether or not Olympia made waves in photography and art circles in China,
perspectives on early chinese photographs of courtesans:
olympia’s odyssey
or whether Westerners abroad brought with them the painting’s influence at the turn of the century. However, considering the extent of the growing international communication network at the time, this does not appear to be improbable. The early photographs of courtesans recall the visual language of Olympia, which is ultimately a language that is as
old as Western painting. Olym- mation from the unattributed pia’s reclining form, flowers in courtesan photograph. her hair and around her body, Like Olympia, this photomeaningful placement of hands graph of a young Chinese womand legs, and outward gaze are an is balanced and uses vertical easily analogous in both com- lines as a coordinating scheme. position and content to early The vertical lines highlight imChinese courtesan photographs. portant elements of the photoUnderstanding Olympia and graph. In Olympia, the guarding the “reclining woman of leisure” of her genitalia is an exercise of photographic type is essential her control whereas in the courfor gleaning the desired infor- tesan photograph, her face and
feet are the foci of her beauty. Her pleasantly rounded face with perfectly symmetrical features and her diminutive, dainty feet are displayed on the couch as attributes of prominence. In fact, like the ceramics on the tasseled table in the background, she is on display, waiting to be used. It is the largely promotional tone of the photograph from the drapery that opens up to reveal the scene, the placement of objects on stands to entice the eye that suggests that the photograph, like Chinese woman at rest, has the
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elements of a “keepsake which the courtesan presented to her clients... a means of self-promotion.”6 To maximize exposure and profits, the photograph of the courtesan is ambiguous and aims to entice different tastes. Following this logic, the Chinese photograph of the courtesan conveys infinite sexual possibilities without exposing the female body, choosing to pique the imagination. In Chinese woman at rest, the intricate brocade of her clothes encourages the eye to wander around
her body. A similar strategy is implemented with the unknown courtesan, except her garments are left relatively unadorned. Like a blank canvas, they invite the viewer to create and to fantasize. The interplay of ambiguity and clarity lend the image its apparent tension between empowerment and exploitation. For both the Western and Chinese viewer of the image, the courtesan’s invitation would have been well understood. Thus, Grace Lau is incorrect in stating that such “clues would likely escape the Western collector.”7 Considering the West’s literacy in artistic representations of courtesans and nudes, as well as a recent awareness of Manet’s reinvigoration of the subject, the Western collector would have been aware of the sexual undertones in such photographs. This conclusion transforms the present understanding of these works because it allows for greater flexibility in considering how they were viewed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than endlessly
perspectives on early chinese photographs of courtesans:
olympia’s odyssey
assuming Westerners or local Chinese as the intended viewers, entertaining the possibility that both audiences viewed such images yields interesting and productive results. Scholarship on early Chinese photography is still sparse, and there remains considerable room to discuss the nature of the interactions between China and the West. With these early Chinese photographs of courtesans, grouping the images with random collections of bride and ancestor portraits is simply unsatisfactory. By establishing the reclining woman of leisure as a motif, translating this motif into the courtesan framework, and connecting courtesans to a nineteenth century precedent, the unattributed photograph of the courtesan is partially demystified. Though much is still missing from the historical record in determining precise details about many of these photographs, the images themselves have much
to reveal. In other words, what is left unsaid can present many opportunities for interpretation and comparison. As with any odyssey, oftentimes the end is just another beginning. Âť NAR
abstract geometric art the intrinsically political nature of
in argentina by
kari rayner
northwestern university
he publication of the review Arturo in Buenos Aires in the summer of 1944 marked a turning point in Argentine art history and established a spirit of renewal. Its ideology became the basis for the philosophies of the subsequently forming artistic groups of Arte Concreto-Invencion Asociacion, the MadĂ, and Perceptismo.
T
Âť
— Rhod Rothfuss 1946
Madí Superstructure
groups took place primarily through the written word, and “only after 1946 did a coherent visual style begin to emerge.”1 Each of these movements can broadly be labeled as geometric abstraction, with shared commitments to non-figuration, invention, and experimentation. They rejected traditional art and, while not claiming political leanings,
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professed art to have a social function. Nevertheless, to isolate artistic developments in Argentina from the historical events surrounding them, expressly the election of Juan Domingo Perón in 1947 and the outbreak of the Cold War in the same year, or to dismiss them as unrelated to the volatile circumstances within the country and around the
world would be to discount the influences of a number of powers which promoted different forms of representation. The efforts of Arte Concreto-Invencion Asociacion, the Madí, and Perceptismo must be understood in this context. The form taken by their art unavoidably associates or disassociates these groups from the aesthetic of European art, the Argentine government, the United States, or the Soviet Union. Though the artistic production in Argentina during the regime of Juan Domingo Perón was not explicitly opposed to the government and indeed seemed to share several of its goals, the groups of artists that existed during this time followed a political agenda that conflicted with Peronism, responded to the events of the Cold War, and can be discerned from their essays and works of art. Although the geometric abstract movement did not overtly ascribe to a political stance, it demonstrated an acknowledgement of Marxism in its publications. Arturo proclaims,
the intrinsically political nature of
abstract geometic art in argentina “INVENTION. Of any thing; of any act; myth; through pure games; through pure sense of creation: eternity. FUNCTION,” and points to Marxism as a determining factor in the birth of abstraction in Argentina.2 Marxism provided a material, functional, and social model for these artists to follow. Furthermore, the statutes of the Asociación Arte Concreto declared the Soviet Union its ally, and while this status quickly changed, ideas regarding harmony and class equality remained integral to its philosophy.3 A description of the founding of the Madí, moreover, states: “We were a group of people who could be broadly defined as leftists, but only ideologically and not in the sense of being militants. We had all embraced Marx with enthusiasm and without preconditions, but we were not Marxists in the normal sense of the term. Rather we were idealists who were at that moment searching for a theory.”4 While
this passage attempts to deny the existence of an actively political component to its endeavors, the Madí’s function as a political organization often overshadowed its artistic production. The distribution of manifesto-like flyers demonstrated an aspiration to become a provocative presence, while “the Madí artists seemed relatively unconcerned with the actual works being produced, being much more interested in organizing events and publishing declarations.”5 The activities of this group of artists undermined its claims of political neutrality. Juan Domingo Perón’s presidency, on the other hand, combined elements of populism, unionism, fascism, and militarism: Perón took the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, in particular, as his role model. In its approach to art, the Peronist regime was similar to Nazi Germany due to an intolerance for aesthetic innovation. Though abstraction was not a new concept
to Argentine art, the election of Perón precipitated the appointment of unsympathetic individuals into positions of power and the development of governmental policies which sought, especially in the early years of the regime, to control the production and viewing of art in Argentina and to suppress tendencies towards abstraction. The Peronist government introduced regulations in 1946 involving the National Salon and the prescription of themes to the work submitted. Specifically, “the grand prizes for painting and for sculpture were renamed for the ‘president of the Argentine Nation’ and, in addition, ministerial prizes were created in order to provide the offices of each official ministry with works of art that corresponded to their respective functions.”6 The National Salon remained a space at the center of the dispute between the government and artists for almost the entirety of Perón’s regime.
Additionally, the Minister of Culture Oscar Ivanissevich was openly and vehemently opposed to abstract art, leading the campaign against the Argentine avant-garde. In a speech denouncing the modernist aesthetic, he used language similar to that of Hitler’s speech inaugurating the “Great Exhibition of German Art.” He related these works to moral degeneracy and utilized a set of medical metaphors to describe the inadmissible blight that, to him, was abstract art, comparing it to a tumor of society.7 Perón greatly valued Ivanissevich, and it is likely that he allowed him a great deal of freedom in his dealings as Minister of Culture. However, Perón’s relative uninvolvement and dependence on the interests of specific agencies meant that internal discrepancies within his government regarding an attitude towards art were not entirely resolved. While Ivanissevich “was attacking abstract art, other officials, such as Ig24
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nacio Pirovano, the director of the Museo de Arte Decorativo, were defending it and even collecting it.”8 The censorship of art in Argentina by the government in comparison to that of Nazi Germany was, then, similar in its beliefs but was enforced on a much smaller scale. Though Peronism and the geometric abstract artists occupied diametrically opposite ends of the political spectrum, they also shared some of the same goals. The Peronist administration and geometric abstract artists both emphasized ideas of unity and classlessness, but with different underlying motivations and the promotion of different aesthetics. The writings of these groups of artists during the regime advocated for harmony across society and for a universal language in art. Their approach was essentially humanist. The Inventionist Manifesto, published in an exhibition brochure in March of 1946, states: “Down with art which reinforces our dif-
ferences. We favor an art which serves, from its own sphere, the new union which is arising in the world… down with all elite art, we favor a collective art.”9 A critical point is that these artists favored a “world” union, rather than a national union, speaking to a greater interest in all of humanity and not solely the population of Argentina. The Madí proposed a similar ambition, with its prominent leader Gyula Kosice strongly supporting a philosophy of art that served society. Kosice wrote of the founding of Madí in 1979: “We believed in totally free expression in the political and social realm, in a world where all forms of exploitation of man by man had been eliminated.”10 Eliminating “exploitation of man by man” seems to speak to the dissolution of class hierarchy and social structure and concurs with Peronist aims. However, advocating a freedom of political and social expression must inherently oppose a one-dimensional or restricted aesthetic as encouraged by Peronism. Perón held more national-
the intrinsically political nature of
abstract geometic art in argentina istic goals and pledged to unify the country by establishing egalitarianism and social harmony. One of the ways he did so was by establishing an alliance with rural and urban workers and promoting a rising folklore movement. Doing so transcended political and social divides, as not only the working class but also the urban middle class and elites embraced this culture. The generation of Argentines raised during his regime learned that the rural culture constituted “the authentic manifestation of Argentine nationality.”11 While these initiatives supported plebian Argentina and created a national community, Peronism also celebrated the many ethnic groups of Argentina. Though it never materialized, discussion of a proposed Monument to the “Descamisado,” or “shirtless” plebian workers of Argentina, centered on racial harmony, as Perón suggested the inclusion of images of Indians, colonial peas-
ants, gauchos, and immigrants.12 This monument typifies the government’s methods of appealing to varied demographics in order
to enlarge its civilian constituency and to promote unity. Perón explored many other avenues to demonstrate that he
— Numa Ayrinhac 1948
Juan Domingo Perón y Eva Duarte de Perón
Evita Perón was of and for the people, and he skillfully manipulated the circumstances of his time, because “the 1920s and 1930s saw the explosion in Argentina of mass culture on an unprecedented scale: it was in this period that the ra26
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dio, the cinema, spectator sports, and mass-circulation journalism transformed daily life.”13 Perón exploited this recent expansion of mass culture and expropriated these channels of communication, making extensive use
— Numa Ayrinhac 1951 of the radio, cinema, and newspapers for the dissemination of propaganda, imposing censorship, and cultivating ties to celebrities. He fostered the support of institutions such as the army, academia, and the church, while at the same time, affiliating
the intrinsically political nature of
abstract geometic art in argentina himself with the proletariat with his lowbrow language and use of porteño slang. Additionally, Eva Perón, Juan’s second wife, was critical to his propaganda campaign. She was essential in maintaining relationships with the unions and women’s groups. Eva Peron also took a large role in public ceremonies including speeches, parades, concerts, contests, and beauty pageants, which were “popular celebrations of what workers perceived as a national rebirth and deep transformation of the country’s social structures.”14 Eva’s most important role, however, was as an icon of Peronism. With her modest upbringing and subsequent ascension to prominence, she became a symbol of social mobility and success. Perón was also conscious of his and Eva’s attractiveness, and exploited it in order to appeal to the masses and solidify his power as a demagogue. An image such as Numa Ayrinhac’s painting Juan
Domingo Perón y Eva Duarte de Perón conveys glamour, sophistication, wealth, and charisma by means of their poses, dress, and environment. These idealized images surrounding the Peróns precipitated the development of a personality cult and portrayed the couple as infallible, heroic, and divine figures. In her memoirs, Eva describes her husband as possessing Christ-like qualities, and overt references to Catholic iconography such as halos or saintly attributes in the propaganda images of Eva similarly ascribe godlike qualities to her.15 Another painting by Ayrinhac from 1951, Evita Perón, is an ideal example of an image utilizing symbolic references. Eva’s three-quarter pose and distant gaze follow conventions of aristocratic portraiture, while her placement in front of mountains emphasizes her connection to the land and its people. The glowing sky points to the dawning of a new age in Argentina, and the
arc of sunlight behind her head gives the effect of a faint halo. These types of images not only demonstrate the Perón connection to and support of Catholicism, but also speak to the use of simple metaphor to influence the viewer. It is this type of illusionistic representation that the geometric abstract artists denounced. Their rejection of traditionalism related to an effort to reach a greater reality than that afforded by figuration. With that aim, the frame of the canvas became an important component to be manipulated and a way for artists to subvert its traditional use as a window into reality. Two artists in particular who were originally from the Arturo group and held these aims were Carmelo Arden Quin and Rhod Rothfuss. An example of a work that complicates traditional notions of the frame is Rothfuss’ Madí Superstructure from 1946. This work blurs the mediums of sculpture
and painting, while its irregular frame incorporates the wall as part of the piece. This type of abstract artwork dissociated artists like Quin and Rothfuss from image production that functioned as Peronist propaganda. The philosophical writings of geometric abstract artists also indirectly criticize representations of Juan and Eva Perón relating to the cult of the personality. These images of the Peróns may unquestionably be relegated to the realm of kitsch, and they were thusly treated as such by serious artists. Designed for mass consumption, they functioned as propaganda and transformed the Perón couple into cultural icons. The predictable aesthetic of these images evinces a valuing of beauty and prestige. It is this exaltation of beauty in particular that was protested. The Inventionist Manifesto declared: “considerations based on the nature of beauty have lost their reason for being. The metaphysics of beauty have died of ex28
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haustion, to be replaced by the physics of beauty.”16 For these reasons, the aforementioned artist Numa Ayrinhac found himself delegitimized by the subject of his paintings. His work “was not highly regarded in the art world. It would be very difficult for this type of art to be taken seriously, given that the art scene overall was aligned with sectors opposed to the government.”17 Ideas of what constituted high culture and taste were related to notions of kitsch and caused a similar polarization between Peronism and the abstract geometric artists. The commercial magazine Argentina, for instance, sought to define fashionable, moral, and patriotic consumer practices in keeping with political priorities – in short, to project a vision of Peronism in “good taste”.18 The geometric abstract artists, meanwhile, sought to distinguish images of “good taste” from those that constituted high art. The Inventionist Manifesto claimed that “the
aesthetic function opposes ‘good taste.’ The pure function. LET US NEITHER SEEK NOR FIND. LET US INVENT.”19 These artists did not hold themselves to a rigid aesthetic, but rather worked for social and technical progress and the development of a new art form in opposition to Peronist values and its “tasteful” images. Although the early years of the Peronist government were characterized by intense confrontations between the regime and the modern art world, by 1952, tensions had eased. The exhibition “Argentine Painting and Sculpture in This Century” held from October 1952 to March 1953 at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, for example, presented an overview of fifty years of Argentine art which included abstract art while still demonstrating the government’s propensity for propaganda through the display of portraits of Juan and Eva Perón at the entrance.20 This shift was due to the recognition of the use of abstract art as a political in-
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abstract geometic art in argentina
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the intrinsically political nature of
abstract geometic art in argentina
strument to introduce Argentina onto the international scene. The overthrow of Perón in September of 1955 allegedly designated the official end of opposition between the Argentine government and groups such as Madí. His downfall also inspired national fervor and efforts to establish Buenos Aires as a major art center, generating a flurry of activity with the founding of the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, the establishment of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, and the creation of the American Art Biennials. In an ironic turn of events, Perón’s removal only shifted the political nature of artistic production. Originally
against hyper-nationalism and self-promotional art, artistic exports began to essentially function as propaganda for a new, internationally competitive Argentina. An examination of abstract geometric art in relationship to the government of Juan Domingo Perón as well as subsequent regimes makes one matter apparent: art in Argentina during the Cold War could not escape politicization. » NAR
a feminine touch by
Sarah Schneider
university of california
- berkeley
hroughout the trajectory of art history, women’s work has often taken a subordinate role to that of men’s. The women who managed to assert themselves as artists often became pseudo-spokeswomen for a particular time and place in history. For the Dutch Golden Age, Haarlembased artist Judith Leyster, born 1609, has become such a figure.
T
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selfportrait — Judith Leyster c.1635
Without any apparent artistic connections in Leyster’s immediate family, her exceptional talent at an early age led her to take up an apprenticeship with the artist Frans Hals, and in 1633 she joined the Guild of St. Luke.1 Though it was not common at the time for women to work outside the home, the fact that Leyster managed to become a professional painter attests to her strong character and artistic skills. The few extant accounts of Leyster describe her as a capable and confident woman. Art historian James A. Welu writes of an incident involving Leyster: “[H] er assertiveness as an unmarried professional woman, revealed in documents, is striking. For example, in October 1635 she went before the painters’ guild to settle a conflict over tuition fees when one of her male pupils left her studio to study with Frans Hals.”2 But Welu also states that “if one approaches Leyster’s work looking for ways in which it varies from that of her male col34
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leagues, one may be surprised— perhaps even disappointed—to discover that her paintings do not have a perspective that seems gender-specific.”3 However, there is a delicate balance between recontextualizing women artists in art history and not subcategorizing them. In that vein Griselda Pollock writes: To avoid the embrace of the feminine
stereotype
which
homogenizes women’s work as determined by natural gender, we must stress the heterogeneity of women’s art work, the specificity of individual producers and products. Yet we have to recognize what women share—as a result of nurture not nature, i.e. the historically variable social systems which produce sexual differentiation. 4
Given the striking assertiveness of her biography, and a closer analysis of her portraiture, Judith Leyster’s individuality as a female painter is clearly visible in
the underpinnings of her work. To begin, Leyster’s painting, Man Offering Money to a Young Woman, and the quiet scene it portrays is captivating for its psychological impact. A young woman virtuously embroiders by candlelight while a man who appears to be several years her elder smiles licentiously over her shoulder and offers her several coins from the palm of his hand. The woman’s face is downturned in an expression of poised concentration. Her left shoulder is turned slightly away from the man whose right hand is touching it slightly, as if trying to pull her back into conversation. He leans his left arm on the table beside her in a posture that suggests a kind, open appearance, yet there is strength in his gesture, giving the impression that the woman is trapped. The light from a candle on the table illuminates the woman, but one can hardly see her by the way she is otherwise subsumed in the darkness of the room. Barely noticeable under the woman’s feet is the flame of a foot warmer. The room is empty
a feminine touch — Judith Leyster 1631
man offering money to a young woman
and only scant shadows from the candle’s light indicate there is a wall behind the pair. In Elizabeth Honig’s essay, “The Space of Gender,” she writes, “it should be borne in mind that Dutch genre painting does not ‘depict’ daily life; rather, it provides imagined solutions to problems of lived existence, and the delimitation of spatial zones and gendered behaviors within them is a crucial problem that it addresses.”5 It is safe to assume that the woman in Leyster’s painting is not a prostitute, as there is nothing to indicate that she has any interest in this man for money or sex. But she clearly knows what he wants from her and she appropriately disregards his offer. It seems self-evident that Leyster’s experiences as a woman allowed her to intimately relate to the position of the young woman being propositioned. With this kind of perspective, Leyster is able to impress upon her painting subtle psychological
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a feminine touch implications. For instance, there is a sense that the woman cannot move. This is indicated by way of a large cumbersome blanket that hides her legs and feet and literally hinders her movement. The space around the couple looks flat as if the entire room is under glass and figures are trapped within it, which is also indicative of the woman being caught by the unwanted attention. Images from this era often show women in flirty garments meant to entice male suitors, as seen in genre scenes of ‘merry company,’ but Leyster’s woman dresses very conservatively.6 The woman’s hair is pulled back in a bun and is partially covered, which can be interpreted as a form of masculinization.7 By comparison, in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, the title figure is renowned for her long, free-flowing hair as a symbol of her sexuality, whereas in Leyster’s work there is scarcely any physical indication that the subject is a woman.
Her features are clearly delicate and womanly, but her body is made shapeless by her dress. She is doing needlework and though the slight flames of a foot warmer signify her sexual availability, the fire is hardly noticeable, and from where the man stands this light would be invisible. Only the viewer is aware that this flame burns, as if a subtle indicator that she is still an available woman. Furthermore, the man’s thick beard and leathery skin indicate that he is probably quite older than the young woman. Numerous documents from the seventeenth century address age-appropriate marriages, and attest to this phenomenon.8 Jan Miense Molenaer’s Self-Portrait in Studio, in part, speaks to the inappropriateness of an older person taking a sexual interest in a young person. Molenaer sits at an easel with his painting utensils in hand while an old woman offers him money. There is a double entendre at work in
that the woman could be there to purchase the painting—a painting that references death and old age through a painted skull— or she could be there to pay for the man’s sexual interest.9 But the woman does not look at the painting; instead she stares intently at Molenaer while simultaneously wrapping her hand around his wrist. The striking difference between Molenaer’s painting and that of Leyster’s is the emotional reaction of the propositioned. Molenaer looks to the viewer, open and smiling. He has plenty of space around him to move away from the woman, but regardless there does not seem to be any danger of potential harm. Perhaps the most overt difference between Leyster’s work and Molenaer’s is the sense that Leyster’s woman has little choice, either to remove herself from the room or to turn down the man’s offer. Although she shuns the man, the tight cropping of the
image conveys a sense that the woman must submit to this man. The fact that the woman is brave enough to dismiss the man, despite her compromising position, attests to her power. Also, rather than appearing weak in her subordinate position, there is an inner strength of the woman present that is visually represented by the luminous light reflecting off her blouse. A comparison between Leyster’s Portrait of a Woman and Frans Hals’ Portrait of a Woman similarly reveals Leyster’s strong feminine character. The portraits were executed within one year of each other and it is therefore probable that the teacher and pupil knew of each other’s work. Naturally, a woman painting a portrait of a woman will see her sitter from a subjective view versus the objective—and possibly objectifying—perspective of a male artist. Jonathan Culler speaks about the differences in gender relations , and writes, “when we posit a woman 38
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[viewer], the result is an analogous appeal to experience: not to the experience of girl-watching but to the experience of being watched, seen as a ‘girl,’ restricted, marginalized.”10 A woman will identify with the depicted female while a man can only observe her. As such, it is possible to analyze these paintings from the perspective of the artist and what they emphasize in a female sitter. Of an exhibit featuring Leyster work, Arthur Wheelock’s states that her work uses “bright colors, strong accents of light and dark, and people looking out at you in engaging ways.”11 Leyster’s female subject is bathed in a soft but clear light, the pose is open, and the eyes are direct. Although the woman is dressed in black (aside from the white collar, head covering and cuffs) the overall painting feels light and warm. The woman holds a book, probably a Bible, in her left hand and clutches the armchair with her right. The Bible, as well as her conservative dress, pos-
sibly indicates that the woman has strong religious beliefs.12 The background acts as a kind of void that propels the viewer’s eyes back to the woman’s face. As discussed in Harry Berger Jr.’s essay, “Fictions of the Pose: Facing the Gaze of Early Modern Portraiture,” a mutual relationship between sitter and painter exists where portraits are concerned, as there is an element of how one wants to be seen and how the painter interprets what is shown.13 In this regard, Leyster’s painting creates a fused self-portrait between the two women. The woman sits upright in a strong posture. Both of the woman’s hands clasp at an object, making them feel grounded and purposeful. Her right arm acts as a modest barrier but perhaps more as protection from us than from Leyster. Nothing else in her posture or face suggests she is anxious or guarded. Instead her gaze is confident with a hint of control. There is a sense of intimacy in this portrait, as if the women had been quietly gossiping before viewers walked in
a feminine touch the room, and she pauses with a secret and subtle smile across her face. Hals’ Portrait of a Woman appears far less personal, emphasizing the subject’s external state rather than her interior faculties. She is engulfed in darkness, and only her face and hands are illuminated by an unknown source. Her lips are tightly pursed with the same force that her hands
grip one another. The expression on her face is grave and hidden, which is accentuated by the use of sfumato around her lips and eyes. She appears vulnerable, yet closed off from the audience. Although they engage with the viewer, her eyes are unrevealing. She seems self-conscious, suspicious, almost hyper aware of being watched. She does not let the viewer forget that she is sit-
ting for a painting. Hals’ woman is isolated in a room from which she could easily be removed, whereas Leyster’s sitter easily blends into the space from which she is almost inseparable. Finally, in Leyster’s Self-Portrait, both painter and subject are women, or rather woman— the relation of woman to herself, perhaps outside the male gaze. In contrast to Welu’s argument
— Judith Leyster (left) 1635 & Frans Hals (right) 1634
portrait of a woman
that Leyster’s paintings do not necessarily speak to her gender, it seems that her femininity shines through in this painting, and not for its overt content, but rather for its assertiveness and artifice. Leyster’s fortitude as a woman arises through her direct engagement with the viewer. She looks out of the painting with a distinct understanding of the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. She does not avert the audience’s gaze, but rather she seems to invite it. What is perhaps most striking about this image, however, is Leyster’s cavalier attitude. One arm is hooked over the back of her chair, making her posture slightly relaxed as she turns out toward the viewer. She is dressed in quite formal attire, the kind of garments that would not be conducive to painting. She holds her trade tools, a palette and brush, while to the right she has an easel set up with the beginnings of an extant painting completed a year earlier by Leyster herself, an im40
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a feminine touch age of a man playing a fiddle from her Merry Company painting. Most significantly, Leyster paints herself on the left, which is ordinarily reserved for men. Yael Even’s writes that the “unusual choice to place her own figure on the [left] seems to represent her actual success in acquiring the professional position, financial prosperity and social respect obtained by known contemporary men painters.”14 Even also notes that the painting on the easel was first intended to be a portrait of a woman but Leyster chose instead to render a man.15 By reversing the positions of the figures in her self-portrait, Leyster demonstrates command over both the artifice of gender roles, as well as painting itself. Leyster confronts the viewer directly using the prescribed format of a self-portrait, while reversing the normative gender roles. By using this device, she equates herself
with the dominant male artistic realm, and for that reason it may seem she was not asserting herself as a female painter so much as simply a painter. But by implicating herself within that masculine world, she actually moves beyond it, which is manifested in subordinating the male musician to herself as a woman. She dominates the male figure in size, and through the function of creation. She has literally painted him into existence, an action that links herself to the Creator, an inherently masculine figure. Judith Leyster’s milieu of works makes her artistic prowess, her decisive nature, and her femininity abundantly clear. Each work conveys confidence, authority, and femininity, which irrefutably represent the painter herself. Leo Tolstoy wrote, “art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain signs, hands
on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by those feelings and experience them.”16 It has always been the job of the artist to mirror the world onto him or herself, or to interpret and communicate what they have experienced through a medium. While it would be simple to argue that Leyster created work of the highest skill and intellectual caliber, one would be remiss to not include her in the art historical array of important artists. As Pollock noted, there is not necessarily something inherently different in women which makes them produce art differently; rather it is simply that in many cultures women have been nurtured in distinctly separate ways from men that give them a unique perspective on the world. To not honor this condition would be a disservice to the understanding of art in general. » NAR
jimmie durham speaks in the present tense »
Pocahontas Doesn’t Wear Underwear by
Sophie Buonomo boston university
immie Durham is a man of multiple identities and many talents, yet he consciously eludes definition. As an American sculptor, painter, performance artist, essayist, poet, and activist of Cherokee descent, Durham has many labels from which to choose.
J
»
La Malinche
— Jimmie Durham 1988-91
He dances defiantly yet gracefully between all possible modifiers of the only label that truly fits him, his name: Jimmie Durham. Durham’s work spanning the period between his return to the United States from Geneva in the mid-1970s and his move to Europe in the mid-1990s largely concerns his complex relationship with his own Native American identity. Furthermore, in a contemporary art world dominated by globalization, Durham defies consistent terminology. Durham left the American Indian Movement in 1980 because he felt that it was not successful in putting American Indians in “the present tense,” and making their struggles relevant. After 1980, he transferred the expression of his frustration from politics to art production, largely in three broad categories. The first is in his self-representation. Durham uses his identity as well as his physical body to express himself as an Indian man. Secondly, he deals with the 44
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concept of the American Indian Museum and of the “artifact,” which mythologizes the “dead” Indian. Lastly, he draws a parallel between the ill-treatment of Indian women throughout history and the condition of the American Indian population as a whole. In the exploration of these three themes, it becomes clear that Jimmie Durham’s skill in turning stereotypes on themselves and using the Western myth of the American Indian accomplishes what his political work could not: placing Indians in the present tense. Durham addresses the fact that since the conquest of the Americas, there has been confusion and tension surrounding the labeling of native people. In his essay, “Native American Indian Studies: A Note on Names,” legal scholar Peter d’Errico argues that
to the principle that a People’s name ought to come from themselves. The consequence of this is that the original inhabitants of this land are to be called by whatever names they give themselves. There are no American Indians or Native Americans. There are many different peoples, hundreds in fact…1
Despite views such as d’Errico’s, terms such as ‘American Indian’ and ‘Native American’ are ubiquitous and often considered interchangeable. In the case of Durham, however, there are other difficulties of designation. In Ulrich Beck’s introduction to Cosmopolitan Vision, he writes: “the cosmopolitan outlook means that, in a world of global crises and dangers produced by civilization, the old differentiations between internal and external, national and interWe have to discard both national, us and them, lose their “American Indian” and “Navalidity…”2 Durham, in his moves tive American” if we want to between the United States, Mexbe faithful to reality and true ico and Europe, can certainly be seen as cosmopolitan, espe-
jimmie durham speaks in the present tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear cially in his later travels around Europe.3 Peter Wollen criticizes cosmopolitanism for its elitism, and it is important to note that Durham became increasingly internationally mobile as he achieved critical acclaim.4 Yet cosmopolitanism, with its rosy glow, cannot fully describe the experience of an American Indian artist, even one of substantial means. In her essay, “For a Politics of Nomadic Identity,” Chantal Mouffe describes foreigners. These foreigners, [who] are portrayed as endangering national identity and sovereignty by various political movements which are doing their best to produce new collective identities and to re-create a political frontier by means of a nationalist and xenophobic discourse.5
Although Mouffe is referring to foreign immigrants, the case of American Indians in the United States is still applicable. Like
immigrants, American Indians have historically been considered a danger to an American narrative that describes westerners in a positive light. In a 1990 interview, Durham spoke to this tension. Part of the United States myth about us [American Indians] is that we are not authentic. Historically, Indians of the past are considered to be the only authentic Indians, but at the same time, they’re not authentic because they did not really exist. The myth says that the United States came to the wilderness, without any Indians in it. At the same time it says that the only real Indians are those they didn’t see here. It’s really a convoluted piece of craziness.6
Therefore, American Indians are in a no-man’s land concerning the American narrative. They exist and they do not exist—they are a threat because they are still
here, yet they belong in museums because their very being is the stuff of distant myth. Durham articulates the insider/outsider paradox of the American Indian, yet he struggles personally with the same lack of distinction. He is not fully nomad (or exile), wandering rootless and unwelcome. As a famous artist, his work grants him entry to the most exclusive echelons of cultural society. However, Durham is not entirely cosmopolitan, because his outsider status as an American Indian makes him unwanted in his own land. American Indian art finds itself at a similar impasse in the modern art world. In W. Jackson Rushing III’s forward to Native American Art in the Twentieth Century, he gives a possible explanation for the lack of contemporary Native American art in the curricula of art departments. A partial explanation lies in the fact that instructors
untitled — Jimmie Durham 1992
trained in the history of “traditional” Indian art are not always conversant with the issues and paradigms of modern and contemporary art. Similarly, scholars of “mainstream” modernism and its various offspring who might be interested in democratizing,
pluralizing
and
indi-
genizing their survey courses often do not have the requisite familiarity with Native art in the twentieth century.7
Therefore, an artist such as Durham must work doubly hard for the mainstream art world to view his work in a contemporary light. Durham has historically scoffed at a possible relationship between contemporary art and 46
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the Indian reservation. In a 1994 interview with Dirk Snauwaert, Durham commented, “to function as an artist on an Indian reservation is not a possibility at all. There is no art discourse there; what would be my function there?”8 Even as an American Indian artist, Durham felt that the American Indian community was not the correct venue for his art. Durham was a founding member of the American Indian Movement and served as the United States delegate of the International Indian Treaty Council. Yet he was frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the organization. In his “Open Letter” of December 1980, Durham
jimmie durham speaks in the present tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear
explains his reasons for leaving the International Indian Treaty Council. He writes: “people have asked us if by leaving the Treaty Council we have also left the American Indian Movement. We can only answer honestly that there is not AIM to leave.”9 He concludes the letter by expressing that “we also feel that [the] issues and problems need to be put forward in the most clear and sharp way possible…”10 Even though the AIM movement was in shambles, Durham was able to translate his political energy into his art practice, even if that was not his original intention. In his interview with Snauwaert, Durham also explains that when the American Indian Movement collapsed, he wanted to write a history of the move-
ment. He recalls: “I didn’t have an art scheme, I thought my job was to write that book, not to do art. I was just trying to continue a conversation with the world that the world never wanted and still doesn’t want.”11 Though he initially intended to continue the conversation in writing, the New York arts scene in the 1980s inspired Durham to carry on his work in the visual arena.12 Durham’s most powerful art, in terms of placing Indians in the “present tense”, is often selfdeprecating and unsentimental. In his self-portraiture, Durham addresses both personal identity struggles as well as broad American Indian stereotypes. In his 1992 piece Untitled, Durham expresses his famed sense of humor. The painting shows
Durham’s tape-covered face pro- and to refute them by giving truding almost comically from a American Indians (and himself) mountain of red paint. He refers a voice. In the same essay he to the painting, in the self-mock- remarks that “the US has used ing caption, as “pretentiously romanticism more effectively to bad.”13 The written caption also keep Indians oppressed than it reflects Durham’s passion for has ever been used on any other language, as he writes extensive- people. The basis of that romanly about how language has been ticism is of course the concept used to demean American Indi- of the ‘Noble Savage’...”15 He deans. For instance, he notes in his bunks this romantic notion in essay “American Indian Culture” his Self Portrait of 1987. In this image, reminiscent of a dead the difference between: Archbishop Tatanka Iotanka, Christ on the cross, Durham emMinister of Interior of the phasizes his body in exaggerated present government of the na- forms. The caption evokes labels tion of Lakota and the most such as “alcoholic” or “savage”— respected religious leader of connoting the sexuality or deviance present in other works such the Lakota people was assasas Pocahontas’s Underwear. His sinated by paid agents of the handwriting both personalizes United States government … the piece and gives it a childAnd … Today Chief Sitting like quality that fits the stereoBull, a medicine man of the type, creating a tension between Sioux Indian tribe, was killed truth and myth. Durham uses by another Indian.14 traditional American Indian Through this language exercise aesthetics, such as feathers and he argues that this terminology face paint, but the handwritoften functions to trivialize In- ing marks the body as “present” dian society. Durham uses lan- and indeed the speech bubble guage both to mock stereotypes 48
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conveys his specific voice rather than a generic one. The representation of an artist’s body takes a further turn in James Luna’s The Artifact Piece, a performance from 1987. James Luna is a Luiseno and Mexican American performance artist from California, a full decade younger than Durham. In this piece, Luna used his presence in a display case at San Diego’s Museum of Man to draw attention to the myth of the “dead” Indian. Durham admired Luna’s piece in his essay, “Cowboys and…” where he refers to an incident that occurred at the time of Luna’s performance: Viewing ‘the body,’ an American white woman said to her husband, “Dear, I think he is alive. The husband replied, “Don’t be silly; they don’t put live ones in museums.16
James Luna’s The Artifact Piece sets the backdrop to a discussion of Durham’s uses of “artifacts” and American Indian Museums. Ralph T. Coe, in his essay “Art and Indian Culture at the Cross-
jimmie durham speaks in the present tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear
self portrait — Jimmie Durham 1987
the artifact piece — James Luna 1987
road,” remarks that:
blanket “walks in beauty.” If it
shaped not by native peoples but does not walk, it is dead. And by the Western meta-narrative. We of the West sanctify art traditionally, Navajos shun In his installation, On Loan from and endow it with special pothe Museum of the American the dead.”17 etic, formal or spiritual properties… To Indians the con- Thus a typical American Indian Indian, Durham blends humor cept of a museum in not only museum does not celebrate the with an exposé of the western perception of the “dead” Indian. foreign but often deadly. Art continuation of the Indian peoShiff notes that: objects are active, i.e., Navajo ple, but rather preserves a myth
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This problem of representa-
jimmie durham speaks in the present tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear tion, which is political, has sparked
Durham’s
interest
in all aspects of collecting, museology,
and
ethnogra-
phy. His 1986 installation On Loan from the Museum of the American
Indian
parodies
the omnivorousness of the ethnographic collector; anything “Indian” is worth being shown, dissected, and labeled, even
“Pocahontas’
Under-
wear,” panties adorned with feathers and beads.18
In this exhibit Durham creates “future artifacts” that mock the benign, idealized displays in many American Indian museums. Though the piece is called Pocahontas’s Underwear it is, in Laura Mulvey’s words, “an ironic, empty sign.”19 The title of this paper, then, both plays on the concept of present tense (she “doesn’t” versus she “didn’t”) as well as the ridiculousness of reducing, in effect, symbols to
— Jimmie Durham 1991
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jimmie durham speaks in the present tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear symbols. Furthermore, the usual maps featured in museums merit a closer look in Durham’s exhibit, where the map of “current trends in Indian land ownership” shows the tragic loss of Indian land in a cold and technical manner. By mimicking an actual exhibit, he forces the viewer to confront the present situation. The viewer must then navigate a familiar trope, the American Indian exhibit, with new and critical eyes. The concept of land loss shown in On Loan informs a crucial parallel between American Indian women such as the mythologized Pocahontas and the larger “rape” and exploitation of Indians and their land. As Laura Mulvey states in her essay “Changing Objects, Preserving Time,” Durham’s “acts and perceptions of combining and ‘breaking down of separations form a conceptual point
travelled to England in 1616 with her husband, John Rolfe and was dressed as a proper lady – a savage–turned-noble fit for polite company.21 In Durham’s depiction she is hewn in disjointed pieces of wood. Draped across her is a typical English gown, in black mourning color. There are roses strewn around, which also connote death or perhaps a gravesite. For Durham, she is a symbol of the destruction and subjugation not only of Indian women but also of the American Indian nations. — Jimmie Durham The Little Carpen 1985 ter, shown next to Pocathem by the Western perspective. hontas, is the English name of a In his London installation at Cherokee chieftain who visited Matt’s Gallery from 1988, Poca- England during King Phillip’s hontas and the Little Carpenter War. As Jean Fisher points out, in London, Durham presented there is absolutely no historical perhaps the most mythologized connection between Pocahontas and misunderstood Indian and the Little Carpenter, so Durwoman in history. Pocahontas ham is bringing to light the conof departure for his art but also evoke the blurring of ‘categories that mark all aspects of his creative work…”20 Durham depicts women as broken down and reduced to symbols thrust upon
Pocahontas’s Underwear
Ghost in the mach densed history, cherry-picking and mythologizing created by the Western meta-narrative.22 As in On Loan, the viewer must consider the present consequences rather than focus on a false story and an artificial set of relationships. In his sculpture titled La Malinche, Durham depicts another misunderstood female figure. La Malinche was the native mistress of Cortes, as well as his interpreter and a collaborator with the Spanish. She is reduced to a gold bra as the focal point of her pathetically stripped form which as Mulvey points out, connotes not only sexuality but also a desire for gold and land. This distilled sexualization recalls Pocahontas’s Underwear and the reduction of native women to a past, mythologized sexuality. However, Durham does not portray her so much as an evil woman but as an ill-used 54
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one. She is pitiful, reduced to a bare frame and symbols. She is no longer an abstract figure or a traitor but a stand-in for the sad result of conquest, in which she was merely a pawn. Durham makes a statement by including these women as the focus of his installation art. Their broken forms serve as reminders that while the West may forget and mythologize the conquest of the Americas, this legacy of ill-use lives on. Pocahontas and La Malinche take shape as pitiful forms under Durham’s hands, but they represent the painful truth rather than a sanitized narrative. Jimmie Durham’s work appeared to shift in the mid-1990s, roughly corresponding with his move to Europe. His work from 2005, Ghost in the Machine, is an example. This sculpture, of the Greek goddess Athena tied with rope to a refrigerator, could be interpreted in the same vein
as La Malinche and Pocahontas. Wise Athena is forcibly tied to a refrigerator (i.e. a domestic object). Nevertheless, it represents a change in Durham’s work that corresponds somewhat to his permanent departure from the United States and his status as a truly renown, international figure. This piece is cleaner than the earlier pieces, due to the use of marble rather than wood. In the simplest terms, he uses a Greek statue instead of Pocahontas. In her review for ArtSlant, Frances Guerin comments on Ghost in the Machine and related works: Its ingenuity comes because it’s not political in the sense that, say, Martha Rosler or Hans Haacke are with their deliberate and highly selfconscious engagement with real political issues. It’s political in the way that a cross between Joseph Beuys and Buster Keaton would be. Just
hine
jimmie durham speaks in the present tense:
pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear
of art through its reach into the everyday. 23
— Jimmie Durham 2005
like Keaton, Durham uses the
also took the form of perfor-
objects he finds on his path,
mances, vitrines, sculptures,
and the world around him to
environments
make us laugh at its absurdi-
ings, Durham is breaking the
ty. And like Beuys, whose work
boundaries and expectations
and
draw-
No longer is Durham focused solely on the politics of his Native American identity. In these later pieces, he expands on his humor and political savvy to create art that is arguably better suited to the global stage. Ironically, it is only in the period after his departure from the American Indian Movement that Jimmie Durham fully joins the American Indian dialogue. Durham speaks more deftly and completely as an artist and political outsider than he ever could from within the confines of the movement. In the global contemporary art world, Durham uses his unique status as both artistic elite and ethnic outcast to frame reality: simply, distinctively in the present tense. Âť NAR
notes
6. Lau, 106. 7. Ibid.
1» olympia’s odyssey 1. This kind of taxonomy is demonstrated in The Face of China: Photographs 1860-1912 and in Picturing the Chinese: Early Western Photographs and Postcards of China. 2. Wu Hung, “Introduction: Reading Early Photographs of China,” in Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China, (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2011), 5. 3. Grace Lau, Picturing the Chinese: Early Western Photographs and Postcards of China, (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., Ltd., 2008), 106.
2» geometric art in argentina 1. Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, “Buenos Aires: Breaking the Frame,” in The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps De Cisneros Collection, (Austin: Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, 2007), 32. 2. Yve Alein Bois, Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps De Cisneros Collection, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums, 2001), 142. 3. Pérez-Barreiro, 33.
4. T. J. Clark, “Olympia’s Choice,” in The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the art of Manet and his followers, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 96.
4. Patrick Frank, “The Founding of Madí,” in Readings in Latin American Modern Art, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 144.
5. Ibid., 79.
5. Pérez-Barreiro, 36.
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6. Andrea Giunta, Avant-garde, Internationalism, and Politics: Argentine Art in the Sixties, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 39. 7. Ibid., 41. 8. Ibid., 42. 9. Patrick Frank, “Inventionist Manifesto,” in Readings in Latin American Modern Art, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 143. 10. Frank, 144. 11. Matthew B. Karush and Oscar Chamosa, eds., The New Cultural History of Peronism: Power and Identity in Midtwentieth-century Argentina, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 114-5. 12. Ibid., 125. 13. Ibid., 22. 14. Ibid., 127. 15. Ibid., 165. 16. Frank, 142. 17. Giunta, 40.
18. Karush and Chamosa, 209. 19. Frank, “Inventionist Manifesto”, 143. 20. Giunta, 47.
3» a feminine touch 1. James A. Welu, Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World, (Worcester, England: Worcester Art Museum, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1993), 11-14. 2. Ibid., 13. 3. Ibid.,12. 4. Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and Histories of Art (London and New York: Rutledge, 1988), 55.
ages of dress in the golden age of Dutch painting,” Costume (1999): 36-45. 7. Yael Even, “Judith Leyster: an Unsuitable Place for a Woman,” Konsthistori Tidskrift 71, no. 3 (2002): 116. 8. Alison McNeil Kettering “Ter Borch’s Ladies in Satin,” in Looking at SeventeenthCentury Dutch Art, ed. Wayne Franits, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 273. 9. Welu, 302. 10. Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), 44.
5. Elizabeth Honig, “The Space of Gender,” in Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, ed. Wayne Franits, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 195.
11. Arthur Wheelock Jr. and Fox Hofrichter, Judith Leyster, 1609-1660: Part 2, Leyster’s Technique (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2009), http://www.nga.gov/podcasts/ index.shtm#video.
6. Rozemarijn Hoekstra, “Im-
12. Welu, 207.
13. Harry Berger, Jr., “Fictions of the Pose: Facing the Gaze of Early Modern Portraiture,” Representation 46, (1994), 87-120. 14. Even, 116. 15. Ibid. 16. Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhansky, (London: Penguin, 1995), 41.
4» pocahontas doesn’t wear underwear 1. Peter d’Errico, Native American Studies: A Note On Names (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2005), http://www. umass.edu/legal/derrico/name. html. 2. Ulrich Beck, Cosmopolitan Vision, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006), 14. 3. Durham was born in Washington, Arkansas in 1940 as a Wolf Cherokee. He lived in Geneva from 1968-72. After re-
notes cont. turning to the US, he moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico in 1987 and to Europe in 1994. 4. Peter Wollen, “The Cosmopolitan Ideal in the Arts,” in Traveler’s Tales, ed. George Robertson (New York: Routledge, 1994). 5. Chantal Mouffe, “For a Politics of Nomadic Identity,” in Traveler’s Tales, ed. George Robertson (New York: Routledge, 1994), 105. 6. Susan Canning, “Interview with Jimmie Durham”, in Interventions and Provocations: Conversations on Art, Culture and Resistance, ed. Glenn Harper (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 52. 7. W. Jackson Rushing III, Native American Art in the Twentieth Century, (New York: Routledge, 1999), xix.
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8. Dirk Snauwaert, Jimmie Durham, (New York: Phaidon, 1996), 9. 9. Jimmie Durham, “An Open Letter,” in A Certain Lack of Coherence, (London: Kala Press, 1993), 46. 10. Ibid., 56. 11. Dirk Snauwaert, Jimmie Durham, (New York: Phaidon, 1996), 13. 12. For further information about the 1980s arts scene in Durham’s words, see the interview with Dirk Snauwaert. 13. Jimmie Durham, Untitled, 1992. 14. Jimmie Durham, “American Indian Culture,” in A Certain Lack of Coherence, (London: Kala Press, 1993), 4. 15. Ibid. 16. Jimmie Durham, “Cowboys and...,” in A Certain Lack of Coherence, (London: Kala Press, 1993), 170.
17. Ralph T. Coe, “Art and Indian Culture at the Crossroads of a New Century: A Postlude to the Exhibition ‘Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art 1965-1985,” in Art and the Native American: Perceptions, Reality and Influences, (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Department of Art History, The Pennsylvania State University, 2001), 272. 18. Richard Shiff, “The Necessity of Jimmie Durham’s Jokes,” Art Journal 51, no. 3 (1992), 75. 19. Laura Mulvey, “Changing Objects, Preserving Time,” Jimmie Durham, (New York: Phaidon, 1996), 37. 20. Ibid. 21. Charles Dudley Warner, The Story of Pocahontas, (Project Gutenberg, 2004), http://www. gutenberg.org/ebooks/3129. 22. Jean Fisher, Press Information for Pocahontas and the Little Carpenter in London, (London, 1988), http://mattsgallery.org.
23. Frances Guerin, Magic Cast in Stone (Paris: ArtSlant, 2009), http://www.artslant.com/par/ articles/show/5278.
from the president Dear Reader, As NAR continues to grow, we work to situate ourselves relative to our larger academic and artistic communities. This, our sixth journal, has examined art’s existence at the margins of the art world and of society. The authors discuss some of the ways in which this art has both added to and affected the worlds whose margins it occupies. What position does NAR occupy in our communities? This is not a question to which we must necessarily find a definitive answer, but it is something that we continually consider. Our recent events have played with the tension between inside and outside, institutional and unconventional. At the beginning of this quarter we conducted our annual member transitions, streamlining our editorial staff and creating a new web staff to expand our online presence. We are renovating our website and creating a structure for constant, fresh content through blogs, multimedia, event news, and innovative ways to access Journal content. We continue to collaborate further with the Northwestern Art Theory and Practice and Art History Departments as well as the Block Museum, cosponsoring, publicizing, and giving student feedback to their lectures, trips to Chicago art areas, and events.
We have had two major and highly successful events in as many months. The first was our firstannual Art Jobs Panel, in which an artist, Art Theory and Practice, and Art History professors, an Art Institute curator, an art auctioneer, and an archivist discussed their careers and career paths. The second was our second-annual exhibition of undergraduate artists’ work. Two Art Theory and Practice professors selected the works from the submissions we received which were displayed in an apartment off-campus. Thank you to our authors and readers and all of our supporters, who enable us to add to and affect our community. Thank you to the Art History and Art Theory and Practice Departments, the Block Museum of Art, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of the Provost for your continued support, advice, and collaboration. Finally, thank you to the NAR executive staff, particularly our former Editor-In-Chief, Margaret Cal Whitesides, and my predecessor as President, Kari Rayner: I hope to continue the fantastic precedent you set.
Betsy Feuerstein may 2011 Evanston, IL
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