Sticks and Stones: Analyzing the Museum of Modern Art's Values Through Language

STICKS AND STONES: ANALYZING THE

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART’S VALUES

THROUGH LANGUAGEKelcie Tisher, M.A. Candidate in Art Education, Museum Focus

The University of Texas at Austin | Class of [email protected] | (713) 884-0273

www.ktisher.com

What to expect during the presentation■ Language Warning■ Respond to the quotes from MoMA’s catalogs from 1935,

1984, and finally 2011 ■ What is your reaction when reading these excerpts?■ Why do you experience that reaction and is anyone else

feeling similar or different?

Content/Discourse Analysis

■ Content Analysis - analysis of the manifest and latent content of a body of communicated material (as a book or film) through classification, tabulation, and evaluation of its key symbols and themes in order to ascertain its meaning and probable effect” (as cited in Krippendorff, 2013, p. 1)

■ Discourse Analysis - Focuses attention on how certain phenomena are represented through text

Why study language in museums?■ What is a museum’s role in

the national conversation? What if museums do change their messages?

■ How do museums break their silence and stop be “neutral”?

■ Alleviate impressions of marginalization and oppression.

MoMA in 1935: African Negro Art

Installation view of African Negro Art

■ Exposed the Western art world to examples of non-Western objects and art

■ 603 objects including sculpture in wood, bronze and ivory, textiles, implements, and weapons

■ Objects came from private and museum collections from England, Germany, Belgium, France, and the United States

James Johnson Sweeney, 1900-1986

■ Curator of MoMA, 1935-1946■ Resigned from MoMA in 1946

after a change in administration “abridged his authority.” (Glueck, 1986, p. 8)

■ Felt the need to be in control in the museum

Excerpts from MoMA’s 1935 catalog African Negro Art

”…Great-Benin inherited its strange civilization through the ancient realm of Yoruba …” (Sweeney, 1966, p. 16).

”In the end, however, it is not the tribal characteristics of Negro art nor its strangeness that are interesting.” (Sweeney, 1966, p. 21)

“…where Negroes of the primitive type are still to be found.” (Sweeney, 1966, p. 18)

Respond: what words stand out to you?


Problems with Sweeny’s language

• Eurocentric tone• Othering African people• Air of Inferiority• Exoticizes African people


Let’s look at a press release from 1935…• A review from the New York

Times written by art critic, Edward Jewell

• “On the esthetic side, in approaching this strange tribal art, the public will probably encounter this principal difficulty. Visitors, except they be specialists and learned authorities, should be advised to check their preconceived ideas, their prejudices and all narrow standards at the door.” (Jewell, 1935, p. 19)Respond: What is your take away from the title and the

quote?

MoMA in 1984: “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern

■ The first exhibition to “juxtapose tribal and modern objects in the light of informed art history” (from MoMA fact sheet, 1984)

■ Tribal works juxtaposed with modernist works by Gauguin, Picasso, Brancusi, Klee…

■ Catalog is divided into two Volumes with an introduction by curator and director, William Rubin and subsequent chapters are fixated on the modernists

Installation view of “Primitivism” In 20th Century Art

William Rubin, 1927-2006

■ Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, 1973-1988

■ Controversial figure, sold works considered less important or redundant to finance new acquisitions

■ Critiqued for obsessing over MoMA’s place in the history of art

Excerpts from MoMA’s 1984 catalog “Primitivism” in 20th

Century Art “I want to understand the Primitive sculptures in terms of the Western context in which modern artists “discovered” them. The ethnologists’ primary concern—the specific function and significance of each of these objects—is irrelevant to my topic, except insofar as these facts might have been known to the modern artists I question.” (Rubin, 1984, p. 1)



Excerpts from MoMA’s 1984 catalog “Primitivism” in 20th

Century Art “The Museum mounted major exhibitions concerned with the aesthetics of African and Oceanic art in 1935 and 1946 when other museums dealt with this material only in ethnographic terms.” (Rubin, 1984, p. viii)



Let’s look at James Clifford’s review…

■ James Clifford, anthropologist and author who attended the exhibition in 1984

■ ”The catalogue succeeds in demonstrating not any essential affinity between tribal and modern or even a coherent modernist attitude toward the primitive but rather the restless desire and power of the modern West to collect the world.” (Clifford, 1988, p. 195)

■ “The modernism represented [at MoMA] is concerned only with artistic invention, a positive category separable from a negative primitivism of the irrational, the savage, the basic, the flight from civilization.” (Clifford, 1988, p. 197)

Cover picture for “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art, Volume I

A second review from Rasheed Araeen…■ Rasheed Araeen, artist who

attended the exhibition in 1984■ “the texts displayed around were

sometimes interesting…at other times also disturbing in the way they mediated between the work of the modern artists and the so-called ‘primitive’ art.” (Araeen, 1991, p. 163)

■ ”The ‘primitive’ can now be put on a pedestal of history (modernism) and admired for what is missing in western culture, as long as the ‘primitive’ does not attempt to become an active subject to define or change the course of modern history.” (Araeen, 1991, p. 160)

Installation view of “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art

What did people think about MoMA in 1984?■ Araeen’s colleagues’

sentiments: “The general feeling was a lack of interest and cynicism. Some shrugged their shoulders, saying what else would one expect from MOMA, and others denounced the whole thing as another imperialist enterprise.” (Araeen, 1991, p. 164)

Installation view of “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art

MoMA in 2011: Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now

Installation view of Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now

■ Drawn entirely from MoMA’s collection of prints, posters, books, and wall stencils

■ Features prints with commentary on the apartheid of South Africa from 1948 to 1994

■ Categorized by printmaking methods

Judith B. Hecker

■ Former assistant curator at MoMA

■ Curator of Impressions from South African, 1965 to Now

Excerpts from MoMA’s 2011 catalog Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now “Race determined where

people were permitted to live, work, and shop, with nonwhite relocated from developed urban areas townships and settlements that were intentionally kept impoverished.” (Hecker, 2011, p. 11)

Conrad Botes

Let’s look at Alissa Guzman’s review…■ Alissa Guzman, blogger for

Hyperallergic■ “Instead of focusing on the

wealth of adamant self-expression produced by artists living in a country whose racist organization of society began in the 17th century and still lingers today, Impressions from South Africa filters this agitation into five tidy categories of printmaking.” (Guzman, 2011)


A second review from Steven Dubin…■ Steven Dubin, Professor of Arts

Administration, Teachers College, Columbia University

■ “But the democratic impulse that undergirds the public uses of printmaking also exposes it to possible misinterpretations or misuses: stripped of the context within which these images arose, audiences may misconstrue their meaning or reconfigure them as they wish.” (Dubin, 2011)

Ernestine White

A third review from Jay Clarke…

■ Jay Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, The Clark

■ “It is easy to find fault with what is not here; but what is here represents a big leap for MoMA and for any American art museum.” (Clarke, 2011, p. 29)


Resources■ Araeen, R. (1991). From primitivism to ethnic arts. In S. Hiller (Ed.), The myth of primitivism:

Perspectives on art (pp. 158-182). New York, NY: Routledge.■ Clarke, J. (2011). The Politics of Geography and Process: Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to

Now. Art in Print, 1(3), 27-29. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/stable/43045224Clifford, J. (1988). The predicament of culture: Twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

■ Dubin, S. (2011). Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now: Various Artists at MoMA [Web log]. Retrieved from http://artthrob.co.za/Reviews/2011/03/Steven-Dubin-reviews-Impressions-from-South-Africa,-1965-to-Now-by-Various-Artists-at-MoMA.aspx

■ Guzman, A. (2011, June 8). Contemporary history through prints [Web log]. Retrieved from http://hyperallergic.com/26380/impressions-from-south-africa-1965-to-now/

■ Hecker, J. (2011). Impressions from south Africa, 1965 to now: Prints from the modern museum of art. New York City, NY: The Museum of Modern Art.

■ Jewell, E. A. (1935, March 19). African negro art on exhibition here: An unusual show opens with reception at the museum of modern art. New York Times, p. 19.

■ Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

■ Rubin, W. (1984). “Primitivism” in 20th century art: Affinity of the tribal and the modern. New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art.

■ Sweeney, J. J (1966). African negro art. New York, NY: Arno Press.

THANK YOU!Kelcie Tisher

[email protected](713) 884-0273

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Sticks and Stones: Analyzing the Museum of Modern Art's Values Through Language