Museums and communities -The politics of public culture

7 Consequently the distinction between “serious” and “popular” culture that we in Europe and North America tend to make is not particularly relevant for Indian [r]

MUSEUMS AND COMMUNITIES

The Politics of Public Culture

M U S E U M S A N D C O M M U N I T I E S

This b oo k

was published

in cooperation with

the American

Association of

MUSEUMS AND

Edited by

ivan Karp,

Christine Mullen Kreamer,

The

Politics of Public Culture

Smithsonian Institution Press

Washington and London

Portions of chapter first appeared, in different form, as “The Multicultural Paradigm," reprinted from High Performance magazine, 1641 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA 4 , vol 12, no 3, Fall 1989, and “Acculturation vs Frontieriza- tion,” Visions , no (1 98 ), and are reproduced herewith permission

Chapter 1 copyright © 9 by the Chinatown History Museum Chapter 17 copyright © 9 by Fath Davis Ruffins

All other rights reserved

Designed by Linda McKnight Edited by Susan Warga

Production editing by Rebecca Browning

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Museums and communities : the politics of public culture / edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D Lavine

p cm

Includes bibliographical references

ISBN 1- 56098-164-4 (cloth).— ISBN - - 189-x (paper)

1 Museums— Planning— Congresses Public relations— Museums— Con­ gresses Museum techniques— Congresses I Karp, Ivan II Kreamer, Chris­ tine Mullen III Lavine, Steven, -

A M M 1992

0 — dc20 -

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Manufactured in the United States of America

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96 95 94 93 92

col he paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Mate­ rials Z -

For permission to reproduce individual illustrations appearing in this book, please correspond directly with the owners of the works, as listed in the captions The Smithsonian Institution Press does not retain reproduction rights for these illustra­ tions or maintain a file of addresses for photo sources

P A R T I :

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: Museums and Communities: T h e Politics of Public Culture

I V A N K A R P

O n C iv il S o c i e t y a n d S o c i a l Id e n ti t y

I V A N K A R P

C H A P T E R I : Museums Are G o o d to T h in k : Heritage on View in India

A R J U N A P P A D U R A I A N D C A R O L A B R E C K E N R I D G E

C H A P T E R 2: “Hey! T h a t ’s M i n e ” :

T h o ug ht s on Pluralism and American Museums 56

E D M U N D B A R R Y G A I T H E R

C H A P T E R 3: T h e O t h e r Vanguard

G U I L L E R M O G O M E Z - P E N A

C H A P T E R 4: Festivals and the Creation of

Public Culture: Whose Voice(s)? 76

R O B E R T H L A V E N D A

C H A P T E R 5: Art M useums and Living Artists:

Contentious Communities 105

C o m m u n i t i e s

S T E V E N D L A V I N E

C H A P T E R 6:

C H A P T E R 7:

C H A P T E R 8:

C H A P T E R 9:

C H A P T E R 10

C H A P T E R I I

C H A P T E R 12

Chang e and Challenge: Museums in the Information Society 158

G E O R G E F M A C D O N A L D

T h e Communicative Circle:

M u se u m s as Communities 182

C O N S T A N C E P E R I N

T h e Colonial Legacy and the C o m m u n it y : T h e Gallery 33 Project 221

J A N E P E I R S O N J O N E S

T h e Soul o f a Museum: C o m m it m e n t to Community at the Brooklyn Children’s M us e um

M I N D Y D U I T Z

: C om p a fiero s and Partners: T h e C A R A Project

A L I C I A M G O N Z A L E Z A N D E D I T H A T O N E L L I

: Crea ti ng a Dialogic M use um : T h e C h in a t o w n History Museum E x pe ri m e nt

J O H N K U O W E I T C H E N

: T h e Museum as a Vehicle for Co m m u ni ty Em pow erment: T h e Ak- C hi n Indian Community Ec o m us e um Project

P A R T 3: D e f i n i n g C o m m u n i t i e s T h r o u g h E x h i b i t i n g a n d

C o l l e c t i n g

C H R I S T I N E M U L L E N K R E A M E R

C H A P T E R 13: T h e Rites o f the Tribe: American

Jewish Tourism in Poland

J A C K K U G E L M A S S

C H A P T E R 14: A Distorted M ir r o r : T h e

Exhibition o f the H erb er t Ward Collection of Afric ana

M A R Y J O A R N O L D I

C H A P T E R : A li7 and M aka 'ainana: T h e Representation o f H a w ia ns in Museums at H o m e and

Abroad

A D R I E N N E L K A E P P L E R

C H A P T E R 16: Establishing the R o o t s o f

Historical Consciousness in M odern Annapolis,

Maryland

P A R K E R B P O T T E R J R A N D M A R K P L E O N E

C H A P T E R 17: Mytho s, Mem ory , and History:

African American Preservation Efforts, - 9

FATH DAVI S R U F F I N S

The essays in this volume were pre­ sented at a conference entitled M u ­ seums and Communities, held at the International Center o f the Smithsonian Institution - March 1990 Muse ums and C o m m u ­ nities was the second o f two conferences on the presentation and interpretation o f cultural diversity in museums Proceedings o f the first conference appear in Ivan Karp and Steven D Lavine, eds., E x ­ hibiting Cultures: The Poetics an d Politics o f M useum D isplay (Wash­ ington, D C : Smithsonian Institution Press, 9 ) Both conferences were sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and, at the Smithso­ nian, by the International Directorate, the Offices o f the Assistant Secretaries for Museu ms and Research, and the National Museum of Natural History and its Department o f Anthropology

At the Rockefeller Foundation, Alberta Arthurs, director for arts and humanities, encouraged this project from its inception; Ellen Buchwalter, Rose Marie M in o r e , Carol Bowen, and Tomas Ybarra- Frausto provided patient logistical assistance and advice throughout

At the Smithsonian Institution, Ro be r t M c C Adams, Francine Berkowitz, David Challinor, Za hav a Doering, Tom Freudenheim, Elaine Heu man n Gurian, Christine Helms, Robe rt H o ff m a nn , Jo h n Reinhart, and Ros s Simons supported the project We are grateful to Robe rt M c C Adams for delivering the opening remarks at the confer­

X A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

ence We thank Cheryl LaBerge, director of the Office o f Conference Services, Karen H a n s o n , and Sheri Price for their support throughout the event Robe rt Leopold watched over the conference and coordi- nated the preparation o f the manuscript

T h r o u g h o u t this project we have benefited from the advice o f scholars and museum professionals, many of whom participated in planning sessions as well as in the conference In addition to the authors themselves, these include M a r ia Acosta-Colon, Donal d Cos- entino, Z a h a v a Doering, Michael Fischer, Hilde Hein, M a r y J a n e Hewitt, Corinne Kratz, Hillel Levine, J o a n n e Malatesta Davidoff, Roger M a n d le , Steve Prystupa, Dor an Ross, Betsy Q u ic k , An thony Seeger, Allen Sekula, J i m Sims, Kathy Dwyer Southern, Ro w e na Stew­ art, and Michael Watts

R e b e c c a Br owning, of the Smithsonian Institution Press, guided the preparation o f this bo ok , and Susan Warga, more co-editor than copy editor, graciously edited the individual contributions, critiqued drafts o f the introductions, and tried to keep us intellectually honest

Ivan Karp wishes to thank the present and past directors o f the Natio nal M use um o f Natural History, Frank Talbot and R o b e r t H o f f m a n n , and the present and past chairs o f the Depa rtme nt of Anthropology, Donald Ortner and Adrienne Kaeppler, for enabling this project to go forward He would also like to thank Cory Krat z for c o m m e n t in g on each and every draft o f the two introductions he wrote and no t sparing him her criticism

Christine Mullen Kreamer would like to thank her colleagues at the August 9 Salzburg seminar on Museums and C o m m u ni ty for their insights and support for this project In addition, she would like to th an k her husband, Ross G Kreamer, for his unflagging enthusiasm in this and all other endeavors

Museums and

Communities: The Politics of Public Culture

I V A N K A R P

In 1988 and 9 the Rockefeller F o u n ­ dation and the Smithsonian Institution convened two conferences charged with examining how museums exhibit cul­

tures and relate to the multiple communities in which they are situ- ated T his volume is composed o f papers from the second conference

In the first conference, published as E xhibiting Cultures: T he Poetics and Politics o f M useum D i s p l a ywe considered how cultural diver­ sity is collected, exhibited, and managed Ex amples ranged from c o s ­ mopolitan art museums through world’s fairs and folklife festivals T he essays were often cross-cultural, discussing topics such as the assumptions that organize Japanese exhibiting and the decolonization o f the museum system in a “new nation,” Z im b a b w e M a n y o f the papers were concerned with exhibition contents and their associated politics In the introduction we described exhibitions as political arenas in which definitions of identity and culture are asserted and contested

2 I V A N K A R P

differences are understood E xhibiting Cultures showed that this po we r does not wor k in the same way for all types o f museums Art museums privilege visual experience, while museums o f cultural his­ tory and natural history produce exhibitions with more narrative co n­ tent, and festivals claim to embody experience T he se differences are an integral part o f the poetics of exhibiting cultures, which was e x a m ­ ined in the first volume T h e papers related differences in how exhib i­ tions co m m un ic a te their messages to the political subtexts o f the e x ­ hibiting process

Differences amon g museums are not without their political impli­ cations Communities attempting to gain access to museums connect to different types of museums in distinct ways Some African Ameri­ can artists, for example, are suspicious o f attempts to deconstruct the aesthetic canon T h e y want a place in art museums, not a world in which art museums no longer assert claims of excellence.2 Natural- history and ethnographic museums present different problems Afri­ can Am erican activists rightly argue that while these museums have not excluded them, they have denigrated African achievements Here the co m m un it y demand is not for a place in an accepted scheme, but for revision o f the scheme itself.3

In E xhibitin g Cultures we did not devote as much space to the equally political questions of how museums relate to the changing co nfi gurations o f communities that surround them, ranging from the ne ig hb o rh o od to the nation-state, from groups defined in ethnic and racial terms to social classes Only one section of that b o o k , co ntain­ ing essays about the exhibition Hispanic Art in the United States: T h ir ty C o nt e m po r ar y Painters and Sculptors, confronted the question o f relations between museums and communities as a maj or dimension o f the politics o f cultural institutions.4 T h e essays in that section e xa m in ed the issues that arise when a mainstream institution wishes to ex hibit the art o f a minority community T h e debate over this exhibi­ tion raised fundamental questions about who controls the exhibition and collection processes, what happens when works o f art from o ut­ side ma instream traditions are assimilated to the cano n o f dominant c o m m u ni ti e s, and, finally, whose interests the multicultural activities o f centrally placed museums actually serve

museums manage relations with communities, but the act o f posses­ sion inserted in our original title unconsciously reproduced the acquis­ itive relationship we challenged in the first volume’s section on His ­ panic Art in the United States

T h e discussions and interventions from the floor at both co nfe r­ ences taught us that while exhibitions and collections were contested, they were not nearly so contested as relationships amon g diverse m u ­ seums and diverse communities Furthermore, the contests that swirl around exhibitions and collections have increasingly beco me contests over relations between museums and communities Inspect recent is­ sues o f any maj or museum journal, such as M useum N ew s. Its c o n ­ tents include such hot issues as the repatriation o f Native American materials, the proper relationship between artists and e xhi bi tor s, and the sometimes conflicting responsibilities o f boards of trustees to the public and to the mission and mandate o f the institution T h is is the stuff out of which current museum debates are fashioned.5

T he se debates take their coloration not from the specific activities o f muse ums— “collecting, preserving, studying, interpreting, and e x ­ hibiting ’6— but from the way in which these activities relate to the other institutions and communities that comprise the social order Wh en people enter museums they not leave their cultures and identities in the co a tr o o m N o r they respond passively to museum displays 1 hey interpret museum exhibitions through their prior e x p e ­ riences and through the culturally learned beliefs, values, and percep­ tual skills that they gain through membership in multiple c o m m u ­ nities W h a t Stephen Weil says of the United Slates is true for the world: “While American museums may be exem pt from ta x es , they are in no way exempt from history.”7

4 I V A N K A R P

blacks,” “the Jews,” “the WASPs.” But they are actually experienced as encounters in which cultures, identities, and skills are acquired and used T h e se settings can involve communal groups as small and inti­ mate as the nuclear family or as large and institutional as the conven­ tion o f a professional society People form their primary attachments and learn to be members o f society in these settings, which can be referred to collectively as the institutions of civil society.

M u se u m s and communities mak e up only a portion of civil soci­ ety, the co m pl ex o f social entities in which we act out our lives and through which we fashion our identity Civil society is a perennial topic in the social sciences and political theory Periodically a “crisis in civil society” emerges in discourse and thinking about society, gener­ ally in periods o f social upheaval T h e best recent discussions o f civil society have been inspired by the way Antonio Gramsci defines the functional differences between civil society and political society For G m sci the institutions of political society exercise coercion and c o n ­ trol, while civil society creates hegemony through the production of cultural and moral systems that legitimate the existing social order F ro m this point o f view, the cultural parallel to coercion and control is heg emo nic relations If Gramsci were writing in the 9 s , I believe that he would think o f civil society both as a site for the production of hegemony, that is, as an intellectual and moral co m m itm en t to the way a society is ordered and governed, and as a site for contesting assertions a bo ut who has the right to rule and to define the different identities in society This is how museums are perceived in this vol­ ume: as places for defining who people are and how they should act and as places for challenging those definitions

T h e key point here is that the institutions o f civil society can be thought a bo ut separately from the agencies of government specifically charged with social control, such as the police and the courts Taking the police as an example, one would say that when police act in their capacity as officers o f the law, investigating crime, maintaining order, and so o n, they are acting as part o f political society Wh e n the police form a professional association, they are acting as members o f civil society, concerned with promoting the identities and interests o f police officers W hil e some museums in the United States may be part of lo cal, state, or national governments, they are not part o f political society; they remain agents o f civil society

tional organizations, and professional societies These are the social apparatuses responsible for providing the arenas and co nt ex ts in which people define, debate, and contest their identities and produce and reproduce their living circumstances, their beliefs and values, and ultimately their social order.8

E c o n o m i c activities, social life, and cultural affairs are all c o n ­ structed within civil society T h e movements o f persons from one identity and/or institution to ano th er connect these forms o f organiza­ tion and their practices Institutional identities often overlap O u r talk continually makes connections a mo ng the institutions o f civil society Some on e comes not just from a family but from an “old English family or an O r t h o d o x Jewish family.'’ A person is not simply a lawyer but a “Harvard lawyer” or a “feminist lawyer.” Art can be called “mainstream,” “black,” “Chinese,” “modernist,” or “p r i m i t i v e ” T h e last characterization, for ex amp le, suggests (among other things) that the artist making the object lacks formal training in an institution of civil society known as an art school or academy.9

Sociologists, anthropologists, and observers o f society from the time o f Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl M a r x , and M a x Weber to the present have argued that the strength and resilience o f a social order resides in the capacity o f civil society to aid in shaping the direction o f change Civil society is the crucible in which citizenship is forged As integral parts o f civil society, museums often justify their existence on the grounds that they play a m a j o r role in expressing, understanding, developing, and preserving the objects, values, and knowledge that civil society values and on which it depends Arguments a bo ut the social significance o f museums assert that museums can provide ser­ vices that other institutions can no t As repositories o f knowledge, value, and taste, museums educate, refine, or produce social c o m m i t ­ ments beyond those that can be produced in ordinary educational and civic institutions For example, museums are sometimes held up as the antidote to the failure o f families to engage in moral ed ucation— or so the argument goes Underlying this line o f thinking is the assertion that museums play a unique role in civil society.10

6 I V A N K A R P

nities are as often thought o f as being separate and unequal as they are tolerated and respected in civil society Henry Ford, for example, set up the Ford English School in D ea rb o rn , Michigan,

and compelled his foreign employees to attend it before and after w o r k t wo days a wee k T h e first thing [they] learned in the Ford s chool was how to say, “I am a good American.” Later the students acted o ut a p a n t o m i m e which admirably symbolized the spirit o f the enterprise In this p e r f o rm a nc e a great melting pot (labeled as such) o ccupied the middle o f the stage A long column o f immigrant stu­ dents descended into the pot from backs tage, clad in outlandish garb and flaunting signs procl aiming their fatherlands Simultaneously f rom either side o f the pot another stream o f men emerged, each prosperously dressed in identical suits o f clothes and each carrying a little American f l a g 11

T h is is surely an image o f civil society that asserts the value of some co mm uni tie s over others and strives to define the direction o f cultural change M o r e than a mosaic of communities and institutions, civil society is a stage, an arena in which values are asserted and attempts at legitimation made and contested

If civil society is a stage, then it has a script that the actors follow or at least use as a basis for improvising their performances his script contains the social ideas o f a society, the set o f beliefs, assump­ tions, and feelings in terms o f which people judge one another and which they sometimes use to guide their actions Social ideas often set up hierarchies of moral values in which communities and institutions are interpreted Social ideas embody notions people have about their differences and similarities, and these are organized in terms o f which is good and which bad , which superior and which inferior As signifi­ cant elements in civil society, museums articulate social ideas They define relations with communities whether they intend to or not f he processes o f makin g meaning and o f negotiating and debating iden­ tity— localized in institutions such as museums— provide the unwrit­ ten, ever-changing constitution of civil society T h e social ideas o f civil society are articulated and experienced through striving for consensus and struggling against the imposition o f identity Museums are one o f a nu mbe r o f settings for these conflicting but simultaneously operating processes, which m a k e social ideas understandable, but not always legitimate

production o f social ideas in many nations M us e um collections and activities are intimately tied to ideas about art, science, taste, and heritage Hence they are bound up with assertions a b o u t wha t is central or peripheral, valued or useless, kno wn or to be discovered, essential to identity or marginal T h e history o f debates a b o u t identity and the mosaic o f communities that could or should constitute civil society is the central issue to which the presentations and discussions in the Museums and Communities conference returned C on ference participants considered how museums could a c c o m m o d a t e multiple communities in their programs and why this process is critical to the production o f a civil society that acc o m m od at e s diversity

T h e essays in this volume are divided into three parts Part 1, “On Civil Society and Social Identity,” inquires into ho w people make and experience identity in civil society and how identity is manifested in forms o f public culture ranging from museums in India to festivals in Minne sot a T h e essays argue that the making o f identity and its m an i­ festations are really just two ways o f lo oking at one process T h e present moment in North American and Eu ro p ea n mus eum s, which is characterized by experiments with mus eum -co m mu nit y relations, is described in part , “Audience, Ow ne rs hip , and Authority: Designing Relations Between Museums and C o m m u n i t i e s ” T h i s mo me nt emerges out o f a specific historical co nt ex t in the United States and, we suspect, elsewhere Part o f this volume, “Defining Co m m u ni ti es Th ro ug h Exhibiting and Collecting,” shows that the interrogation o f cultural diversity is not a new concern for museums, and that the process o f asserting and questioning can be seen most clearly by l o o k ­ ing at the multiple ways the same objects are made to stand for differ­ ent identities; for example, at different places and at different times the same object can be a piece o f art, a sign o f a culture’s place in an evolutionary hierarchy, a sign o f heritage, or a m a rk o f oppression T h e essays examine how identity is asserted in ex hi bi tio ns , how such assertions change over time and are affected by specific relations among museums and communities, and finally ho w the audience itself can assert its own identity as part of its experience o f exhibitions

8 I V A N K A R P

nities can be seen in sharper outline here than elsewhere N o one has outlined the cultural history of American museums better than Neil H arr is, the master of museum historiography He provides a historical scheme that describes how this moment emerged Harris depicts ex­ traordinary transformations in museums’ attitudes toward their audi­ ences in the twentieth century.12 These changes are visible in many ways— for e xam pl e, museums that were content to a survey of audience demographics now sponsor in-depth focus groups that elicit visitors’ responses to and feelings about exhibitions

Harris also demonstrates the degree to which the perceptions of museums have changed along with the institutions themselves In the s , Harris tells us, cultural historians wrote histories o f museums that were “self-confident and optimistic.” “Almost any institution that managed to survive was admired, a tribute to sacrificing founders bent on co mb in ing the democratic genius with obvious needs for en­ lightenment, recreation, standardization, or reform.” 13 T h e trium- phalist history they told was a story of American modernization, a narrative o f how cultural institutions helped to create the new forms o f persons needed in industrial society

C urr en t writing on museums takes a mor e critical appr oa ch Left- wing points o f view hold that cultural institutions such as museums can be perceived as instruments of the elite that are used to assert class-based claims to interpret and control “high” culture At the same time, attempts to democratize them and open them up have been critiqued from the right because these processes are thought to pro­ mote values that degrade the great works contained in m u s e u m s 14

O n e factor that helped museums resist change has been what Harris describes as “a professional reluctance to see how museums were linked functionally with other units concerned with market share.” T h i s attitude operated primarily at the ideological level o f self­ definition, as Harris has shown elsewhere.15 Actually, museums have always look ed over their shoulders, albeit reluctantly, and been influ­ enced by competing institutions o f public culture, ranging from the w o rl d’s fair to the department store and, more recently, the theme park While this is not a line of influence that Harris traces, one could also add that museums have had their own influences on more c o m ­ mercial ventures: witness the way in which “total resort hotels” have been designed to attract clients by mimicking the cultural authority of the m u s e u m 16

atti-rude that flourished inside museums before World War I Harris de­ scribes this earlier time as a period o f “authoritarian condes ce nsio n” in museums, when upper classes presumed to speak for others T hi s was a period in which museum authorities “acknowledged the values o f popularity, but not its priority.”

In the 19 s and s museums became more interested in diverse audiences and sought to design environments better able to educate them N o one raised questions about how collections were made, ab out how they reinforced elite taste and standards, or about the claims to knowledge embodied by the curator or asserted through the authority o f the exhibition Harris refers to this time as the period o f “authoritarian experimentalism ” 17

Increasing concern over commercial and financial considerations had produced by the s another phase of museum history, which occured primarily in art museums T his was a period in which m u ­ seums underwent a vast exp an si on , using market surveys to help them capture as large a share o f the public’s attention (and money) as possi­ ble Harris sees museums as “absorbed by issues o f reputation and promo tio n and [as a result] making some better a cc o m m o d a ti o n to multicultural constituencies” that in general are poorly represented in museum staffs, collections, and exhibitions I would add that the blockbuster art exhibition, which draws as large a public as possible into the museum (but usually for only that one time) is also c h a r a c ­ teristic o f w'hat Harris aptly terms “an age o f populist deference,” his third phase o f museum history As art museums go, so goes the m u ­

seum world Few major museums of any genre— natural history, cul

tural history, or science and technology— feel able to survive without public attention

T h e impetus for museums to change their attitudes has often been e co n o m ic , with members o f the museum community arguing that their survival was at stake T h e means of change have been social; m a j o r redefinitions of the audience were undertaken, and museums increas­ ingly asserted that they were essential components o f the social order American art museums often justified their existence in the nineteenth century on the grounds that they exposed the urban working classes to objects that embodied “civilized” values T h e result, museums claimed, was to make better citizens out o f working men and w o m e n 18

10 I V A N K A R P

social reproduction These assertions define the museum as one o f the central institutions o f civil society; they also make museums answer- able for how well they educate and represent the citizens w ho com po se society In other words, the very roles that museums desire to play in civil society leave them open to accusations that they are responsible for features of the social order such as pervasive discrimination and injustice As definitions of inclusion and exclusion become more nego­ tiable, museums are asked to explain their history o f exclusion, and to fashion inclusive ways of going about their w o rk

This brings us to what Harris identifies as the current phase of museum history He points out that “deference was one thing, power another.” N ow , he argues, we live in an age o f “existential scrutiny, one in which the institution stands in an unprecedented and often troublesome relationship to its previous sense o f mission.” For Harris this is a period in which cultural deconstruction dominates the m u ­ seum playing field, as elsewhere “T h r o u g h o u t our entire culture the canons o f taste and the assumptions o f scholarship have been chal­ lenged and challenged from within T h e r e is no reason to believe that museums can be immune from this any more than universities, li­ braries, or medical schools.” 19

Perhaps Harris seems to me t o o confident about the end o f m u ­ seum history and too sure about how the contests will conclude History does not necessarily proceed in a straight line N o r are all claims to authority necessarily bad Fu rt he rm o re , the challenges to authority made on behalf o f communities can be surprising, even disturbing, and come at museums from unexpected directions T h e secretary of the Smithsonian Institution was recently “startled,” according to the newspapers, when he was asked while giving testi­ mony to the Senate to justify the N ati on al M u s e u m o f American Art’s revisionist exhibition T h e West as A m er ic a, which treated portraits of frontier experience as ideological tr a c t s 20 In this instance an estab­ lishment attempt to set the historical record straight (as that museum saw it) was challenged by elected representatives o f the American citizenry

An acute moral dilemma is raised by the acknowledgement that museums have responsibilities to comm uni ties W h a t happens when one community makes a request that will inevitably oppress another community? W h o actually speaks for a community? Are all demands equally valid? If not, what procedure should be set in place to adjudi­ cate among th em ?21

what is be coming a m a j o r issue for museums: how to manage the increasingly political relations between museums and communities Repatriation is yet another case where communities are taking an intense interest in how museums conduct their affairs N o r is this just a domestic issue in the United States Museums with collections de­ rived from overseas will soon have to justify their retention of the collections and their exhibition of them Natural-history museums may be no more exempt than art museums Biological type specimens are usually found in museums in the capital cities o f wealthy, indus­ trialized countries Yet they are equally valuable to the scientific and museum communities o f the states or countries in which they were acquired

Harris is more than correct to assert that the relations between museums and audiences have also taken on more overtly political overtones, and that these relations take the form o f questioning the claims to truth and beauty made by museums and their staff T h e new relationship is not simply one in which museums make assertions and members o f the audience challenge them Claims to authority are countered by parallel claims made by different museum constituen­ cies A good example involves the fall 9 meeting o f the Smithso­ nian Institution Council, during which they considered problems of cultural diversity On the very day that the council was meeting in the N ational Muse um of Natural History, tours o f the mu se um’s exhibi­ tions were being conducted by antievolutionist religious groups, who were enacting in the ex hibit halls of the museum a diversity different from the kind the council was considering in another wing o f the same

building But the claim to possess authoritative knowledge was no less apparent

Political contests have the peculiar tendency of overflowing the boundaries that are designed to contain them It is one thing for museums to try to broaden their audiences, and another for the public to claim the museum T h e museum world tends to think o f art mu­ seums as the site of controversy, but museums such as the National Museum o f Natural History have had their moments as well The claims made on the museum by different publics are instructive Reli­ gious groups resist the assertions o f science in the natural-history halls, while racial and minority groups resist the assertions about culture made in the anthropology halls

12 I V A N K A R P

nity events In spite of these efforts, different segments of the public de mand more Presently they claim the right to assert their c o m m u ­ nities’ point o f view in the essential activities o f the museums Stephen Weil is right: museums are not exempt from history, and the c o m m u ­ nities that have been eliminated from museums or denigrated by them now insist that museums rectify their errors— errors that can be viewed in out-of-date exhibit halls

T h i s is a historic m o m e nt , not a unique one It is a time in which audiences are claiming their rights as diverse communities T h e cur­ rent period o f “existential scrutiny” described by Neil Harris is as much a response of the museumgoing public to changing museum practice as museum practice has been a response to policy changes within museums T h e nature of what museums do, and their claims to a particular status in civil society, only create the possibility for the situation they now' co nfront Changes in civil and political society outside museums often provide the actual impetus for community requests and demands to museums It can n ot be accidental that in the United States communities are asking museums to ac co m m od a te themselves to cultural diversity at the same time as the courts are reducing the scope o f affirmative action programs Changes in politi­ cal society are channeling the battle for equal opportunity into the cultural sphere o f civil society

Suddenly, communities that have not previously been thought a bo ut as communities have sprung uninvited into museum delibera­ tions N at io na l museums may have to answer even to communities in other nations These newly emergent communities raise questions that museums often not have the experience to answer M any o f the essays in this volume ask the fundamental questions o f how museum experience becomes a community issue, and how museums a c c o m m o ­ date co mmunities T h e museum experience is supposed to be intensely private and personally transforming Communities are the setting in which the skills for appreciating museums are acquired, but m u s e um s’ audiences belong to many communities, often simultaneously Part o f the politics o f museum-community relations involves the politics o f asserting and legitimating claims to identity People speak on beh alf o f collectivities about an experience that they also think o f as essentially private and individual

contest a museum’s perspective by articulating a community point o f view T h is is not so new a phenomenon T h o m a s C r o w ’s important study Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-C entury Pans describes how the early salons became scenes o f contestation, where different actors fought over who was to represent the public At the same time as contemporaries described the audience as being composed o f indi­ vidual fragments, the audience also was assigned unitary opinions and a single will C ro w sees this paradox as part of a political contest:

We can arrive at empirical knowledge concerning the salon

au dien ce because an audience is by definition an additive p h e n o m e ­ non [that is, it can be counted] But what transforms an audience into a public, that is, a commonality with a legitimate role to play in justifying artistic practice and setting value on the products o f that practice? T h e public is a representation o f the significant totality [of the audience] by and for someone A public appears, with a shape and a will, via the various claims made to represent it; and when sufficient members o f an audience c ome to believe in one or anot her o f these representations, the public can become an important art- historical act or 22

A community can be one form of what C ro w here calls a “public,” a “c o m m on al ity ” for which someone presumes to speak M a n y o f the essays in this volume describe contests between communities and m u ­ seums over who is to speak on behalf of and to the commonality Speaking for and speaking to are often comb ine d, since the right to speak often depends on the creation o f community consciousness and a sense o f identity and mission This is the only w;ay in which a public can become an actor

Some of the most telling accounts in this volume describe claims to the right to speak on behalf o f a community J a c k Kugelmass’s penetrating account in part of American Jewish tours to former Nazi concentration camps in Poland shows that there are m a jo r differences between individual visits and organized tours T h e tours are c o n ­ trolled by people who serve as guides and interpreters In this guise they act out the political meanings of the visit to the cam ps, interpret the past and contemporary Poland to the tourists, and attempt to fashion a consistent sense o f identity and opinion in their clients T he y seek to be the representatives of a public as much as the critics o f the salon did in the eighteenth-century context described by C r o w

14 I V A N K A R P

involves challenges to accepted and sanctioned interpretations and wisdom, and often impassioned claims, counterclaims, and denials about who has the right to articulate a point o f view Vera Z o l b e r g ’s account in part o f “contentious c o m m un it ie s” o f artists and m u ­ seums, for example, describes the disputes between museums and artists about how to interpret the art displayed in museums

N o paper describes this political process better than Fath Davis Ruffins’s history in part o f African American preservation efforts She tells a complex story o f resistance to hegemonic interpretations of African American life, the desire to tell an insider’s story, competing claims over who has the right to represent African American expe ri­ ence, and finally, the development o f a professional cadre of inter­ preters among curators and museum professionals W h a t Ruffins de­ scribes is a movement from outsider status vis-a-vis the museum to insider status within museums It has had the consequence o f putting former outsiders in the position o f resisting the claims o f other m e m ­ bers o f African American communities to speak on behalf o f “the community.” T h e political contests over who has the right to speak for whom are an inevitable result o f the emergence o f new communities that make claims on museums T his is h o w publics are created

T h e acknowledgement by museums o f the existence o f publics entails the idea that these entities should be asked about their own opinions and interests and about the effects o f exhibitions on their sense o f who they are Inevitably we will discover that audiences have multiple opinions and multiple identities As a result, the audience becomes not a single comm ona li ty but many commonalities, called communities Fhe process C r o w describes for eighteenth-century Paris has its parallels with Harris’s history o f museums in twentieth-century America On one side are the museums, w ho query their audience about its beliefs, opinions, and desires; on the other side is the ch a n g ­ ing mosaic o f communities, which seek to influence and control how' museums act, what they ex am in e, wha t they represent, and how they represent it

recognition T h e intensity o f these debates in museums are directly related to their prominence in civil society As privileged agents of civil society, museums have a fundamental obligation to take sides in the struggle over identity (and indeed cannot avoid it) In fact, this strug­ gle is essential to the life o f civil society T h e essays in this volume recognize the situation o f museums and seek to interpret and explain the role o f museums in civil society at the same time as they also seek to describe how museums are currently experimenting with models for living in civil society

N O T E S

1 See Ivan Karp and Steven D Lavine, eds., Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics an d Politics o f M useum D isplay (Washington, D C : Smithsonian Institution

Press, 9 )

2 Patricia Failing, “Black Artists Today: A Case o f Excl usion, ” A R T news,

Mar 9 , -

3 T h i s issue has recently crystallized around literature on the Egyptian roots o f African and Western civilizations For a summary o f the current positions on this debate, see J oy ce Mercer, “Nile Valley Scholars Bring New Light and Cont roversy to African Studies,” Issues in H igher E ducation , no ( 9 ) ,

1, -

4 See the following essays in Karp and Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures: Carol D u n c a n , “Art Mus eums and the Ritual o f Citizenship” ; J a n e Livingston and J o h n Beardsley, “T h e Poetics and Politics o f Hispanic Art: A Ne w Perspec­

tive” ; and Tomas Y b a r r a - F r a u s t o , “T h e C h i ca n o M o v e m e n t / T h e Movement o f C h i ca n o Art.”

16 I V A N K A R P

6 T h i s list o f museum goals is taken from Jo s ep h Veatch N o bl e, “Museum M a n i fe st o ,” M useum N ew s , no ( ) , - It is cited in Weil, Beauty an d the B east,

7 See Weil, Beauty an d the Beast,

8 See Ant onio Gr am sc i , Selections fr o m the Prison N o te b o o k s o f A ntonio G ram sci, ed and trans Quinton Hoare and Geoffr ey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, ) For an excellent discussion o f how different a ut ho rs ’ use o f the concept o f civil society compares to G r a m s c i ’s f ormul at io n, see N orber to Bobbi o, “Gramsci and the Conception o f Civil Society,” in Chantal Mouff e, ed., G ram sci an d M arxist T heory (London: Rout ledge and Kegan Paul, 97 1)

9 See Ivan K ar p, “High and Low Revisited,” A m erican Art , no ( 9 ) , - , where I describe how producers o f “low” art tend to be divided into two categories: the popular, savvy artist versus the naive, unconscious amateur T h i s is a way o f distinguishing between c omme rcial art and so-called folk or primitive art It creates a false opposition between trained artists and s pon ta ­ neous artists T h e result is that so-called folk and primitive artists are pre­ sented as if they had not painstakingly acquired their skills or as if they had no predecessors

10 See the fall 9 issue o f N ew Perspectives Quarterly, “T h e Stupidifica- tion o f America, ” in which conservatives, liberals, and radicals debate the causes o f the declining standards o f American educat ion Th is is just the sort o f debat e in which museums increasingly insert themselves, and in terms o f which they justify their existence This line o f reasoning has unexpected c o n ­ sequences M u s eu m professionals are uncertain whether museums should be repositories o f objects or conduits o f information T h e very cl aims that m u ­ seums increasingly make open them up to this sort o f debate

11 J o h n H i g h a m , Strangers in the Land (New York: Atheneum, ) , 4 , -

1 Neil Harri s, “Polling for Opinion,” M useum N ew s, S e pt / Oc t 9 , -

13 Ibid ,

14 F or left-wing critiques, see, for example, C a ro l Duncan and Alan Wallach, “T h e Universal Survey Museum, ” Art History , no ( ) , 4 - , and La wr enc e Lavi ne, H ig h b ro w /L o w b ro w : The E m ergen ce o f Cultural H ier­ archy in A m erica (Cambridge, M a ss : Harvard University Press, 98 ) For the critical right-wing position, see the arts writing found in such neoconser- vative journal s as The N ew Criterion.

17 Ha rr is , “Polling for O pi ni on ”

18 See Lavine, H ig h b r o w /L o w b r o w for a spirited account o f h o w elites appropriated culture from the lower classes in nineteenth-century America Stephen Weil points out that although the Met ropol it an Mus eum o f Art was started to make reproductions o f European and classical art available to Ne w York’s wor king class, it was closed on Sunday “out o f deference for the reli­ gious sensibilities o f members o f its board” (Weil, Beauty an d the Beast, 4)

19 Har ri s , “Polling for O pi ni on ”

20 “ V i ew o f West Raises Hack les in Congress” read the headline in the

Philadelphia Inquirer ( J u n e 9 )

21 T h e s e are not hypothetical questions Each o f them is raised by the current debate over the repatriation o f Native American materials T h er e are cases in which t wo competing tribal groups have claimed the same objects T h e r e are instances in which requests have been made in the name o f religious sensi­ bilities to exclude people from access to collections on the grounds o f gender All o f these raise painful moral dilemmas and also produce situations that could conceivably engender resistance to lawful and morally correct requests from Native American communit ies Civil society is never wholly co he re nt , and responsible persons are often forced to take difficult stands

22 T h o m a s C r o w , Painting an d Public Life in Eighteenth-C entury Paris ( New Haven: Yale University Press, ) ,

2 T h e best account o f “everyday forms o f resistance” is J a m e s S cot t,

P A R T I

On Civil Society and Social Identity

I V A N K A R P

This part o f the volume takes a broad perspective on museum- community relations T h e essays in this section examine how iden­ tity is manifested and experienced in public culture, which includes settings such as museums and fairs T h e examples include commercial expositions in India, minority museums in the United States, commu

nity festivals in M in ne s ot a , and art museums in New York City Peo­ ple co me to these events and places to be edified, educated, and entertained, but these settings are also sites for the play o f identity Art, history, and ethnography displays, even natural-history exhib i­ tions, are all involved in defining the identities o f communities— or in denying them identity Every one o f these museum events and places are part of public culture, which can be shown to take on a large part o f the responsibility o f defining civil society.1

Public culture provides some relatively formal settings for defini­ tions and experiences o f identities, but public culture is only one fo­ rum in which people experience who they are There are others Identities are made and experienced in settings that differ from the so­ cial spaces o f public culture in multiple ways These other settings can include the intimacy o f the family or the sacred quality of religious

worship N o matter where or when identities are defined, they are ac­ ted out in ways that often contradict official definitions o f a social group’s identity T h e way people perform their social roles shows more about how they feel about their identity th a n does the content of the roles themselves And the way people pe rform their roles and e x ­ press their individual feelings demonstrates that more than one iden­ tity enters into their actions People know themselves to have more identities than they are allowed in a single setting, and these identities often overlap and even contradict one another

T h e essays in part discuss four aspects o f the process o f identity formation as these emerge in mu se um -co m m u ni ty relations: (1) iden­ tities arc defined by the content and form o f public-culture events such as exhibitions and performances; (2) identities are subjectively experienced by people participating in public culture, often in ways conditioned by their other identities and experiences; (3) expressions o f identities can contain multiple and co nt dic tor y assertions— that is, there can be more than one message in a single expression or per­ formance o f identity— and the same is true for the experience of iden­ tities; and (4) identities are rarely, if ever, pure and uncontaminated by other identities, because they are usually fabricated from a mix o f elements

T h e re are many types o f identities othe r than community identi­ ties, but this is a b o o k devoted to museums and communities N o n e ­ theless, community identities ca n n o t be discussed without first considering identity in general and the relationship between c o m m u ­ nity identities and personal identities in particular Even museum set­ tings relate personal and community identities: consider T h o m a s C r o w ’s analysis o f how “the public” ca me t o be defined in eighteenth- century Paris (discussed in the introduction to this volume) As C r o w argues, the experience o f visiting an exhibition and judging its m a te ­ rials is often intensely personal But museum professionals or cultural activists who try to explain and acc o u nt for the ways audiences e x p e ­ rience and respond to exhibitions usually invoke collective entities: “She’s L a t in o ”; “H e ’s middle-class” ; “T h e y ’re children.” We believe that communities exist within us in some way, and that their values a f ­ fect our perceptions and structure our ow n persona! values Hence, the individual experience o f viewing a muse um exhibition is also o r g a ­ nized by memberships in (that is, identification with) communities

Civil Society and Social Identity

entities that are fashioned from comm unity identities as well as other identities and experiences Similarly, community identities emerge out o f personal identities T he re cannot be a community if there are no in­ dividuals who think o f themselves as members o f it W h a t Benedict Anderson says about nations, that they are im agined communities, is true o f all co m m un it ie s In order for communities to exist in time and space, they must be imagined and represented by individuals as significant co mponents o f their identities

Identities are not easily known or clearly experienced phenom­ ena Personhood, M ey e r Fortes observes, poses problems that indi­ viduals have to solve.3 T he se include formulating answers to the questions of how we k n o w ourselves to be the persons we are sup­ posed to be and how we display our personhood These are questions frequently asked in the literature on personhood in anthropology and philosophy They arise out of the distinction that is comm onl y made between the person (the socially defined aspect of the self) and the in­ dividual (the uniquely experienced side o f the self) T h u s personhood is a Janus-faced phe nome non Individuals strive to be persons, at­ tempting to fulfill ex pe ctations they have co me to hold o f what it is to play a role or be a m e m b e r of a community Ideals are often invoked in this process, and museums are clearly places where representations o f such ideals are displayed T he se ideals comm uni cate messages a bo ut how persons should be defined; they set up models for behavior or display modes o f being that are to be avoided

In many cultural displays, ideals about the person are often as­ serted tacitly, derived from implicit contrasts between the viewers and makers o f exhibitions, on the one hand, and the persons and cultures displayed in the e xhi bitions, on the other.4 We might call this the ideo­ logical aspect o f identity making However, people think o f them­ selves as being more than the sum total o f their social roles and

personhood They also define themselves in terms of “those particular contingencies which m ak e each o f us T rather than a copy or replica o f somebody else.” T h i s is the subjective aspect of identity T he per­ son and the individual are always simultaneously cooperating and at war with each other T h e re is a parallel here with museum displays, which are one o f the sites in which identities are made: here museums and communities simultaneously cooperate and battle

they will find in museums; often they are disappointed at not finding their expectations realized or infuriated at seeing w hat they had hoped would be omitted

Ex hibition makers have parallel problems The y too have identi­ ties; these include their professional standing and co m m itm en ts they have to serve the community Exh ibitio ns portray their m a k e r s’ sense o f how the world is defined T h is sense is not unrelated to the role museums play as archives o f knowledge and objects Responsible m u ­ seum personnel identify with the professional and curatorial obliga­ tions associated with this museum role, and seek to portray the social world in terms that ho n o r their sense of purpose and identity Yet they are also members o f com m uni tie s, and bring to their world personal and communal histories that often relate to and interact with the his­ tories o f the communities that compose the constituency o f their m u ­ seums This co mplex situation creates a postmodern problem for museums First, they must fashion exhibitions that can present multi­ ple perspectives on the world T h e n they must ensure that those per­ spectives respect but also are critical o f not only museums’ o wn worldview but also the woridview o f the people whose lives, culture, knowledge, and objects they are exhibiting T h is will require e xh ib i­ tions that encompass all aspects o f cultural experience, both the typi­ cal (a culture or c o m m u n i ty ’s ideas o f what it is to be a person, to be a m e m b er o f that culture or community) and the unique (what it is to be an individual in that culture or community and have experiences that are different from a no th er ’s )

T h e essays collected in this section all address these central issues o f identity formation So me focus 11 personhood and identity, some o n exhibitions, and some on both Appadurai and Breckenridge’s es­ say shows how colonial displays in Indian museums are interpreted by postcolonial Indian audiences in ways that go far beyond the images presented in the exhibitions themselves While colonial messages and postcolonial interpretations engage and contradict each other, the multiplicity o f identities that are asserted and experienced in museum exhibitions are affected by a set o f interpretive processes that derive less from museums themselves than from other aspects o f public cul­ ture in India today

Civil Society and Social Identity 23

competition with the state Aspects of public culture in postcolonial India such as television, films, advertising, commercial expositions, and tourism developed not sequentially but simultaneously, and in a world in which physical distance is rarely any longer a barrier to inter­ action among different ethnic and national groups As a result, an aesthetic o f viewing has emerged that is at once transnational and In­ dian Appadurai and Breckenridge argue that the Indian public ap­ plies this aesthetic, rather than different sets o f interpretive skills, to these different forms o f public c ulture Consequently the distinction between “serious” and “popular” culture that we in Europe and North America tend to make is not particularly relevant for Indian audi­ ences’ experience o f museum ex hi bi tio ns In a sense Appadurai and Breckenridge’s vision o f the Indian public is George M a c D o n a l d ’s nightmare vision o f the North American future— one in which the public can no t distinguish between the educational messages created by exhibition makers and the trivializations of culture perpetrated by the popular media in the name o f commercialization (see his essay in part 2) Yet there are differences, for Appadurai and Breckenridge be­ lieve that what is im portant in India is the very way in which the var­ ious forms o f public culture affect one another and the way they combine local, national, and transnational elements T h e result of these conflicting and contradictory identities and histories is a truly hybrid cultural form ati on But the existence of this hybrid should not be shocking, for all cultural formations are hybrid Appadurai and Breckenridge’s achievement is to show the historical contexts and pat­ terns o f mixing that make Indian public culture what it is today

Ed mu nd Barry G a it h e r ’s essay also examines the multiple nature o f identities in museums His is a passionate plea to acknowledge the role museums can play in the reconstruction o f civil society But he as­ serts that we must also acknowledge the complex nature o f peoples’ identities and, by implication, the histories of their communities G a i ­ ther rejects simple distinctions between assimilation and separatism; for exa mp le, people have the capacity to be both African American and American at the same time T h e problem is not how people choose identities, but the checkered history o f how those identities have been manifested in civil society and exhibited in museums

It is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you k n o w — which is the price o f your performance and survival— you not exist It is hard to imitate a people whose exist ence ap­ pears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude t hat they are not, thank heaven, y ou

T h e silences more than simply deny African American existence In exhib it io ns that celebrate cultural achievement, the very fact that the achievements o f people o f color are ignored introduces implicit mes­ sages abo ut their worth A hierarchy o f cultures is erected, in which those worth examining are separated from those that deserve to be ig­ nored Racial imagery and ethnocentrism can be co mmunicated by w t is not exhibited as well as by what is Large, historically impor­ tan t mus eum s, such as the universal survey art museums, now have to face the consequences o f their history o f silence Co mmu nities are o f ­ ten no longer content to remain passive recipients o f museum activ­ ities At the very least they demand to be included in the celebration o f cultural achievements

Civil Society and Social Identity 25

rest upon his belief in the capacity o f people to make the effort to identify with what they see in museums— if they are given the chance to so and if the exhibition provides support and encouragement This identification will be only the beginning; curiosity and a desire for knowledge will follow, and museums are the natural entities for satisfying these desires, thus producing more knowledgeable citizens

Gait he r advocates a positive role for museums in society He e n ­ visions museums as crucibles for forging citizens who see themselves as part o f civil society, as important members o f a valid social order Museums have the responsibility to compensate for the failure of other institutions, such as schools, to show members of minority groups their stake in society Museums can play this role because they are spaces for the play o f identities, and the multiple nature o f those identities can be made part of museums’ exhibitions and programs For Gaither, museums that serve communities with multiple identi­ ties, such as African American museums, are now important locations for innovative practices that will show the way for mainstream mu ­ seums to e xpa nd their constituencies and reform their exhibiting and educational programs

Guille rmo Gomez -Pen a defines identities in a way that goes be­ yond thinking a bo ut them as multiple and complex Assertions about identity may attempt analytically to disentangle and separate out co mponents o f a particular co mm uni ty’s identity and try to show how people shift from one identity to another, but this interpretation ig­ nores the perspective from the margins T h e making of identities is as intrinsically “syncretic, diverse, and complex as the fractured realities we are trying to define." Gomez-Pena writes from the border, that is, from the point of view o f people who continuously melt wn,

merge, and am al ga m ate seemingly incommensurate senses o f identity and points o f view He calls for the acknowledgement of a new

“world topography,” which implies a way o f seeing that acknowledges that the margins are actually the center, that the center is continually shifting, and that it is the task o f the artist to bring out the hybrid and dynamic nature o f these fractured realities

He desires to replace postmodernist critique with “experimental tech­ niques and practices to intervene directly in the w o r l d ” T h is is a political position that recognizes that today ’s margin may be to m o r ­ r o w ’s center, and that to be at the center is to reproduce the structure o f hegemony His are subtle but penetrating observations Gome z- Pena acknowledges that power is always a danger and can be fought only with politics All hegemonic assertions, which are embedded in definitions o f the canon and criteria o f taste, must be fought with “creative appropriation, expro priation , and subversion o f dominant cultural forms.”

Assertions o f cultural centrality are also assertions o f hegemony for Gomez-Pena T h e claim that any artist is centered in his or her cul­ ture, often made about Latino and African American artists, is a hege­ monic claim that seeks to prevent the search for new content and for an art that is against “monoculturalism.” Such claims implicitly define a canon against which other w orks o f art or forms o f culture will be judged T h e result is that the hierarchical structure o f evaluations set up by dominant cultures is reproduced in minority and subordinate cultures Gomez-Pena counsels resistance “To step outside one’s cul­ ture equals to walk outside o f the law,” he says, “but it also means to maintain one’s dignity outside the law.” T hi s is an ideal, not a possi­ bility W h a t Gomez-Pena envisions is a stance that does not blindly accept the world as being defined by the tenets o f any single culture Such dominating practices have no place on the border

For museums, this implies that exhibitions that claim to present true and authentic pictures o f peoples and their cultures— that a t­ tempt to define what is essentially African or American or English or M e x i c a n — are hegemonic practices that reproduce the values and privileges o f the center G om ez -P ena denies all claims to the privileged possession o f any experience, whether it be ethnic, racial, or artistic

Civil Society and Social Identity 27

and judged in terms o f multiple perspectives Just as museums have the obligation to examine the consequences o f their own exhibiting and educational practices, so communities have the responsibility to see that exhibitions abo ut themselves are more than celebratory

All types o f museums have responsibilities to communities These matters are not just the special preserve of cultural-history or ethnic and minority museums Art and science museums have the same obligations as the others Science museums, for example, usually de­ fine themselves as possessing privileged access to verifiable truths But science is as partial a perspective on the world as any other Like any other body o f knowledge, it can be used in a hegemonic f a s h io n 11 Even the seemingly innocent and uncriticizable demand that natural- history museums play a maj or role in advocating environmental c o n ­ cerns should be critically evaluated, for far too often in the history o f the environmental movement, unconfirmed facts and the selection o f issues that are mostly white and middle-class concerns get presented as the ou tc o m e o f “scientific research.” This is yet another situation in which Western points o f view assume a falsely universal significance Sadly, these points o f view can become the justification for doing a great deal o f harm to the rural poor and the native peoples o f the T hi r d World For ex amp le, a recent exhibition on the highland gorilla and its status as an endangered species, which toured the m aj or natu- ral-history museums o f the United States, uncritically reproduced some o f the mo st offensive racial stereotypes about the sexuality of Africans Yet not a single public protest was made by any responsible scientific institution, nor was there any mention o f the racial imagery and attitudes in the reviews o f the e x h ib it io n 12 If museum profession­ als take up G o m e z - P e n a ’s challenge, the cultural assumptions they will have to co nf ro nt critically include their o wn T h e y too will have to walk outside their cultures and the law, with dignity

man-age and renegotiate, and it is a central co nc er n of parts and o f this b o o k Part contains case studies of exhibitions that allow power to be shared by museums and communities, and part uses a historical perspective to look at exhibiting co ntexts as sites for contestation be­ tween museum and community or even community and community

R o b e r t Lavenda’s essay, “Festivals and the Creation o f Public Culture: W h o s e Voice(s)?” questions cherished assumptions held by the general public and the museum co mm uni ty ab out the nature of co mm uni ties Lavenda examines comm uni ty festivals in M inn es ota , a state where the local festival is a flourishing enterprise Festivals are generally held to be special events in which everyday cares and social differences are put aside and people interact as part o f the larger c o m ­ munity to which they b e lo n g 13 Yet the communities that Lavenda e x ­ amines are like all communities in the world: they are internally divided and made up o f segments that have overlapping but some­ times different interests

Civil Society and Social identity 29

In St Paul issues o f gender and class intrude on the organization o f festival performances Vulcans, the an on y mo u s pranksters who mock the pretensions o f the festival’s royal co urt, also act out a carni- valized denial of bourgeois standards o f sexuality But their playful a c ­ costing o f women is no longer acceptable in a society in which

violence against wo me n has be co m e a public issue T h e wives o f the princes o f the royal court are now included in the public ceremonies as well, but Lavenda shows that the liberal assertions of gender c o m ­ plementarity serve only to emphasize the actual gender inequality Wives make brief appearances that only demonstrate their irrelevance to the celebration o f individual male achievement that is at the heart o f the festival's public ceremonies

Class differences and conflict intervene in all the festivals Lav­ enda discusses, but in the St Paul case the class-based control o f the festival extends far beyond the control in the other M in ne so ta festi­ vals described in the essay T h e urban nature o f the St Paul milieu e n ­ ables the organizers to have far less contact with lower-class audiences than is possible in small towns The St Paul elite not need to keep their own activities secret, and the vast expenditures required for their participation provide an effective barrier against lower-class groups penetrating their events

But this creates a problem After all, the St Paul Wint er Carnival is a com m un ity festival H o w is community participation maintained at the same time that segments o f the community are excluded? T h is has become a gender issue as well as a class issue As St Paul becomes more diverse, it may be co m e a racial and ethnic issue as well Lavenda examines how this pro blem is managed in all the M in ne so ta festivals by describing h o w voices are defined and experienced

T h e voices Lavenda discusses have both official and unofficial sides T h e festivals are defined by official voices, but even those voices can express dou bt, as in the halfhearted attempts to give wives a sig­ nificant role In St Paul the institutionalized mockery of the Vulcans provides an official setting for unofficial attitudes to be voiced; here, t o o , doubt and uncertainty creep in about how different segments o f the community have been defined and treated

bitrary In some co ntex ts people’s responses are as hybrid as Gomez- Peria’s co nce pt o f the border as a site for the production of culture would suggest In other contexts conflict becomes an overt problem in relations between communities and cultural institutions

O v e r t conflict between museums and a specific type o f c o m m u ­ nity, namely artists, is the theme o f Vera Z o lb e r g ’s essay Z o lb e r g de­ scribes relations between museums and a set o f individuals, artists, who only occasionally come together to form a community Wh en they do, however, they often perceive themselves as being in opp osi­ tion to the art museums whose jo b it is to exhibit them Art museums also have co m pl ex senses of their mission and identity Jus t as artists aspire to recognition and reputation, so art museums T h e r e are few directors o f art museums who not define their legacy as a dis­ tinguished collection One ma jo r issue for artists and museums is the degree to which an art museum should define itself as an agent for the local artistic community T h e more cosmopolitan the art mu se um , the more involved it becomes in the history o f modern and cont empo rary art, which is usually represented as a history o f artistic production in Paris and N e w York

Z o l b e r g ’s essay describes how artists in other maj or cities, includ­ ing Washington and Chicago, have reacted against the history o f art as it has been defined by critics and museums They also seek to resist the silences in terms o f which they are defined It may be that artists’ most im portant experience in the process o f defining themselves as a co m m un it y is their interest in asserting their local existence in the art world

Z o l b e r g observes that “artists tend not to form durable c o m m u ­ nities.” W h e n they so it is usually because they have a temporary sense o f shared identity as a group that is resisting a definition o f art and defining new modes o f expression Z o lb e r g cites the dadaist tradi­ tion o f flouting bourgeois conventions as a significant theme in c o n ­ temp ora ry arts and observes that this pits many artists against art muse ums , which have patrons who possess bourgeois taste and often assert bourgeois moral standards

artis-Civil Society and Social Identity I

tic right and left; on the one hand, it was condemned for aban nin g its role as guardian o f aesthetic standards, and on the other it was condemned for castrating the best and most outrageous in popular arts in its e xhi bi tio n T h e cura tor s’ nervousness was manifested in the opening pages o f the catalogue, which made multiple references to the religious quality o f high a r t 14

Zo lb e rg argues that museums not like to deal with artists as a community, but attempt to interact with them as individuals T h is is a classic response to community demands on cultural institutions Insti­ tutions assert that these issues can be dealt with only on a case-by-case basis Hence they deny the legitimacy o f claims made by people who act as spokespersons for communities I am not making a judgment here; I am describing a strategy As this essay pointed out earlier, claims to speak on behalf of a comm unity can also involve denying the interests o f segments o f that community But the insistence that the issues are individual and not the co m m u n i ty ’s also denies the claimed interests o f the community T h e cases discussed in this volume are p o ­ litical contests; hence it should not be surprising that the means of conducting business is political

A m a j o r co ntribut ion of Z o l b e r g ’s essay is to show how asser­ tions or denials o f identities in muse um -comm un ity relations are p o ­ litical processes M us e um s are certifiers o f taste and definers o f cultures As such, they are intimately involved in the task o f defining identities and setting up schemes that classify and relate cultural iden­ tities T h e way that museums are inserted in civil society and their power to produce cultural values make them an integral part o f the processes by which cultures are placed into hierarchies that define them as superior or inferior to one another

N O T E S

1 Public culture is a term coined to describe forms o f popular culture and mor e formal institutions such as museums See Arjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge, “Why Public C ul tur e?” Public Culture 1, no ( 8 ) , - (In the i nt roduct ion to part o f this volume Steven Lavine refers to the literature on civic culture T h i s debate has nothing to with the writings about public culture.)

2 See Benedict Anders on’s Im agin ed C om m u n ities: R eflection s on the Origin an d S pread o f N ationalism (Lo ndon : Verso, )

3 M e y e r Fort es, Religion, M orality, and the Person: Essays on Tallensi R eli­ gion , ed J a c k Go od y (Cambridge: C am b r i d g e University Press, ) ,

1 2 - F or te s ’s is the most relevant work on the relation between the person and the individual Amelie R o r t y ’s excellent collection o f essays on the c o n ­ cept o f p er so nh oo d (T he Identities o f Persons [Berkeley: University of C a l i f o r ­ nia Press, ] ) covers the history of the philosophical debate over these matters

4 See Ivan K ar p , “Ot her Cultures in M u s e u m Perspective,” in Ivan Karp and Steven D Lavine, eds., E xhibiting Cultures: T he Poetics an d Politics o f M u­ seum D isplay (Washington, D C : Smi ths oni an Institution Press, 9 ) , and Tony Ben net t, “T h e Exhibit ionary C o m p l e x , ” N ew F orm ation s ( 8 ) , -

5 R ic har d Rorty, Contingency, Irony, an d S olidarity ( C ambr idg e: Camb ri dg e University Press, 9 ) ,

6 T h i s raises the question o f how to define authority T h i s is discussed in parts and o f this volume, and extensively in the proceedings o f the p re ­ vious c on fe ren ce, published as Ivan Karp and Steven D Lavine, eds., E x h ib it­ ing Cultures: T h e Poetics an d Politics o f M useum D isplay (Washington, D C : Smi ths onian Institution Press, 9 ) Multiple parties, each claiming a u t h o r ­ ity, c o mp et e to control the content o f exhibitions M us e um s experi ment with sharing p o we r and means o f distributing authority Yet h o w authority is m a n i ­ fested in museums has not been investigated In “T h e F at e o f T i p p o o ’s Ti ger: A Critical A c co u nt o f Et hnogr aphi c Display” ( Lo s Angeles: Getty C ent er for the Flistory o f Art and the Humanit ies, 9 ) , Ivan K a rp and C ori nne Krat z begin to u npa c k museum assertions o f authority by distinguishing between “eth no graphi c authority,” which is exhibition-specific, and “cultural a u t h o r ­ ity,” w'hich relates to the implicit claims mus eums m a ke a bout their role in civil society

Civil Society and Social Identity 33

exhibitions are viewed rather than the actual act o f viewing, which is what believe is a private experience But there are cultural differences between India and some Western settings In the West art museums in particular invoke the sacred qualities o f the c h ur c h, while in India far more interaction is apparent in museum visits But even in the West there are certain kinds o f visits where the audience is inherently interactive T h e hierarchically organized tour is one such kind o f visit, and certainly parent-child visits are occasions for teaching and interaction M y point is that even interaction is only an a ppr oxi mat e way o f expressing an interior experience: viewing T h e r e is always a space between what we experi ence and how we express it

8 See Ivan K a rp , “ High and L o w Revisited,” A m erican Art , no ( 9 ) , -

9 Cited in B lack Arts, no ( 9 ) , N o reference provided

10 See L y o t a r d ’s fa mo us definition o f the postmodern as “incredulity toward met anarra ti ve s” (Jean-Fran<;ois Lyotard, T he PostM odern C on dition [ M a n ­ chester: M a n c he s te r University Press, ] , xxiv)

11 See the recent critical evaluations o f natural science by Sandra Harding in

T h e Science Q uestion in Fem inism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ) , and by D o n n a Ha way in Prim ate Visions (Lo n n: Rout ledge, C h a p m a n , and Hall, ) David H u l l’s recent study of the history o f theory in biology

(Science As Process [Chica go: University o f C hi ca go Press, 8 ] ) shows how fundamentally politicized and personalized debates in classificatory biology have become

12 T h e Nat ional M u s e u m o f Natur al History wras concerned enough to pull the most offensive picture, a blurry photograph o f an African child that made him look like a monster See G orilla: Struggle f o r Survival in the Virungas,

photographs by Michael Nic ho ls and essay by George B Schaller, ed Nan R ic har ds on ( N e w York: Apert ure, 9 ) , 4 -

13 For a discussion o f the pr ob lems inherent in this view and the politics o f festivals in general, see part o f Karp and Lavine, eds., E xhibiting Cultures,

and K a rp ’s introductory essay in that section

Museums Are Good to Think: Heritage on View in India

A R J U N A P P A D U R A I A N D C A R O L A B R E C K E N R I D G E

One o f the striking facts about complex societies such as India is that they have not surren­ dered learning principally to the formal institutions o f schooling In this type o f co m pl ex society, urban groups tend to monopolize postsecondary schooling and the upper middle class tends to control the colleges and universities In such societies, therefore, learning is more often tied to practical ap ­ prenticeship and informal socialization Also, and not coincidentally, these are societies in which history and heritage are not yet parts o f a bygone past that is institutionalized in history book s and museums Rather, heritage is a live component o f the human environment and thus a critical part o f the learning process These observations are particularly worth noting since societies such as India are often crit­ icized for having created educational institutions where learning does not thrive and where credentialism has become a mechanical mode for selection in an extremely difficult ec onomic context Informal means o f learning in societies such as India are not, therefore, mere eth ­ nographic curiosities They are real cultural resources that (properly understood and used) may well relieve the many artificial pressures placed upon the formal educational structure Museums are an emer­ gent component o f this world o f informal education, and what we

Museums Are Good to Think 35

learn about museums in India will tell us much of value about learn­ ing, seeing, and objects, which in turn should encourage creative and critical approaches to museums (and informal learning arrangements in general) elsew'here

Museums in India look simultaneously in two directions They are a part o f a transnational order of cultural forms that has emerged in the last two centuries and now unites much o f the world, especially its urban a r e a s Museums also belong to the alternative forms of modern life and thought that are emerging in nations and societies throughout the w'orld These alternative forms tend to be associated with media, leisure, and spectacle, are often associated with self-con­ scious national approaches to heritage, and are tied up with transna­ tional ideologies of development, citizenship, and cosmopolitanism Con duc ting an investigation o f museums, therefore, entails being sen­ sitive to a shared transnational idiom for the handling o f heritage while simultaneously being aware that this heritage can take very different national forms

M U S E U M S A N D H E R I T A G E

Although there is a growing literature (largely by scholars outside the museum world) that concentrates on museums, collecting, objects, and heritage, these discussions not generally extend to museums in India Our concern is to build on a few recent efforts in this direction as well as some earlier o n es ,2 so that comparative evidence from non- Western, postcolonial societies can be brought into the mainstream of theory and method in this area

In anthropology, there is a renewed interest in objects, co ns u m p­ tion, and collection more generally.3 W h at emerges from the literature on this topic is that objects in collections create a complex dialogue between the classificatory concerns o f connoisseurs and the self-reflec­ tive politics o f communities; that the presence of objects in museums represents one stage in the objects’ cultural biographies;4 and that such classified objects can be critical parts o f the “marketing of heri­ tage.”5 Here we are reminded that objects’ meanings have always re­ flected a negotiated settlement between longstanding cultural signifi­ cations and more volatile group interests and objectives

political and pedagogical aims in the history of a n t h r o p ol og y ;7 that collections and exhibitions c a nn ot be divorced from the larger cultural cont ex ts o f philanthropy and ethnic or national identity for mat io n; that anthropologists and “natives” are increasingly engaged in a dia­ logue out of which cultural identity emerges; and that museums c o n ­ tribute to the larger process by which popular culture is formed As far as India is concerned, museums seem less a product o f philanthropy and more a product o f the conscious agenda o f India’s British rulers, which led them to e xca va te, classify, catalogue, and display India’s artifactual past to itself T h is difference affects the ethos o f Indian museums today, and also affects the cultural dynamics o f viewing and learning

Another relevant body o f literature emphasizes the relationship between museums and their publics as well as their educational mis­ si o n For the most part, these studies lack a sense o f the historical and cultural specificity o f the different publics that museums serve While the public sphere has been most richly discussed in terms o f the last three hundred years in E u r o p e , there are now a host o f non-Western nations that are elaborating their public spheres— not necessarily ones that emerge in relation to civil society, but often ones that are the result o f state policies in tandem with consumerist interests T h u s , there is a tendency in these discussions for the idea o f “the public” to be co me tacitly universalized (though some o f these studies are c o n ­ cerned with sociological variations within visitor populations) W h a t is needed is the identification o f a specific historical and cultural p u b ­ lic, one which does not so much respon d to museums but is rather

c re a te d, in part, through museums and other related institutions In India, museums need not worry so much abo ut finding their publics as a b o u t making them

T he re is, o f course, a vast body o f literature that is a b o u t art in relation to museums T h i s literature is not very relevant to the Indian situation because, except for a small minority in India and for a very short period o f its history, and in very few museums there, art in the current Western sense is not a meaningful category Art continues to struggle to find a (bourgeois) landscape it can be comfo rta ble i n 10 In place o f art, other categories for objects dominate, such as han dicra ft, technology, history, and heritage O f these, the one on which we focus is the category o f heritage

Museums Are Good to Think 37

lar values abo ut ex hibi tion , design, and display Tony Bennett’s c o n ­ cept of “the exhibitionary c o m p l e x ” 12 and Donna H ar aw a y ’s argu­ ment that natural history has the effect o f naturalizing particular histories13 both remind us that museums are deeply located in cultural history, on the one hand, and are therefore also critical places for the politics o f history, on the other Ideologies o f preservation might fre­ quently conceal implications for tr a n sf o r m a ti o n 14 For exa mp le, the effort to present vignettes o f life from other societies often involves the decontextualization o f o bje cts from their everyday contexts, with the unintended result o f creating aesthetic and stylistic effects that not fit the original co ntext In other cases, objects that were parts o f living dramas o f warfare, ex ch an ge , or marriage become mechanical indica­ tors o f culture or cu stom In yet other cases, the politics of cultural patrimony and political conquest are concealed in the technical lan­ guage o f e thn ographic signage All of these examples reveal a tension between the dynamic co nt ext s from which objects were originally derived and the static tendencies inherent to museum environments T h is is a valuable tension to bear in mind as we explore the context of museums in India, where the politics of heritage is often intense, even violent

A m o n g anthropologists, folklorists, and historians, there has re­ cently been a spate o f writing about the politics of her itag e.15 M u c h of this wo rk suggests (in some cases using no n-Euro-American examples) that the appropriation o f the past by actors in the present is subject to a variety o f dynamics T h e s e range from the problems associated with ethnicity and social identity, nostalgia, and the search for “muse- umized” authenticity, to the tension between the interests states have in fixing local identities and the pressures localities exert in seeking to transform such identities T h e result is a number o f contradictory pressures, some toward fixing and stabilizing group identities through museums (and the potential o f their artifacts to be used to e m bl e m a ­ tize existing or emergent group identities), and others that attempt to free and destabilize these identities through different ways o f display­ ing and viewing objects

T H E C U L T U R A L A N D C O N C E P T U A L B A C K G R O U N D

T h e public sphere in contemporary India, as in the rest o f the world, has emerged as part o f the political, intellectual, and commercial inter­ ests o f its middle classes In India in the last century, this public sphere has involved new forms of democratic politics, new modes o f c o m m u ­ nication and transport, and new ways in which class, caste, and liveli­ hood are articulated We are concerned with one dimension o f this evolving public sphere, which we call public culture By public culture we mean a new cosmopolitan arena that is a “zone o f contestation.” 16 In this zone, private and state interests, low and high cultural media, and different classes and groups formulate, represent, and debate what culture is (and should be) Public culture is articulated and re­ vealed in an interactive set o f cosmo po litan experiences and struc­ tures, o f which museums and exhibitions are a crucial part

O n the surface, museums as modern institutions have only a short history and appear to emerge largely out o f the colonial period:

T h e museums started under British rule had been intended mainly for the preservation o f the vestiges o f a dying past, and only subsid­ iarily as a preparation for the future M us e u m s were the last haven o f refuge for interesting architectural fragments, sculptures and in­ scriptions which saved them from the hands of an ignorant and indifferent public o r from unscrupulous co nt cto rs who would have burned them to lime, sunk them into foundations or melted them down Into the museums the products o f the declining indigenous industries were accumulated, in the vain hope that they might serve as models for the inspiration o f artisans and the public Mineralogi - cal, bo tani cal, zoological and ethnological collections were likewise started, though rarely developed systematically: often they did not grow beyond sets o f hunting t r o p h ie s 17

As a consequence, until recently most museums in India have been moribund and have not been a vibrant part o f the public cultural life o f its people O n e early analysis o f this “failure” o f museums in India comes from H er m a nn Goetz T h e factors he identifies as reasons for this failure include the fragmentary nature o f many collections, the failure o f industrial art to inspire capitalist pro duction, and the lack of response to natural-history collections by a public “still living in the world o f myths.” 18

Museums A re Good to Think 39

living past found especially in its sacred places and spaces, so there is little need for “artificial” conservation of the Indian heritage; second, the separation of sacred obje cts (whether of art, history, or religion) from the obje cts o f everyday life had not really occurred; and third, the separation of hu ma n beings from the overall biological, zoologi­ cal, and cosmological environment in which they lead their ordinary lives had barely began

M o r e recently, museums have begun to play a more vigorous role in Indian public life In part this is because of a renewed concern with education as one element o f social and economic development; in part because private comm erc ial enterprises have begun to use an exhibi­ tion for mat for displaying their wares; and in part because museums have be co m e plugged into a circuit o f travel, tourism, pilgrimage, and leisure that has its o wn distinctive history and value in Indian society

Here it may be useful to m a k e a historical contrast Museums in Europe and the United States have been linked to department stores through a c o m m o n genealogy in the great nineteenth-century world's fairs But in the last century, a separation o f art and science and of festivity and co m m er ce has taken place in these societies, with the objects and activities in each category fairly sharply distinguished in terms o f audience, curatorial expertise, and visual ideology In India, such a specialization and separation is not a part of either the past or the present

O ne pole is the modern muse um— whether o f art, craft, science, or archaeology— in which the Indian viewer’s visual literacy is harnessed to explicitly cultural and nationalist purposes T h e other pole is the newly emergent, Western-style department store, where gazing and viewing also go on but buying is the normative goal In our usage,

gazing implies an open-ended visual and sensory engagement tied up with fantasy and desire for the objects on display, while view ing im­ plies a more narrowly framed, signage-guided visual orientation

Framing these three display forms and contributing most actively to the regeneration o f the museum experience is the festival form, especially as it has been harnessed by the Indian state in its effort to define national, regional, and ethnic identity Such festivals are on the increase throughout the w o r l d 19 and everywhere represent ongoing debates concerning emergent group identities and group artifacts

In India, the museum-oriented Festival o f India, first constructed in as a vehicle for the cultural display o f India in foreign nations and cities, quickly became indigenized into a massive internal festival called Apna Utsav (Ou r Festival), which began in and now has an elaborate national and regional administrative structure Part o f a vast state-sponsored network for local and interregional displays o f art, craft, folklore, and clothing, these spectacles o f ethnicity are also influencing the cultural literacy and visual curiosity o f ordinary In­ dians in a manner that gives further support to the reinvigoration of museums, on the one hand, and the vitality o f exhibition-cum-sales, on the other W h a t is thus emerging in India, and seems to be a relatively specialized cultural comp le x, is a world o f ob jects and expe­ riences that ties together visual pleasure, ethnic and national display, and consumer appetite Muse ums , marginal in the eyes o f the wider Indian public in the last century, have taken on a new role in the last decade as part o f this emergent constellation o f phenomena

T h e p h o t o g r a p h s in t hi s e s s a y c o n s t i t u t e a n a r r a t i v e p a r a l l e l t o t he t e x t T h e y p r o v i d e a r e p r e s e n t a t i v e v i s ua l s a m p l e o f t h e a r c h i v e o f vi s ual e x p e r i e n c e s t h a t I n d i a n v i s i t or s b r i n g t o m u s e u m s T h e y a r e m e a n t t o c o n v e y t h e p o i n t s o f c o n t a c t b e t w e e n d i f f e r e n t s e g m e n t s o f I n d i a n v i s u a l real ity, w h i c h r a n g e f r o m fi l m a n d t e l e v i s i o n i m a g e s t o m y t h i c a n d p o l i t i c a l s c e n a r i o s , a n d c o n s t i t u t e t h e “ i n t e r o c u l a r f i el d” w i t h i n w h i c h t he m u s e u m e x p e r i e n c e o p e r a t e s a n d t o w h i c h w e r e f e r in t h e c o n c l u s i o n

Fi g - T h e v i s ua l p r o m ­ ise o f K o d a k f i l m f r a m e s t he disciplinary gaze o f a

t r a f f i c p o l i c e m a n B o m b a y , 9 P h o t o b y t he

Museums in India have to be seen in tandem with exhibitions of several sorts, and as parts of a larger cosmopolitan world o f leisure, recreation, and self-education for wide sectors o f the Indian popula­ tion Nothing of this emergent cosmopolitanism can be grasped with­ out also understanding the impact that modern inodes o f c o m m u n i c a ­ tion have had on Indian public life Print media, especially newspapers and magazines, have a history going back over a century in India (as in the West) but the last decade has seen an explosion o f magazines and newspapers (both in English and in the vernacular languages), which suggests both a quantum leap in Indian readers’ thirst for news, view's, and opinion and the eagerness o f cultural producers to satisfy this thirst profitably Film (both documentary and commercial) has a his­ tory in India that clearly parallels its history in the West, and remains today the dominant medium through which large numbers o f Indians expend time and money allotted to entertainment Television and its sister technology, video recordings, have entered India in a big way and constitute a new threat to the cultural hegemony o f cin em a, while at the same time they extend the reach of cinematic forms to the smaller towns and poorer citizens o f India

Fi g - T h e d i s c o u r s e s o f h e a l t h , l e i s u r e , a n d t hi r s t f o r m a c o n s u m p t i o n v i g n e t t e M a d r a s , 9 P h o t o by t h e a u t h o r s

F i g - C l a s s i c a l i m a g e s u n d e r w r i t e t he m e c h a n i c a l e x c i t e m e n t o f t e l e v i s i o n a n d l e n d a r c h a i s m t o t h e s p a c e o f t h e b i l l b o a r d M a d r a s ,

M U S E U M S A N D P U B L I C C U L T U R E

In countries such as India, the challenge of training skilled teachers, the rudimentary resources available for primary and secondary educa­ tion, and the bureaucratization and politicization o f higher education all mean that education outside formal settings has continued to be crucial to the formation o f the modern citizen Such educ ation — which involves learning the habits, values, and skills o f the tem porary w o rld — happens through a variety o f processes and frame wo rks , in­ cluding those o f the family, the workplace, friendship ne tworks, lei­ sure activities, and media exposure Museums and the exhibition c o m ­ plex in general form an increasingly important part o f this no nformal educational process, the logic o f which has been insufficiently studied, especially outside the West

M us e um s are also a very complex part o f the story o f Western expans io n since the sixteenth century, although they are no w part o f the cultural apparatus o f most emergent nations Museums have c o m ­ plex roots in such phenomena as cabinets o f curiosities, collections of regalia, and dioramas o f public spectacle.20 Today, museums reflect co m p l e x mixtures o f state and private motivation and pat ronage, and tricky transnational problems o f ownership, identity, and the politics o f heritage T h u s museums, which frequently represent national iden­ tities both at home and abroad, are also nodes o f transnational repre­ sentation and repositories for subnational flows of objects and images M u s e u m s , in concert with media and travel, serve as ways in which national and international publics learn about themselves and others

Fi-Museums Are Good to Think 45

naily, both museums and travel in India today would be hard to imag­ ine apart from a fairly elaborate media infrastructure, as has been suggested already

T h e media are relevant to museums and exhibitions in specific ways For example, verbal literacy affects the ways in which people who come to museums and exhibitions are able to understand the objec ts (and signage) that are at the center o f them T h u s , the issue of the ability to read is critical Media are also important in the form o f advertising, particularly through billboards, newspaper advertise­ ments, and television coverage, which in many cases inform people a b o u t exhibitions (especially those associated with national and re­ gional cultural representations) Literacy (both verbal and visual) is also relevant to the ways in which pamphlets, tographs, and posters associated with museums are read by various publics as they travel through different regions, visit various sites, and purchase inex­ pensive printed publicity materials associated with museums, m o n u ­ ments, and religious centers Exposure to the media affects as well the ways in which particular groups and individuals frame their readings o f particular sites and objects, since media exposure often provides the master narratives within which the mininarratives o f particular e x hi bi ­ tions and museums are interpreted T h u s, for example, the Na tional Mu se um in Delhi and its various counterparts in the other m a j o r cities of India offer specific narratives o f the colonial, precolonial, and post­ colonial periods (for example, the classification o f the tribal as “primitive” )

Viewers not come to these museums as cultural blanks The y co me as persons who have seen movies with nationalist themes, televi­ sion serials with nationalist and mythological narratives and images, and newspapers and magazines that also construct and visualize the heroes and grand events o f Indian history and mythology

modern modes of domestic technology and lifestyle is the key to the ex hibi tion experience, even for those who not actually buy anything

T h e r e is a complex dialectic among the experiences that Indians have in ethnic-national museums (that is, museums where national heritage and ethnic identity are key concerns), in art museums, and in co m m erc ia l exhibitions In each case, they are being educated in dif­ ferent forms o f cultural literacy: in the first case, they are being edu­ cated in the objectified narratives o f nationality and ethnicity; in the second case, in the experience o f cosmopolitan aesthetics; and in the third ca se , in the habits and values o f the modern, high-tech house­ holder T h e s e three forms of cultural literacy play a central role in the construction o f the modern Indian, who is drawn into the visual and auditory narratives of modern citizenship by his or her experiences in museums and exhibitions T h e outstanding question is, how does the museum and exhibition experience help create such cultural literacy?

A m a j o r theoretical cue comes from what has been called “recep­ tion theory,”22 a body o f ideas developed largely out o f postwar Ge r ­ man n e o - M a r x i s m , but now modified by interaction with reader-re- sponse theory and associated approaches to problems o f audience analysis in mass-media studies From this rather diffuse and develop­ ing body o f theory, four hypotheses can be suggested as especially relevant to those postcolonial societies outside the Eu ro -A m e ric an axis, such as India, in which nationalism, consumerism, and leisure have be c o m e simultaneous features o f contemporary life for important segments o f the population We see these hypotheses as particularly applicable to societies such as India, since in them the connoisseurship o f “a r t” as a distinct category is relatively undeveloped, the visiting of museums is not sharply separated from other forms o f leisure and learning, and the idea o f expert documentation and credentials in the interpretation o f objects has not displaced the sense that viewer groups are entitled to formulate their own interpretations

Fi g - C o f f e e a n d t h e w i s h - f u l f i l l i n g c o w in a m y t h i c H i n d u l a n d s c a p e M a d u r a i , 9 P h o t o by t h e a u t h o r s

-mmmm— in n r*r

may be expected, therefore, to display some transformation of this longstanding cultural convention

T h e second is that the reception o f specialized sites and spaces is a profoundly comm una l experience, and the objects and landscapes of museums are viewed by “communities o f interpretation”24 in which the isolated viewer or connoisseur is a virtually absent type T h u s , in any museum or exhibition in India (with the possible ex ce pti on of certain museums devoted to “m o de rn ” art) the lonely and private gaze that we can often observe at places such as the Muse um o f M o d er n Art in N e w York is absent Viewing and interpretation are profoundly co mm una l acts

Museums A re Good to Think I

literacy, in which other media-influenced narratives play a massive role

Fou rth, the responses o f viewers, gazers, and buyers vary signifi­ cantly, along at least tw o axes: (1) the type o f exhibition or museum to which they are exposed, and (2) personal characteristics, such as the class, ethnic group, and age group to which they belong T h e se differ­ ences create significant variations within a larger co m m o n structure that is predictable from the previous three theoretical assumptions Since the study of reception is in a general way not highly developed and is especially poorly developed for the study o f readerships outside Europe and the United States (and even less so for reception in c o n ­ texts such as museums), further examination o f the exhibition c o m ­ plex could make a significant contribution to more general me th­ odological debates

M uc h o f the structure, organization, tax onomy, and signage strategy o f Indian museums is colonial in origin T h u s while the c o n ­ texts o f current museum view;ing may require new applications of reception theory, the texts contained in many museums (that is, the collections and their associated signage) require the analysis o f c o l o ­ nial modes o f knowledge and classification

C O N C L U S I O N S

Like many other pheno mena o f the contemporary world, museums in co nt em por ary India have both internal and external logics As far as the rest o f the world is co ncerne d, there is no denying that museums constitute part o f an “exhibitionary co m pl ex ” 25 in which spectacle,

discipline, and state po we r become interlinked with questions o f en­ tertainment, education, and control It is also true that museums ev­ erywhere seem to be increasingly caught up with mass-media expe ri­ ences.26 Finally, museums everywhere seem to be bo om in g as the “heritage industry”27 takes off

and modes offers new settings for the development o f a contemporary public gaze in Indian life T he gaze o f Indian viewers in museums is certainly caught up in what we would call this interocular field (the allusion here, of course, is to intertextuality, as the concept is used by the Russian literary theorist M ikhail Bakhtin) This interocular field is structured so that each site or setting for the disciplining o f the public gaze is to some degree affected by viewers’ experiences o f the other sites T h is interweaving o f ocular experiences, which also subsumes the substantive transfer o f meanings, scripts, and symbols from one site to ano th er in surprising ways, is the critical feature o f the cultural field within which museum viewing in contemporary India needs to be located O u r effort in this paper has been to argue for the importance of such an interocular approach to museums in India, and perhaps everywhere else in the contemporary world where museums are en joy ­ ing a fresh, postcolonial revival

N O T E S

1 See, for e xampl e, Arjun Appadurai, “T h e Gl obal Ethnoscape: No t es and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology,” in R G F o x , ed , Recapturing A n thropology: Working in the Present (Santa Fe, N M : School o f American Re se ar ch, 9 )

2 F or a more recent work, see Ca rol A Breckenridge, “T h e Aesthetics and Politics o f Col onial Collecting: India at World Fairs,” C om parative Studies in Society an d H istory , no ( 9 ) , - Earlier efforts include Ray D e s m o n d , T he India Museum, -1 9 ( London: Fler M a j es t y ’s S ta tion­ ery O f f ic e , ) ; He rma nn Go et z, “T h e Baroda Museum and Picture G a l ­ lery,” M useum , no ( ) , - ; and Gra ce Morley, “Mus e ums in India,” M useum , no ( ) , 2 -

3 Arjun Appadurai, ed , T he S ocial L ife o f Things: C om m odities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Ca mb ri dg e University Press, ) ; Burton Be ne ­ dict, e d , T he A n thropology o f World's Fairs: San F ran cisco’s Panam a Pacific In tern ational E xposition o f 1915 (Berkely: Scolar, ) ; J ames Clifford, T he P redicam ent o f Culture: Tw entieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, an d Art

Museums Are Good to Think 53

4 Igor K o py t of f , “T h e Cultural Biography o f Things: C ommodit iza ti on as P r o c es s” in Arjun Appadurai, ed., T he S ocial L ife o f Things: C om m odities in Cultural Perspective ( Cambridge: Camb ri dg e University Press, )

5 D o mi ng ue z, “T h e Mar ke t in g of Heritage.”

6 Michael Ame s, M useum s, the Public, an d A n th rop olog y : A Study in the A n thropology o f A n thropology (Vancouver: University o f British C ol um bi a Press, ) ; Douglas C o l e, C aptured H eritage: T he Scram ble f o r N orthw est C oast A rtifacts (Vancouver: Douglas and McI nt yr e, ) ; Neil Harris, “M u ­ seums, M er ch andi s in g, and Popular Taste: T h e Struggle for Influence,” in Ian M G Quimby, e d , M aterial Culture and the Study o f A m erican L ife ( New York: N o r t o n , ) ; Masatoshi Konishi, “T h e Mus eum and Japan es e Studies,” C urrent A n thropology , no ( ) , S - S 1 ; M a r k P Leone, Parker B Potter, Jr , and Paul A Shackel , “Toward a Critical Archaeology,”

Current A n th rop olog y , no ( ) , - ; Ian M G Quimby, ed.,

M aterial Culture an d the Study o f A m erican L ife (New York: N o r t o n , ) ; George W S toc ki ng, J r , O bjects an d O thers: Essays on M useums an d M ate­ rial C ulture, History o f Anthropology, vol ( Ma di s on : University o f W i s c o n ­ sin Press, )

7 Leone, Potter, and S hackel , “Toward a Critical Archaeology.”

8 W S H e n d o n , F C o s t a , and R A Rosenberg, “T h e General Public and the Art M us eum: C ase Studies o f Visitors to Several Institutions Identify C h a r a c ­ teristics o f T h e i r Publics,” A m erican Jou rn al o f E om ics and S ociology , no ( 9 ) , - ; Kenneth Hudson, M useum s o f Influence (Cambridge: Cambr idge University Press, ) ; Leo ne , Potter, and Shackel, “Toward a Critical A rch ae ol o gy ” ; Michael H Frisch and Dwight Pithcaithley, “ Audience Expe ct at io ns as Resource and Challenge: Ellis Island as Case Study,” in J o Blatti, ed., Past M eets Present: Essays a b o u t H istoric Interpretation an d Pub­ lic A udiences (Was hi ngt on, D C : Smithsonian Institution Press, ) ; Elliot W Eisner and Stephen M D o b b s , “Mus eum Educa tion in Twenty American Art Museums, ” M useum News , no ( ) , - ; Danielle Rice, “ On the Ethics o f M us e um Education, ” M useum N ew s , no ( ) , - ; Sheldon Annis, “T h e Mus eum as Staging Gr oun d for Symbolic Action,” M u­ seum , no ( ) , -

9 Jurgen H a b e r m a s , T he Structural Transform ation o j the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a C ategory o f Bourgeois S ociety, trans T h o m a s Burger with the assistance o f Frederick Lawrence ( Ca mbri dg e, M as s : M I T Press, 9 )

10 Cf Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A S ocial C ritique o f the Ju d g em en t o f Taste, trans Richard Nice (Cambridge, M as s : Harvard University Press, )

Essays a b o u t H istoric Interpretation an d Public A udiences (Washington, D C : Smithsonian Institution Press, ) ; R obert Hewi so n, The H eritage Industry: Britain in a C lim ate o f D ecline (London: M et hu en, ) ; Do nal d Ho r n e , T he G reat M useum : The R e-P resentation o f H istory (London: Pluto, )

12 Tony Bennett, “T h e Exhibiti onary C o m p l e x , ” N ew Form ations ( 8 ) , -

13 D o n n a Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden o f Eden , - , ” S ocial Text 11 (Wi nt er - ) , -

14 See Blatti, Past M eets Present, especially the following essays therein: M ic h ae l J Et t e m a , “ History Museums and the Culture o f Mat e ri al i sm ” ; J a n e G r ee n go l d, “Wh a t M ig ht Have Been and W h a t Has Been— Fictional Public Art a b o u t the Real Past”; and Mi ch ae l Wallace, T h e Politics o f Public History.”

15 Shelly Err ing ton, “Fragile Traditions and Contested Meaning, ” Public Culture 1, no ( 9 ) , - ; Ric hard Handler, N ationalism and the P oli­ tics o f Culture in Q u ebec (Ma dis on: University o f Wisconsin Press, 8 ) ; M ich ael Herzfeld, Ours O nce M ore: F olk lore, Ideology, and the M aking o f

M odern G reece (Austin: University o f Texas Press, ) ; Eric H o b s b a w m and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention o f Tradition (Cambridge: C amb ri dg e University Press, ) ; Richard J o h n s o n et a l , eds., M aking H istories: Studies in History-W riting and Politics (Lo n n: Hut ch ins on, ) Wil liam W Kelly, “Rational izat ion and Nostalgia: Cultural Dynamic s o f N ew M iddl e Class J a p a n , ” A m erican Ethnologist , no ( ) , - ; J o c e l y n S Li n ne ki n , “Defining Tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian Identity,” A m eri­ can E thn ologist , no ( ) , - ; David W h i sn a nt , All T hat Is N ative & Fine: The Politics o f Culture in an A m erican R egion (Chapel Hill: University o f N o rt h Carolina Press, )

16 Arjun Appadurai and Carol A Breckenridge, “Wh y Public C u l t u r e ? ”

Public Culture 1, no ( 8 ) , -

1 G o et z , “T h e Baroda Mus eum and Picture Gallery,” 15 18 Ibid

19 For exa mpl e, see Handler, N ation alism an d the Politics o f Culture in Q u ebec.

2 See Ric har d Altick, The Show s o f L o n d o n (Cambridge, Ma ss : Harvard University Press, ) for descriptions o f these dioramas in the development o f museums in England

2 Breckenridge, “ T h e Aesthetics and Politics o f Colonial Collecting.”

Museums A re Good to Think 55

2 For ex a mp le , D ia n a L E c k , D arshan: Seeing the Divine Im age in India,

2d ed ( C h am be r sb u rg , Penn.: A ni ma , ) ; J G o n d a , Eye an d G aze in the Veda (Amsterdam: N o rt h H o l l a n d , 9 )

2 Stanley Fish, Is T h ere a Text in This Class? The A uthority o f Interpretive C om m unities ( C ambr idg e, M a s s : Harvard University Press, )

2 Bennett, “ The E xh i bi t i o n a r y C o m p l e x ” l.umley, The M useum T im e-M achine.

“ Hey! That’s Mine” :

Thoughts on Pluralism and American Museums

E D M U N D B A R R Y G A I T H E R

In reflecting on the American experience, the authors of M useums f o r a N ew C en ­ tury note that a “major force o f change we believe to have implications for mu ­ seums is our society’s evolving sense o f its own pluralism.” T h i s view grows from two important observations: the recognition that many cultural groupings that previously have been rendered invisible in our population no longer accept that status, and the fact that recent immi­ gration from other parts o f the Western Hemisphere as well as more distant areas has altered the makeup o f many communities— large and small, urban and semirural African American people, whose numbers exceed thirty million, have b e co m e a meaningful political force able to wield considerable muscle and influence in many urban areas Atlanta and other large cities easily demonstrate this truth In all probability, African Americans and Hispanics will constitute one-fifth o f the whole population o f the United States by the year 0 By that point, the Asian population will have risen from four million to eight million To put it differently, minorities will be a much greater percentage o f the population Currently a full one-quarter of the annual growth o f the U S population is the result of immigration, and the vast majority of these immigrants are both nonwhite and no n - E u r o p ea n T h e tradi­ tional dominance within the United States by whites o f European

'Hey! That's M ine" 57

ancestry will inevitably give way as a more pluralistic view' of who is American takes firmer root

T h e re are clear consequences deriving from these demographic changes As more formerly invisible social groups exercise political expression, public support by virtue o f our tax laws will have to become more accountable to and reflective o f a broader segment of the public T h e story these institutions tell o f the history o f our nation and its arts and sciences will have to be richer and more inclusive, which also means that it will have the potential to be both truer and more provocative

Among the institutions that will be most affected are schools All of us have co m e to think o f schools, along with homes and religious institutions, as constituting the bedrock o f society Yet by almost all accounts, many urban schools are more mire than rock, more quick­ sand than stone As you would expect from the demographics cited earlier, the majority o f students at many public schools are now “mi­ nority," and other school populations are significantly more mixed than at any othe r point in our history Overwhelmed by the scope of society’s extra educational expectations, the schools need the cultural and educational benefits that museums offer T he y need the profound and intimate understanding o f different cultures that is fundamental to museum programming They need the alternative approaches to edu­ cation that museums— with their authentic o bj ec ts— present And they need the highly specialized types o f encounters between people and their physical and cultural environment that museums provide These encounters foster appreciation of the myriad accrued meanings o f things, meanings which constitute the fabric that holds a community together W it h o u t such a knitting-together o f our social fabric, we will become a still more fractured, fragmented, and violent society

I believe that we must embrace a fresh understanding o f the American experience We must reject models o f American experience that express— directly or indirectly— a concept o f e ith e r /o r We must not tolerate thinking in which folk are either African American o r

W h a t does all o f this mean for museums? Two implications stand out with immediate and perfect clarity First, museums must serve an ever-broader public in ever-bolder ways And second, museums must h o n o r Am eri ca ’s diversity without paternalism and condescension To the extent that museums effectively address these broad objectives, they will move closer toward fully satisfying their mandate as institu­ tions that receive public support It must be noted here that I believe there exists an implied contract between museums, as ta x - e x e m p t entities, and the public, which directly or indirectly supports them M us e um s have obligations as both educational and social institutions to participate in and contribute toward the restoration o f wholeness in the communities of our country They ought to increase understanding within and between cultural groups in the matrix o f lives in which we exist T h e y ought to help give substance, correction, and reality to the often incomplete and distorted stories we hear about art and social history T h e y should not dodge the controversy that often arises from the reappraisal of our c o m m o n and overlapping pasts If our museums can n ot muster the courage to tackle these considerations in ways ap­ propriate to their various missions and scales, then concern must be raised for how they justify the receipt of support from the public T h e United States’ social health is too important to go unaddressed by any significant sector o f its institutions

H o w can museums have an impact on such concerns? O f course, there is a straightforward answer to this question And as is almost always the case, that simple answer belies the complexity and the bedeviling multiplicity o f dimensions o f this problem T h e straightfor­ ward answer is that museums can more accurately and mor e sensi­ tively balance the programs they offer so that those programs not only would delight and educate but also would enhance understanding of humanistic and pluralistic values Again I quote from M useum s f o r a N ew C entury: “W h e n it comes to preserving cultural pluralism, mu­ seums have an important role to play T h e y represent cultural diversity in their collections and their exhibitions T h e museum c o m m u n i t y — within its own institutional make up— exemplifies our cultural plural­ ism But museums are in an uncomfortably contradictory situa­ tion in that their celebration o f pluralism does not always extend to their internal hierarchies The ir staffs and boards generally not represent the full diversity o f our society.”3 This co m m en t helps us see mor e clearly both what resources we already have and wh at areas badly need change

Hey! That’s M ine” 59

makeup o f the museum community in the quotation immediately above, the authors of M useum s fo r a N ew Century mak e the follow­ ing ob servati on: “Institutions dedicated to fostering and preserving particular ethnic heritages will be increasingly important in helping Americans understand their historical experience from different per­ spectives.”4 T h i s is a key thought because it points to the role museums can play in reshaping their communities

T h e Am erican cultural arena is a vital and competitive place In it, cultural expressions from all corners bump into and influence one another O u t o f the resulting cacophony, new forms and ideas are born Criticisms, interpretations, reassessments o f values, claims, and counterclaims ab o u n d , and out o f the muck come impressions o f who we are as a people Museums are important contributors to this dy­ namic process because they are institutional sponsors o f discussions relevant to their disciplines and cultures Museums that c o m m it th em ­ selves to the criticism and fostering o f specific cultural heritages— African A m er ic an , Hispanic, Native American, Asian— have a unique role to play in such settings since they are at the center o f the discus­ sion o f their o w n traditions Unlike general museums, these institu­ tions treat their cultural heritage neither as a short-term focus nor as an aspect o f a larger story Their heritage is their primary subject matter T h e presentation of their own cultural traditions is the foun da ­ tion on which their identity rests

T h e existence o f museums dedicated to specific cultural heritages does not diminish the need for other museums to share in the wo rk of increasing knowledge and understanding Instead, all museums b e ­ co me partners in the larger enterprise o f education Certainly, the complexity o f a large American city is better reflected in a c o m p l e m e n ­ tary ne tw or k o f many museums, each with its own primary and sec­ ondary foci, and all o f which, in the aggregate, represent a fuller picture o f the co m m un it y ’s historical, cultural, and scientific life Within this museum ne twork, many and varied educational and e x h i­ bition opportunities exist for all partners Large, medium-sized, and small museums can all enjoy reciprocal relationships with one another, underpinned by mutual respect

discussion are by and large valid for Hispanics and other cultural groups in the United States that have been largely ignored or devalued in the telling of our national story

M use um s committed to specific heritages bec ome the institu­ tional buttresses o f those traditions because they have unique features M o s t of ten , they enjoy an intimate relationship with real communities o f people, which are themselves extensions o f those cultures Because most African American museums were established after , they are still at the outset o f their development and are therefore freer to evolve new or different institutional forms Free from historical association with discrimination and prejudice, these museums are able to provide a forum for the discussion o f cultural issues and for the development o f criticism without becoming bogged down in racism, which often attends Eu ro pe an American museums’ engagement o f controversial issues

T h e close relationship between African American museums and their communities permits the museums to validate the communities’ experiences For this reason, the museums’ programs often have a familiarity and a truthfulness that cause the communities to feel a strong bond o f kinship with the institutions Using both conventional and new program formats, these museums provide exciting models for forging community-museum marriages

Hey! That’s Mine”

type for something new— a neighborhood museum T he museum was an experience that enfranchised a community of people and enabled them to talk about their lives and to take greater responsibility for the reconstruction o f themselves and their children T h e experience also provided an opportunity for the museum to teach conventional his­ tory, whether about Anacostia or about other places, more effectively

M useums are collecting institutions In amassing the objects and artifacts that will be the basis of their interpretations, museums also signal which materials they regard as important In the process, they convey to their publics a sense of direction regarding cultural, scien­ tific, and historical interests T he Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum in Phila­ delphia, both o f which (at different times) have been under the direc­ tion o f R o w e na Stewart, have set a high standard and offer excellent examples o f how to weave a closer relationship between a museum and its comm uni ty through the activity o f collection T he ir model demands closer attention For example, Stewart and her associates have developed and published a five-step approach for collecting Afri­ can American documents and artifacts.5 T h e model is usable by any museum and is instructive for all T heir approach is rooted in a “p e o ­ ple orientation” rather than an object search T he artifact holders, or “keepers o f the tra d iti o n” are central: they provide not only the o b ­ jects but also the initial interpretation of those objects T h e se keepers are for the most part ordinary people w ho may not have thought that the treasures they own were o f the slightest interest for anyone beyond their immediate family and friends They may even be folks w ho have not themselves placed much value on the evidence o f their own per­ sonal and familial heritage

or her friends and family, and the event may take place in the museum At this po in t, the keeper is the primary interpreter o f artifacts th at are personal extensions of that person’s life and times F ol low in g this event, the museum introduces a professional historian into the mi x, who launches the work o f more fully explaining and interpreting the larger m at rix into which the objects fit T h e historian also c o m m en c es an assessment o f the implications o f the materials for a general discus­ sion o f African American experience and their place in that discussion N e x t , attention turns to the preparation of what will b e co m e the exhibi tion or presentation of the materials This aspect o f the w o r k is called giving the materials back to the community It provides the occas io n for the keepers and their peers and associates to share the materials with the community at large and to share their own expe ri­ ences with other keepers T h e final dimension o f the process is the education plan and the publications that record the materials and their complete interpretation T his phase o f the work may involve the use o f the original keeper as a docent speaking to the public ab o u t his or her materials as well as those o f others Almost always it will also involve the release o f a catalogue, which pulls together the co n t ri b u ­ tions o f all parties who were active agents in the collection, interpreta­ tion, and ultimate display o f the new acquisitions Significantly, this approach underscores the trust that can be built between a museum and its community It brings to the museum an advocate whose rela­ tionship is predicted on the ennoblement o f a shared heritage Both the advocate and the museum are empowered by their te am w or k and its product

‘Hey! That’s Mine’’ 63

tionship to their own cultures and influencing the international v o c a b ­ ulary of cont em por ar y art Participation in this kind o f discussion is part o f a continuing and full-time commitment of the African Am eri ­

can museum toward understanding the grow'th and development of the visual arts and traditions of black people worldwide

Kn ow in g o n e ’s community means knowing its strengths and its weaknesses Serving o ne ’s community means designing programs that are tailored to its needs and that anticipate its future requirements and demands For small to moderate-sized museums, there exists a clear opportunity to develop programs and educational activities that re­ spond very directly to community concerns and issues For e xa m p le , in the case o f my own institution, the Muse um o f the N a tio na l Center o f Afro-American Artists, we have created several programs that were immediately inspired by observed needs in our primary public A popular program called Father and Son Sharing was designed as a means o f helping heal the sometimes strained male relationships that exist in separated families Ou r program was focused around a newly commissioned public statue of an African American man reading to his son J o h n W ils on , the sculptor, is a Boston African American artist with a long history o f working with father-son themes Over the course o f the ten-session program, the fathers and sons who partici­ pated visited the studio of the artist, created a portfolio o f drawings and po ems, and visited the foundry to observe how sculptures are cast in bronze T h e program concluded with a public exhibition and recep­ tion for the participants’ families and friends

We are presently conducting an educational program based on the decorative applique traditions o f the old African kingdom of Da ho m ey (the present-day Republic of Benin) In this pr o g m , teen ­ age mothers draw on Dahomean textile traditions to create quilted blankets for their infants Beyond the lessons in cultural history and the direct en counter with the art o f Dahomey, these young w o m e n also gain social and family skills that will help them reconstruct their lives in more fruitful ways

immigrants With support from the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities we spent two years developing a series o f three presentations that focus on the Ca ribbean and are accompanied by a substantial publication in four parts Our Caribbean pro gr am , which began in 9 , is divided into parts based on language groups: F ren ch /C re ol e, English, and Spanish E a ch subprogram is anchored by a widely recognized art-producing activity or festival from which we have acquired appropriate artworks Th ro ug h this series, we are able to provide an in-depth study o f cultural traditions that are im me­ diately influential in the lives o f our primary community We believe that such activities are important vehicles for fostering the marriage of a co m m un it y and its museum(s)

T h e several examples I have mentioned above show the ex cite­ ment that “minority” museums bring to the museum field Without disregarding the professional standards demanded by the stewardship o f collections, these institutions are increasingly able to introduce fresh ideas and suggest how museums may become more socially re­ sponsible and responsive T h r o u g h their programs, African American and H isp an ic museums, among others, are developing new and g r o w ­ ing audiences Audiences who previously felt intimidated or alienated by museums now increasingly enjoy the remarkable educational and ente rtainment opportunities museums offer Such new visitors are des­ tined to b ec o me shared audiences as other museums also broaden their exhibition and educational offerings in response to the demands of American pluralism When museums in the Unites States tell a more accurate and integrated story, more Americans from all cultural groups will feel ownership in th em , and will say, “Hey! T h a t ’s mine.”

N O T E S

1 American Association o f M us e um s , Commi ssi on on M us eums for a New Century, M useum s f o r a N ew C entury (Washington, D C : American Associa­ tion o f M u s e u m s , ) , 24

2 Ibid Ibid , Ibid

C H A P T E R 3

The Other Vanguard G U I L L E R M O G O M E Z - P E N A

The notion o f border culture and the role o f the border artist/'intellec­ tual have changed dramatically in the past five years; from the strong regionalism o f the mid-eighties to a new ex centris internationalism in the late s , we are trying to find our role and place in the new decade

1 hope that the following texts, which were w ritten over a period

o f five years, reflect some o f the changes in the way Latinos perceive identity, community, national culture, and art along the United S t a t e s - M e x i c o border

1986: T H E C O N F L I C T S A N D C U L T U R E O F T H E B O R D E R L A N D S

This text w as written in 6, an d fu n ction ed as a kin d o f b o rd e r art m an ifesto.

Few places in the world reflect so vividly the contradictions o f two worlds in permanent conflict as does the M e x i c o - U n i t e d States bo r ­ der The contrasts are infinite: mariachis and surfers, secondhand buses and digital helicopters, tropical whorehouses and video disco­ theques, C a th o li c saints and monsters from outer space, and shanty houses and steel skyscrapers

Fi g - T he Loneliness o f the Immigrant, b y G u i l l e r m o G o m e z - P e r i a T w o - d a y p e r f o r ­ m a n c e in a p u b l i c e l e v a t o r , L o s A n g e l e s , 9 P h o t o c o u r t e s y o f T he Broken L in e/L a Linea Q uebrada.

The border region is filled with paradoxes that in a very graphic way illustrate the tense relations between Latin America and Anglo A m eri ca , between the North and the South, between the conq uero r and the conquered “Crossing the border” is taking an instantaneous leap from the past into the future, from a partially industrialized society to an information-based society, and occasionally from a bad dream to a nightmare

F r o m the border we observe the clash o f waves o f the two Amer­ icas— C o n ta d o r a against the White House, Atahualpa Yupanqui against M ich ae l J a c k s o n , Sandino against R a m b o — and the synthesis is a third reality It is punk mariachi It is postmodern flamenco, Spanglish poetry, video corrido As border citizens, our great chal­ lenge is to invent new languages capable of articulating our incredible circumstances

W h o are we exactly? T h e offspring o f the synthesis or the victims o f the fragmentation? T h e victims o f a double colonialism (Europe and the United States) or the bearers of a new vision in gestation? W h a t the hell are we? De-Mexicanized Mex ican s, pre-Chicanos, ch o lo - p u n k s, M ex am e ri ca n s, or something that still has no name? And our An gl o -S ax on colleagues who sympathize with us, who are they? Transplanted ex-gringos, South-Americanized Nort h Ameri­ can s, Americans in the largest sense o f the word, or simply brothers and sisters o f vision?

The O ther Vanguard 67

limits o f the two countries, but as a cardinal intersection o f many realities In this sense, the border is not an abyss that will have to save us from threatening otherness, but a place where the so-called othe r­ ness yields, becomes us, and therefore becomes comprehensible

19 7: M E X I C O B E C O M E S T H E S P E A K I N G S U B J E C T — A N I N V E N T O R Y O F B O R D E R A R T

A neo-rascuache, post-rascuache, political kitsch, involuntary po st­ modernity, multimedia altars, sound altars to Saint Frida ( K a h lo ),

Saint R oq u e (Dalton), B order Brujo, Su perbarrio, S u p erm ojad o,

Fi g - End o f the L in e, b y B o r d e r A r t s W o r k s h o p B i n a t i o n a l p e r f o r m a n c e a t t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s - M e x i c o b o r d e r , P h o t o c o u r t e s y o f The B roken L in e/L a Linea Q uebrada.

perviviente, and other social wrestlers who are into linguistics, poli­ tics, and shamanism

B neon temples, paper flowers floating in pesticide, velvet paintings depicting leaders o f the political opposition, scenes o f dangerous Cali­ fornia freeways, K M a r t signs, corpses displayed in a gallery, the skeleton o f C hican osau ru s, the infrared mask of a border patrol, red light, cumbia R o c k , disco salsa, radioactive pinatas, dead roses, Br a­ zilian punk, O a x a c a n nostalgia, contaminated sperm, oil spills into M e x i c o , ashes, albino male prostitutes, Spanglish poetry, calo franfle, graffitijuana per o m ni a saecula speculorum, safos

19 9: T H E M U L T I C U L T U R A L P A R A D I G M

The O ther Vanguard 69

mental artists, and nonaligned intellectuals have used inventive lan­ guages to record the other history from a multicentric perspective

“O u r art functions both as collective memory and alternative chronicle,” says the San Francisc o-ba sed Chicana artist and theoreti­ cian Amalia Mesa-Bains In this sense, multicultural art, if nurtured, can beco me a powerful tool to recapture the desired historical self T h e great pa x is that without this historical self, no meaningful future can ever be constructed

Metier is being redefined In Latin America, the artist has multi­ ple roles He/she is not just an imagemakcr or a marginal genius, but a social th in k e r / e d u c a t o r / c o u n t e r j o u r n a li s t / c iv il ia n dip lom at/ hu - man-rights observer His/her activities take place in the center of society and not in specialized corners

So-called minority artists in the United States have also been forced to develop multidimensional roles In the absence of enough institutions that are responsive to our needs, we have become a sui generis tribe o f community organizers, media interventionists, and

F i g - Pedos Bilingues, p e r f o r m a n c e by G u i l l e r m o G o m e z - P e n a , F l u g o S a n c h e z , a nd G e r a r d o N a v a r r o S a n D i e g o , 8 P h o t o b y I s a a c A r t e n s t e i n , c o u r t e s y o f T he B roken L in e/L a Linea Q uebrada.

alternative chroniclers And the images, texts, and performances we produce are an integral part o f these activities

T h e s e models are much more pertinent to our times than those of the established art world

Unlike modernist times, today’s avant-garde has multiple fronts, or, as H igh P erform an ce magazine editor Steven Durland has stated, “the avant-garde is no longer in the front but in the margins.” To be avant-garde in the late s means to contribute to the decentraliza­ tion o f art To be avant-garde means to be able to cross the border, to go ba ck and forth between art and politically significant territory, be it race relations, immigration, ecology, homelessness, AIDS, or violence tow ar d disenfranchised communities and Third World countries To be avant-garde means to perform and exhibit in both artistic and nonartistic contexts: to operate in the world, not just the art world

According to Border Arts Workshop member Emily H ick s, “n o t h ­ ing is intrinsically marginal Margins are constantly shifting W t today is marginal to m or r o w becomes hegemonic, and vice versa.”

The O ther Vanguard I

need to constantly invent and reinvent languages These languages have to be as syncretic, diverse, and complex as the fractured realities we are trying to define

Postmodernism is a crumbled conceptual architecture, and we are tired of walking a m o ng someone else’s ruins

Border artists use experimental techniques and pe rform ance-de ­ rived practices to intervene directly in the world T h e permanent c o n ­ dition o f political emergency and cultural vulnerability we live in leaves us no other choice If our actions are not daring, inventive, and unexpected, they w o n ’t make a difference, and border reality, with its overwhelming dynamics, will supersede us instantly

In this sense, the experimental nature o f border art is informed more by political and cultural strategies than by postmodernist theory

Like artists operating in other politically sensitive parts o f the world, border artists understand that formal experimentation is only worthwhile in relation to more important tasks such as the need to generate a binational dialogue, the need to create cultural spaces for others, and the need to redefine the asymmetrical relations between the North and the South and among the various ethnic groups that converge in the border spiral Confronted with these priorities, the hyperspecialized concerns o f the art world appear to be secondary

19 9: T H E B O R D E R I S

T h is p ie c e w a s w ritten b e f o r e th e f a l l o f th e B erlin w a ll a n d a f t e r a g a th e r in g o f L atin A m e r ic a n a n d LJ.S L a t in o p e r fo r m a n c e a rtis ts in

P h ila d e lp h ia

Border culture is a polysemous term

To step outside o f one’s culture equals to walk outside o f the law

Border culture means boi co t, complot, ilegalidad, clandestinidad, c o n t r a b a n d o , transgresion, desobediencia binacional; en otras pa- labras, to smuggle dangerous poetry and utopian visions from one culture to another, desde alia, hasta aca

But it also means to maintain one’s dignity outside the law

Fi g - B order Brujo, still f r o m fi l m b y I s a a c A r t e n s - te i n a n d G u i l l e r m o G o m e z - Per i a, 9 P h o t o by M a x A g u i l e r a - H e l l w e g , c o u r t e s y o f The B roken L in e/L a Linea Q uebrada.

the monolingiies, tapados, nacionalistas, ex-teticistas en extincion, per omn ia saecula speculorum

But it also means to be fluent in English, Spanish, Spanglish, and Inglenol, ’cause Spanglish is the language of border diplomacy

But it also means transcultural friendship and collaboration among races, sexes, and generations

But it also means to practice creative appropriation, expropriation, and subversion o f dominant cultural forms

But it also means a new cartography; a brand-new map to ho>t the new project; the democratization o f the E a s t ; the socialization of the West; the Third-Worldization of the North and the First-Worldization o f the South

The O ther Vanguard 73

T e p i t o - S a n Diejuana, San P a n c h o - N u y o r i c o , M i a m i - Q u e b e c , San A n t o n i o - B e r l i n , your home town and mine, digamos, a new inter­ nationalism ex centns.

But it also means regresar y volver a partir: to return and depart once again, 'cause border culture is a Sisyphean experience and to arrive is just an illusion

But it also means a new terminology for news multihybrid identities and metiers constantly metamorphosing: sudaca, not His pan ic; Chi- carican , no t Latino; mestizaje, not miscegenation; social thinker, not bo h e m ia n ; accionista, not performer; intercultural, not po stm odern But it also means to develop new models to interpret the world-in- crisis, the only world we know

But it also means to push the borders o f countries and languages or, better said, to find new languages to express the fluctuating borders But it also means experimenting with the fringes between art and society, legalidad and illegality, English and Espanol, male and fe­ male, N or th and South, self and other; and subverting these relationships

But it also means to speak from the crevasse, desde ac a, desde en medio T h e border is the juncture, not the edge, and mon oculturalism has been expelled to the margins

But it also means glasnost, not government censorship, for censorship is the opposite o f border culture

But it also mea ns to analyze critically all that lies on the current table of debate: multiculturalism, the Latino “boom,” “ethnic art,” c o n t r o ­ versial art, even border culture

But it also means to question and transgress border culture W h a t today is powerful and necessary, tom orrow is arcane and ridiculous; what today is border culture, tom orrow is institutional art, not vice versa

But it also means to escape the current co-optation o f bo rder culture But it also means to look at the past and the future at the same time

I J A N U A R Y 9 0: A M E S S A G E F R O M T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S - M E X I C O B O R D E R T O T H E E U R O P E A N B O R D E R A R T I S T S C O M M U N I T Y

This tex t an d the accom pan yin g im age w ere created by G u illerm o G om ez-P ena an d R o b ert Sanchez In d ifferen t fo r m s, it has been p r e ­ sented at the M eeting o f the Worlds Festival in Finland, recreated in B arcelon a under the title Five Hundred Years o f Genocide a t the invi­ tation o f the Jo a n M iro F ou ndation , an d p u b lish ed in Shift m agazine. The tw o colum n s o f text are m ean t eith er to b e read by tw o person s sp eakin g at the sam e tim e or to be b ro a d c a st on sep arate tracks sim ultaneously.

(Warning: by the time this piece is exhibited, published, o r br oa dca st in your country, the information will very likely be outdated.)

Dear fellow citizen o f the End-of-the-Century Society:

We approach the last decade o f the twentieth century submerged in total perplexity as we witness, from the United S t a t e s - M e x i c o border region, structural changes in the world topography

The O ther Vanguard 75

We c a n ’t help but feel like uninvited actors in a disnarrative sci ence-fiction film with the following plot:

T H E C O L D WAR E N D S AS T H E U.S D R U G WAR B E ­ G I N S T H E S O U T H R E ­ P L A C E S T H E E A S T AS T H E N E W T H R E A T E N I N G O T H ­ E R N E S S RU SSI A I M P L E ­ M E N T S P E R E S T R O I K A A N D G I A S N O S T A N E W E R A O F E A S T - W E S T R E L A T I O N S B E ­ G I N S T H E C H I N E S E STATE C A R R I E S O U T T H E M A S S A ­ C R E O F T I A N A N M E N

S Q U A R E T H E B E R L I N WALL IS A B O L I S H E D E X A C T L Y W H E N T H E U N I T E D ST ATES B E G I N S T O M I L I T A R I Z E IT S B O R D E R W I T H M E X I C O H U N G A R Y , P O L A N D , B U L ­ G A R I A , A N D C Z E C F I O S L O -

VAKIA E X P E R I E N C E AN I N S T A N T A N E O U S , R E L A ­ T I V E L Y PACIFIC T R A N S I ­ T I O N T O W A R D “D E M O C ­ RA CY.” T H E S A L V A D O R E A N C I V I L WAR R E A C H E S A S T A L E M A T E R O M A N I A N D IC T A T O R N I C O L A E

C E A U § E S C U FALLS W H I L E C H I L E A N D I C T A T O R PI­ N O C H E T L O S E S T H E

AWA ITED F I R S T E L E C T I O N S I N C E T H E FALL O F P R E S I ­ D E N T A L L E N D E C E N T R A L A M E R I C A A N D M E X I C O M O V E T O T H E R I G H T A N D T O T H E O U T R A G E O F T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O M M U ­ N I T Y , T H E U N I T E D ST AT ES I N V A D E S P AN AMA

T h e birth pains o f the new millen­ nium are overwhelming We don't k no w what will happen next T h e a m o u n t , complexity, and intensity of the changes surpass o ur capability to digest them and codify them

adequately

For the moment, as much as we can aspire to is recognizing collectively that (1) drastically different relat ion­

ships between East and West and therefore between North and South are being developed; (2) the centers

o f power are irreversibly shifting; (3) a new international society is being bo r n; and (4) a new culture will have to emerge from its foundation

Festivals and the Creation of Public Culture: W hose Voice(s)?

R O B E R T H L A V E N D A

It’s a Saturday evening in mid-July T h e temperature is still in the high eighties, and it’s humid Pea-pack at the Green G i ­ ant plant has just ended; co rn -p ack starts on Monday T h e smell o f the insecticide sprayed in the afternoon to kill mosquitoes hangs over the park T h e queen pageant has just ended, the park lights are on, a band is playing mid-sixties favorites from the b a c k o f a flatbed truck parked on the edge of the picnic area In the pavilion, men in feed caps are pouring foaming pitchers and glasses o f beer from a trailer with twelve taps and an endless supply o f kegs Over a thousand people are jammed between the band and the beer, dancing, drinking, eating bratwurst, meeting friends, running into people they grew up with but haven’t seen in years M o r e people, mostly college-age and just beyond, are down tow n, crowding the sidewalk and spilling into the intersection between the t o w n ’s two main bars T h e atmosphere is festive; it is exciting to be in the midst of this crow d o f people so obviously enjoying themselves It is the forty- ninth annual Kolacky Days, in Montgomery, Minnesota, a small town south o f Minneapolis and St Paul O n the face o f it, this is the stereotypic small-town festival— people celebrating themselves and their comm unity in an “authentic” and traditional way, or at least emerging spontaneously from their homes for a communitywide e x ­ pression o f fellowship

Festivals and Public Culture 77

As one of the few moments in the annual cycle when it is claimed that a community publicly celebrates itself, civic or comm uni ty festi­ vals play a central role in the creation o f public culture in M inn es ota towns and cities From queen pageant to parade, community barbecue and food stands to street dance, municipalities create a momentary, if recurrent, popular architectonics, a symbology o f local significance, a public presentation of the community to itself and to outsiders A public culture emerges

Yet the public culture that Minnesota festivals produce does not simply emerge out of the collective unconscious o f a single-voiced, organic co m m u n i ty T h e voices o f most o f the people out for a good time on a Saturday night in a small Minnesota town not influence the design o f the festival; rather, as I will show, it is carefully c o n ­ structed by the local middle class An exercise in impression m a n a g e ­ ment, a M inn es ota community festival is the more or less self-aware celebration of the values of its middle-class organizers, made in the name o f the community as a whole T h e appropriation o f “our c o m ­ munity” by these organizers in small towns is generally (but not al­ ways) accepted by other segments of the local population who share their vision of a harmonious community o f mutually supportive equals T h e tension between this ideal and the daily experiences o f uninvolved individuals who are linked by fragile, contingent social ties in the to wn engenders the characteristic earnest and nonironic official voice of the small-town festival

O u t o f the relatively large number o f festivals that have studied, I will draw on data from several small-town festivals during the period from 19 81 to , the Hutchinson Jaycees Water Carnival in , and the 9 St Paul Winter Carnival T he se festivals are points along a co ntinuum , ranging from uncontested mon ol ogu e (and a b ­ sence o f irony) to dialogue and open contestation of organizers’ voices

muted, although not abse nt.2 M o s t of the people in the town depend on the surrounding farm areas, and many are small-business or profes­ sional families T h e re are people who work as custodians, wage la­ borers in agricultural or light industrial plants, truck drivers, service station attendants, construction workers, and the like T h e re is a core o f teachers at the schools, who are ordinarily set apart from the main social patterns of the town T he re is an identifiable group o f retired persons, many former farmers who now live in town, and there is a group o f young people, mostly males, who are marginal to the c o m ­ munity for essentially ec on om ic reasons Given the sheer weight of their numb ers , it is not surprising that the principal voice heard in these communities is that o f the business and professional community T h e other groups, in part because their livelihoods depend on the health o f the business and professional community, tend to go along with that voice, or at least not to contest its claim that it speaks for the entire community

Festivals in these towns are organized by the businesspeople, with some assistance from those elements of the professional community that are mo st closely aligned with them— lawyers and dentists As they design the festival they think both of their own interests and o f what they imagine to be the interests of the portion o f the population that is not like them T he y are concerned with “family issues” and with providing events for the young children o f the community It is impor­ tant to remember that in a small Minnesota town, especially during the summer, there is very little o f a public, community nature for anyone to Children in particular are home with no publicly o r g a ­ nized activities to occupy them: school is not in session and the high school athletic teams are not competing, which affects not only the children but also the adults who follow the teams T his is changing a bit T h e influence of the video store is increasing in small tow ns , and one festival organizer told me that the proliferation o f summer sports cam ps , cheerleader c amps, and so forth has made it difficult to sched­ ule the events of her festival, since so many people have children in these activities now

Festivals and Public Culture 79

Ta b l e 4-1

Small-Town Festival Events in O r d er o f Frequency

Percentage Percentage

o f festivals o f festivals

with this with this

event event Event event

Parade Other children’s events 2 1

Dances Food provided mostly

Food provided by local by local vendors

organization

Ethnic food

Beer garden Ot her water events

2

Children’s contests Ethnic concert

2

Art/craft fair Fishing contest

1

Queen pageant Farm-related events

1

Ot her contests Ethnic dancing

1

Kiddie parade Food provided by

Concert 5 about half local and

Food provided by local half outside

individuals Boat races 14

Flea market J uni or king and queen

Barbecue contest

Firemen’s water fight Children’s story hour

Events for senior Ethnic religious service 1

citizens Waterski show

Carnival Ot her ethnic events

Food provided by

outsiders 3

Food provided mostly

by outside vendors

Ecumeni cal church Swimming races 3 7

service Kiddie carnival Senior king and queen

3

2 Sample size = 54

Crazy days One festival = percent

many people from the town attend these events, which create an undemanding sense o f belonging to the community

A former student of mine writes about her t o w n ’s festival:

In every summer in the first week o f July we have our cel ebra ­ t ion And I believe every year the sam e thing happens, there is a kiddie parade early in the we ek , the Jaycees put on a Turkey B B Q , there is a river raft race on the R u m River, all o f the carnies begin milling around town much to the dismay o f every young girl s mo th e r and o f course it all ends with a parade followed by every citizen in the whole town heading down to the carnival afterwards Every year, everybody says the same thing afterwards, It s just not the same as it used to be,” but nevertheless you see those same people there year after year doing the same things year after year T h e same bands, the same old cars, the same floats and o f course the s ame old fire truck going by and squirting whoever they see that they know

During this time everyone comes h o m e , and o f course, all new gossip starts circulating: who got married, who had a baby, and who passed away You see people you haven’t seen in months and spend the whole night trying to catch up on all that has happened And every year I wonder why I c o m e back for the same old celebration yet I d o!

Festivals and Public Culture I

undemanding, it is easy for a wide range o f people to attend and enjoy th cm and come away with the feeling that they are part o f an organic, harm oni ous community

Nevertheless, the festival is the product o f the w-ork and w o r ld ­ view o f a powerful segment o f the community, and the d om in ant voice heard is theirs Strikingly absent in small-town festivals, for e xam pl e, is the voice o f the rural people on whom the town depends In town after to w n , the community festival ignores or actively excludes farmers and events of interest to them T h a t is, farmers may attend the events o f the town festival, but they not attend as farmers Indeed, in some festivals, they cannot even attend: primary events are sched­ uled for seven o ’clock in the evening, which in rural M in n e s o t a is milking time When farmers pointed this out to the organizers o f one festival, the organizers apologized, averring that the festival was for everyone But they still have not changed the time o f those events.5 Similarly, there are no small-town festivals that provide activities for adolescents, the group that is perhaps most economically marginal in the town: the queen pageant involves only a relatively small number o f young w o m e n, and the young men are completely excluded And even in festivals that propose to celebrate ethnicity, it is ordinarily the eth ­ nic heritage o f the dominant group that is accent ed.6

Sometimes the tie between the organizers and their festival’s eth ­ nic theme is tenuous and paradoxical Mont evid eo, M in n e s o t a , was named by its sturdy Scandinavian founders after the capital o f Uruguay, and is now its sister city The town celebrates this unusual tie every year at Fiesta Days, highlighted by the presence o f the Uruguayan ambassador or a high-ranking deputy A wreath is laid at the foot o f the statue of Jose Artigas (a gift o f the people o f M o n ­ tevideo, Uruguay, in the s ) , the queen and her princesses wear Spanish-inspired lacy dresses with mantillas and co mb s, and there are a few other general Spanish-style touches to the festival and the city’s architecture But the to w n ’s Mexican or M ex ic a n American migrant- labor pool is not represented in the festival at all Festivals, even in small to w ns , are not untouched by the divisions and disagreements o f everyday life While the divisions between the “us” o f the organizers and the “th em” o f the other groups within the community may be blurred, they are never absent, and a festival script that asserts c o m ­ munity may be interpreted by other participants as denying their m e m ­ bership in that community

a text is detached from its author, an action is detached from its agent and develops consequences of its own [ ] u r deeds escape us and have effects which we did not intend.”7 T h e festival, both text and act ion , becomes public property, creating a public culture And the inability to control what happens once the festival begins is a loophole that lies at the center o f this public culture T h is loophole affects all the groups that meet in the festival, not just the organizers T h e o ut­ siders who now buy tours to small-town Minnesota festivals may find the pe rf orm anc e quaint, pretentious, soaked in small-town tradition, or embarrassingly naive, but the organizers are equally free to find the outsiders’ pe rformance boorish, unpleasant, friendly, or cynical Rural people may find the festival performance exclusionary, and young people may similarly find that they have no place in the festival; by e xt en sio n, both groups may see this as symbolic of their place in the structure o f things in the town T h e organizers and their adherents, seeing the withdrawnness of the rural people, or what they interpret as the insolence o f the young, may decide that the farmers are unsophisti­ cated and the young incorrigible, and act accordingly

T h e disagreements that are muted within small-town festivals can be co m e increasingly audible in the festivals put on in larger towns T h is is the case in H utchin son, Minnesota, a city o f some , 0 people in the central part of the state Its festival, the Ja yce es Water Ca rnival, began in , and is held annually over three days in June T h e festival is a project o f a civic organization, the Ja ycees, that exists for reasons unconnected to festivals T h a t is, men in Hutchinson not join the Jaycees because they want to work on the festival They see the J ay ce es as an organization with business and social impor­ tance It is nevertheless the case that the Water Carnival has become the single most important project o f the Jaycees, and working on the Water Carnival follows from membership T his is an important point: the Ja y ce e organizers, unlike organizers o f festivals in other, smaller to w ns , are not “festival people,” and this fact shapes both the festival and the c om m uni ty response to it.8

Festivals and Public Culture 83

ing part o f the festival, he leaves the organization One solution that the members have developed is to organize the festival accor din g to “the books.’- Thes e are a set ot loose-leaf note bo oks , one for each aspect o f the festival, which each committee chairman receives from his predecessor and passes on to his successor Each includes a timeline and all of the details about the organization o f the event A co mmittee chair has only to follow the book to the job And this is wha t most o f them most of the time T he option o f canceling the festival is not one that seems open to them They feel strongly that “the town would rise up in arms” if the festival was ever canceled As a result, the dead hand of tradition rests heavily on them

In Hutchinson there are two separate, official programs that re­ sult from the organizers’ planning: one is open to the public, and the o th er is hidden from the public and open only to Jaycees and their wives T h e events o f the Water Carnival, especially given the size o f the tow n, are rather limited compared with most small-town festivals T h e r e is a queen competition, unusually divided into two parts, with the pageant on Friday night and the coron ation on Sunday night T h e r e are races (a two-mile one and a ten-kilometer one), three chil­ dren’s events (Big Wheel races, a parade, and a junior royalty c o r o n a ­ tion), a square-dance demonstration, the Q u e e n ’s Ball, a fly-in b r e a k ­ fast organized by the Civil Air Patrol at the county airfield, a large parade, po werboat races, mud volleyball, a traveling carnival and midway, a pork chop dinner at the airfield put on by the Civil Air Patrol, and fireworks A tennis tournament and men’s and junior girls’ softball tournaments are held concurrently, but are not official, J a y - cees-run events Mos t of the food concessions are provided by the carnival, which is located away from the main part of the town but near the park at which the powerboat races and mud volleyball are held Such classic small-town festival events as a beer garden, street dance, firemen’s water fight, arts and crafts fair, and various other contests are not held There is beer sold by the Jaycees near the boat race and mud volleyball area, but the location is out o f the way, poorly mar ke d, not publicized before the festival, and seems to be frequented mainly by Jaycees

dinner at the country club, a “royal buffet” (held for queens, prin­ cesses, and their chaperones from other communities who have co me for the parade), and a large concluding party called Afterglow are, from the point of view o f the Jaycees, the m a j o r events o f the festival, and their reward for raising the money and putting on the festival A b ou t one-quarter o f the $ , 0 budget goes to this festival within the festival T he se events help to create the private culture o f the J a y c e e s — one based on privilege, and the justification of both their way o f life and their entitlement to it While very few people we spoke with in the city know much about the details o f these parties, there is certainly a general consensus that the Ja ycees are “cliquey” and not wa nt any input from the rest o f the town In this they are correct A former Water Carnival c o m m od or e (the head o f the festival organiza­ tion) told me that were other organizations to get involved, there would be conflicts over who was running the festival Hence it was better that only one organization run it

It is interesting to note, however, that out o f all the festivals I have studied, including the St Paul W int er C ar niv al, this was the only festival in which there was ambivalence a bo ut our project on the part o f the organizers, and in which we were excluded from some events and made to feel unco mf or tab le at others T h i s is not, I think, ac ci­ dental So m e o f the Jaycees see their parties, and their festival within the festival, as private, and did not want to be the subject o f obs erv a­ tion by a group o f college students and their professor So m e seemed worried ab out our “blowing their cover,” as it were, and revealing the exte nt to which the Water Carnival could be interpreted as a justifica­ tion for Ja y ce e parties So m e seemed unw'illing to consider the c o n t r a ­ diction between their private parties and the public festival, which they may sense (and even profit fr o m) , but which they can n ot fully co ntrol or justify By co ntrast, the c o m m o d o r e o f the festival, w ho was a high-ranking member o f the J a y ce es , and the vice c o m m o ­ dore were most hospitable and very supportive o f the research They, t o o , have their o w n agendas for the future o f the festival and the J ay cees: diversification o f membership in both the Jaycees and the festival organizing group, the inclusion o f more events, and the incor­ po tio n o f more o f the city’s civic organizations

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three to ten years from elsewhere (several more had moved back after several years’ absence), and joined the Jaycees “to meet other men their age who have similar interests.” T he re is a major structural fea­ ture o f life in Hutchinson that the Jaycees cannot control: many J a y ­ cees members are newcomers who find themselves in this city at this moment for career reasons T he y are alienated from the community by their youth, occu pation , and relative wealth, and by the way they set themselves apart as the organizers o f a public celebration o f a comm uni ty in which they themselves are relative newcomers Hutchinson is unusual in that the main employer in the city is M , which produces a great deal o f its videotape at its Hutchinson plant Over two thousand people work at M , some o f wh o m are executives o r managers, some o f whom (although not many) join the Jaycees Hutchinson is also an im portant banking center for that region o f the state, and there are three large banks in the city T h e young bankers are very active in the Jaycees and the festival There are several pr o m i­ nent people in the city who wor k in the Twin Cities, some fifty miles away, and some w ho have moved to Hutchinson from the Twin Cities People in town regularly talk about shopping in the malls in the west­ ern suburbs o f Minneapolis or attending other events in the Twin Cities metropolitan area

At the same time, most o f the employees at M are wage laborers, most from the city and smaller cities in the area, though so me are farm wives T h e re are other relatively large employers in Hu tc hi n so n , and they too employ wage laborers, assemblers, semiskilled wo rkers, etc T h e class divisions that are downplayed in small towns are much clearer in I lutchinson: the man who is in a public position in the festival may be a man who has power over your future He may be the man who denied you a loan or began foreclosure proceedings against your uncle’s farm, wears an elegant suit, went to college, and belongs to the country clu b

was in part because the only place the Jaycees could find to meet was the country club, and many potential working-class or lower-middle- class mem bers did not feel comfortable in those surroundings He added that some o f the Ja ycees liked it that way, though he did no t; one o f his goals was to find another place for the Ja yc ees to meet because he felt it necessary for the organization to diversify T h e re still exists an egalitarian ethos in Hutchinson: the idea that it should be possible for any man in town to join the Jaycees works against the idea that the Jaycees are (or ought to be) an elite organization T h i s may contribute to the discomfort many Jaycees seem to feel with the privi­ leges they grant themselves during the festival

To summarize, a nonr and om group o f men in the community, the Jaycees, w ho are young businessmen, bankers, insurance agents, owners or managers o f businesses, lawyers, or dentists, are the people behind the festival T he y have taken it upon themselves to speak for the community, as all festival organizers, and to present an event that bec om es the public expression of the community, bo th to itself and to outsiders who are only in the community during the festival T h e Ja yce es not share this wor k with other civic organizations, nor they share the credit T h i s is resented in Hutchinson A surprising number o f people on the street, going about their regular business, informed us that they would attend only the parade, that they didn’t feel that the other events were for them Some even suggested that the entire festival was really an event for the Jaycees

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the Jaycees Here, then, the community— in the form o f its “official” representative— grants the Jaycees the recognition they believe they deserve, assures them that their efforts have not been in vain, and proclaims that their view o f the city, the festival, and their relation­ ships to both are satisfying and appropriate As I noted earlier, many people in the co mm uni ty not share this understanding But those people not pay forty or fifteen dollars per couple for reserved seats, nor three dollars for seats in the back, to attend the queen pageant

In terms o f the organization of events, the Hutchinson Water Carnival presents a public culture emphasizing division rather than solidarity For e xam pl e, although the traveling carnival, which at­ tracts children and adolescents from a wide variety o f backgrounds, was in action on Friday, the major event o f the day was the queen pageant, an expensive event that attracted people, many fashion­ ably dressed O n Saturday, all but one o f the public events attracted both Ja ycees and others Several o f the forty-three entrants in the ten- kilometer run were Jaycees All but one of the Jaycees were married and many had children, and the Kiddie Day events were o f interest to them Indeed, my students observed that many of the people in the crowds at the children’s events were Jaycees T h e one event that was not o f interest to the Ja ycees was the square-dance de monst ration, and it was scheduled to overlap with an important Jaycee cocktail party The Q u e e n ’s Ball was another event that attracted far more Jaycees than anyone else: the candidates and the outgoing queen and prin­ cesses were in formal gowns, and those Jaycees who were most in­ volved with the Water Carnival were in tuxedos This is a far cry from the small-town street dance, where dress is blue jeans, shorts, and various kinds o f appropriate shirts and tops

an experience o f communality through a meal open to and convenient for everyone in to w n , where the private pleasures o f friends and family are extended and complemented by the public expression o f c o m m u ­ nity membership made possible by festival-provided commensality T h e absence of such a meal in Hutchinson reinforced the distinction between the Jaycees and the rest of the community, who had to make private picnics on their own lawns or in the parks

T h is same pattern was continued in the other events on Sunday, the p o w e r bo a t races and the mud volleyball tournament O v e r ,7 0() people attended the three events scheduled soon after the parade (this includes those counted in the area near the traveling carnival) Man y had brought lawn chairs and coolers with food and beverages, but there was no food for sale Onc e again, the emphasis was on individ­ ual clusters o f people independently seeking entertainment he irony is that the Jaycees were intensifying their own sense o f community, rewarding them selves for a job well done, and establishing and rees­ tablishing their own co mmunal ties It is scarcely surprising that fol­ lowing the fireworks should come the Afterglow for the Jaycees

T h u s , in H utchin son, the festival organizers are rather dramati­ cally alienated from and alienating to those segments o f the city that are not their own T h e ir control over the festival is obvious and re­ sented, and it is not countered by any outlet for the disaffected In co nt st, the small-town festival organizers are not so strikingly alien­ ated from the people for wh om the festival is organized T h e i r control is hidden, and as a result, opposition or disaffection is diffuse, with no clear target

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accentuates the prominence o f certain features of the festival that have a lower profile in Hutchinson

T h e St Paul Winter Carnival operates on two levels, that o f p erform ance and that of administration and organization T h e St Paul Wint er Carnival Association is the body that is responsible for the official program of the event Composed o f a board o f directors, a festival cab in et , an executive director, and a three-member profes­ sional staff, it handles thematic coordination, fundraising, publicity, and the scheduling o f official Winter Carnival events T his is a year- round jo b , and much o f it is behind the scenes

For m o st residents o f St Paul, however, the distinctive features o f Wint er Carnival are the Royal Family and the Vulcans, two uniformed groups who enact the fifty-year-old festival legend during the last ten days o f W int er C ar n iv a l11 and who then travel all over M innesota and beyond during the rest o f the year T he Royal Family is comp osed of twenty-one members: King Boreas (the king o f winter, and the ruler o f Winter Carnival); his brothers, the Princes of the Winds (N o r t h , South, East , and West); the Queen o f the Snows; the four Win d Princesses; the Prime Minister; the Captain o f the Gu ard; and the nine King’s Guards T h e Royal Family makes over 150 appearances during

the ten days, some public, some at Winter Carnival functions, and many at hospitals, schools, nursing hom es , and other care facilities

Op p o si n g these rather stodgy guardians of winter and social or­ der are the eight Vulcans and Vulcanus R e x , the fire king T h e Vulcans dress in red running suits and capes, crested hoods, and ski goggles, and smear greasepaint on their cheeks and chins Formerly renowned in St Paul for their traditional practice o f kissing women and smudg­ ing them with their greasepaint— the sooty symbol of the increasing po we r o f the forces of war mt h— the Vulcans now are permitted only to rub their faces against the cheeks o f consenting wo men T h e Vul­ cans are completely anonymous, both to the public and to one a n ­ other: during the festival, they refer to one another by their “Vulcan names,” such as the Prince of Ashes, Gr and Duke Fertilious, or Baron Sparkus (also known as Sparky) T h e Vulcans are the most carnival- esque feature of Winter Carnival T he y lodge together during the ten days they are active in the festival, ride around the city in an antique fire tr u ck , make fun o f the Royal Family, and engage in m o ck battles with them Safe in their anonymity, the Vulcans, representing warmth and disorder, deconstruct the stuffed-shirt pomposity o f the Royal

Festivals and Public Culture I

Family and, by exte nsio n, the order they represent At the end o f every Winter Ca rnival, they m a k e one final attack on the Royal Family and win W inter has been defeated T h e Vulcans are the popular favorites, universally recognized and cheered around the city Two o f my stu­ dents had a chance to ride with the 990 Vulcan Krewe on their fire truck for a few hours as they traveled to schools, nursing homes, hospitals, restaurants, and department stores T he y reported that wherever in St Paul they were— and they went through many o f the city’s n ei gh bo rh ood s— people honked their horns and waved, made the V-for-Vulcan sign, and shouted “Hail the Vulc!” As with every­ thing carnivalesque, however, the Vulcans are not just safely me sti­ cated figures o f fun; they can be frightening and potentially d a n ­ gerous At night, leaping o f f the truck, capes flying, the powerful smell o f alcohol enveloping them, running after women to smudge them even if the women o b je c t, they exude a whiff o f the ch ao s that lies at the heart o f carnivalesque disorder

new princesses, costs fifty dollars per person Slightly over a thousand people attended in 9

T h e jewelry, furs, clothing, hair styles, cars, deep tans, and so on that are on display at these events signal clearly that W in t er Carnival is organized and performed by an elite It takes money and position to be part o f the core o f W int er Carnival All the members o f the uniformed groups must be able to be absent from their jobs for ten days during the festival, and must have the freedom afterwards to m a k e appear­ ances on evenings and weekends (King Boreas and the Qu een ot the Sn ow s now make over four hundred appearances a year) T h e King’s G u a r d s are men in their mid- to late twenties who can afford the $ , 0 in uniforms, pins, lodging, food, and entertainment it will cost for the year Vulcans are older and better established; it costs about $ , 0 for a year on the Krewe Vulcanus R e x , usually in his forties or early fifties, will normally spend ab out $ , 0 T h e Prime Minister, usually a man in his early to mid-thirties, normally spends about $ , 0 T h e Princes o f the Winds are usually in their forties, and we ll- k no wn and successful businessmen; they are chosen by their wind organizations It costs at least $ , 0 to be a Prince o f the Win d B or eas must be a m a n at the height o f an executive career, in his late forties or early fifties, who is prepared to make an investment o f upwards o f $ , 0 Frequently, the corporations for which these men w o r k contribute to their support, sometimes substantially.12

During W int er Carnival, the m a jo r players, including the chair­ m a n o f the board and the president o f the festival cabi ne t, chaperones for the queen and princesses, and all the uniformed ch ara ct er s, take up residence in three hotels in w nt ow n St Paul O n e o f these, the stately St Paul H ot el , becomes the de facto center o f the festival within the festival As in Hut chinson, the St Paul elite regularly c o n ­ gratulates itself for its festival activities, although it does so in a rather more spectacular style T h e festival within the festival, which is c o n ­ cealed and almost furtive in Hut chi ns on , is openly, elaborately, vigor­ ously, and joyously celebrated in St Paul As the d o o rm a n of the St Paul Hotel remarked, “T h o s e people know how to party.”

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Fi g - K i n g B o r e a s ( c e n ­ t e r ) , hi s P r i m e M i n i s t e r , a n d t he Q u e e n o f t h e S n o w s k n i g h t a w o r t h y s u b j e c t , t e n o r Vern S u t t o n P h o t o b y t he au t h o r

T h i s festival within the festival at W inter Carnival reflects, per­ haps, the intensity o f the experiences o f the people who have per­ formed in Winter Carnival T he y have certainly created a social world that they find compelling and satisfying, and that extends beyond the specifics o f Winter Carnival In this, they are similar to the West Indians w ho celebrate Carnival in N ot tin g Hill, discussed by Abner C o h en : “T h e two-day event is the culmination o f months o f prepara­ tion by various artistic groups, which over the years have beco me pe rm ane nt cliques o f friends, interacting in primary relationships that are not necessarily connected with the carnival.” 14 T h e W int er C a r n i ­ val people patronize one another’s businesses T h e y vacation with one another T h e y marry one another T h e y have their own language o f address and reference, their own kinship system (for e xa m p le , the Princes o f the Winds are brothers to Bo reas, and men w ho have had the same Vulcan name in different years have been heard to refer to each othe r as “br other” ), and even a lengthy formal protocol manual Indeed, the president o f the festival cabin et , a senior vice president at the St Paul Companies, told me his response to friends who were asking why anthropologists were studying Winter Carnival: “We’ve created a culture here, with tribal differences and so o n, and th at’s so mething anthropologists study.”

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are the most popular Winter Carnival events in those years when an ice palace is not constructed T h e s e parades are filled with floats carrying not just the Royal Family, but also members o f the different fraternal orders M os t St Paulites know that the members o f the uniformed groups are wealthy, and they see that almost all the players are male and all are white Here is an elite with very clear criteria for membership T h e ir festival performance suggests that they deserv e

this position, and they are not shy about advertising and celebrating the rightness o f their dominion

T h e Royal Family, in particular, has appropriated the right to speak for St Paul In speech after speech, King Boreas talks abo ut the pleasure and honor o f representing Winter Carnival an d the city o f St. Paul. In the pro motional material, to o , the same conflation is made W he n the Royal Family travels to Winnipeg, M a n i t o b a ; Austin, Texas; Bra denton, Florida; M em p h is , Tennessee; or to small towns around the state, its members see themselves, and are referred to by their hosts, as representing not just the St Paul Winter Carnival but St Paul T h i s , in the co nt ext o f present-day St Paul, is problematic T h e community ethos o f St Paul is one o f pluralism, or at least involves an ideology o f multiple communities and distinct ne ighbor­ hoods T h e celebration o f mination and the claim o f representative­ ness are contradicted by both the official ideology o f the city and the everyday experience o f its citizens T he re are people who are aware o f this contradiction; many o f them belong to groups that not see themselves in Wint er Carnival They, and others, reject or ignore details o f W in te r Carnival that are most important to the insiders For ex amp le, the attendance by the general public at the co ron ati on has been declining over the last few years In 9 there were fewer people in the free-admission balcony seats than there were on the main floor tables, which cost fifty dollars per person Instead, the general public concentrated on those events that were urban entertainments— the snow-sculpture and ice-carving contests, the firebird and Russian O r ­ th od ox chapel created by the visiting Soviet ice carvers, and the parades

way up (perhaps the sole difference is that the only Je w s in W in t e r Carnival have been Vulcans) For the moment, the Vulcans represent the co un terforce to the overly orderly world of King B o r e a s 16 T h e resentment that people might feel toward the festival’s organizers is deflected, although not erased, by the Vulcans It is also true th a t the show that is put on in St Paul is better than the show put on in H u tc hi n s on , and for obvious reasons T h e entire budget for the Hutchinson Water Carnival is the budget for one Wint er Carnival

p a d e in St Paul T h e scale of the organizations is hardly c o m p a r a ­ ble; for e xam p le, the organizers of the St Paul Winter Carniv al ar­ ranged to bring in ice carvers from the Soviet Union in 9 and from C hi na in 9 T h e St Paul Winter Carnival also offers a wider range o f events for different constituencies: from ski and snowshoe races and hockey tou rnaments to concerts, parades, dances, children’s events, senior citizens’ events, and a fun fair with midway, music, craft sales, co ncessions, displays, and more

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change, there was at least one who swore that if it happened, she would never support Winter Carnival again

1 he future of Winter Carnival is not, o f course, something that the organizers alone will decide It will also be shaped by the wider ec on om ic , political, and cultural changes that are going on in the community, and by the contested interpretations o f these changes

F or e xam pl e, changes in the economic base o f St Paul brought about by corporate restructuring and consolidation are affecting W i n ­ ter Carnival In contradistinction to both the small-town festivals and the Hutchinson Water Carnival, many, perhaps most, o f the people who organize and perform in Winter Carnival are St Paul natives Gr o wi ng up in the tradition, sometimes with fathers or grandfathers who had been part o f Winter Carnival, many St Paulites have co me to see Winter Carnival as an important resource for their own social and business activities But the changes in the ec on om ic structure o f St Paul have had an effect on Winter Carnival Many formerly indepen­ dent businesses have become part of larger corporations, and some of the larger corporations have moved their headquarters to M i n ­ neapolis, or have moved large segments of their workfo rce s out o f state O f the three great St Paul breweries that had been o f signal importance to the festival over the years, H a m m ’s is gone, and both the S tr oh ’s and Schmidt breweries have been taken over by larger beer conglomerates In fact, during Winter Carnival this year, the city o f St Paul had to begin seriously to consider ways o f keeping the S t r o h ’s and Schmidt breweries from closing T h e other side o f the ec on om ic trans­ formation is the development o f “corporate suburbs,” made up in large measure o f people who have been transferred into the St Paul area While these people are expected to become involved civically, such localized civic activities as Winter Carnival may not be as attractive as national activities such as the United Way, the American Heart Asso­ ciation, and so on, membership in which is portable Here is another challenge that Winter Carnival must face, and the strategies put in place now for attracting volunteers will shape the future o f the festival

o f the core o f Winter Carnival people It highlights the difficulty that W in t er Carnival is having in finding people who can be seen as repre­ sentative o f these multiply-voiced communities in St Paul It can also be interpreted as an attempt to extend middle-class control outward into ethnic and working-class co m m un it ie s, 17 incorporating groups that already have their own festivals But in diversifying the makeup o f W in t e r Carnival, more volunteers are made available, and Winter Carnival must also respond to the changes in the corporate volunteer pool

T h e growing litigiousness o f American society has caused the W in t er Carnival organizers to cancel, rethink, or replace several tradi­ tion al, classic participatory Winter Carnival events, ranging from the ice palace (insurance companies would not write liability insurance except at an almost impossibly high cost; engineers and architects refused to “inspect” the construction, although they would “observe” it) and toboggan runs to ice slides for children T h e effect o f the loss or scaling-back of these events is felt in the declining public participation in W in t e r Carnival, which has been replaced with increased spectatorship

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The w o m e n ’s movement has also had an effect on the co ron ation ritual of the Royal Family Formerly, the wives o f the Princes o f the Winds and Boreas were never even mentioned, let alone introduced during this ceremony Today, members o f the uniformed groups in W inter Carnival now formally recognize the contributions of wives to their husbands’ role activities In 9 , the wives o f both the outgoing and incoming princes and kings even appeared on stage with their husbands Let me take a moment to describe these scenes Each o u t g o ­ ing fortyish prince and his twenty-two- or twenty-three-year-old princess ca m e forward from the royal grouping at the back o f the stage to receive recognition from the crowd T h e prince’s wife was then introduced and came onstage, joining her husband and his princess She received a bouquet o f roses from her husband, kissed him, and then leaned across him to embrace the princess Together, all three, husband in the middle, acknowledged the cheers o f the crowd The incoming prince was then introduced and, with his wife, climbed the steps to the end o f the runway, some twenty feet or more from the front o f the stage Husband and wife walked together a bo ut a third o f the way to the stage, where they stopped and kissed She returned to the steps and disappeared into the darkness Her husband, the prince, continued forward to the stage, where a line o f twenty young w o m e n , the contestants in the Queen o f the Snows competition, waited M o ­ ments later, he received his princess, who knelt before him to receive her crown from his hands

beauti-Fi g - T h e m o m e n t o f V u l c a n t r i u m p h : K i n g B o ­ r e a s is o v e r t u r n e d , a n d t he V u l c a n s r u l e P h o t o b y t he au t h o r

ful young wome n on their arms T h e conflict was certainly present in the pe rf orm anc e, and was obvious to more observers than just the anthropologist

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a large city such as St Paul, a monolithic co mmunitarian ethos is both implausible and unachievable, and the festival’s potential for making visible and “thinkable" the sharp divisions within the city is shaped and colored by the presence o f the Vulcans T h e Vulcans not deny the divisions, they incarnate them But the dialogue is formalized in play— there are antagonisms, but nobody gets hurt Beyond that, B o ­ reas and the Vulcans appear to form a necessary co mbi natio n Neither makes sense without the other, and the outco me o f their struggle creates the image o f a playing field that is truly level After all, even though the Vulcans triumph at the end o f Winter Carnival, by the next Ja nu ary Boreas is back on his throne and the Vulcans must break out once again Abner Cohen points out that “carnivals are irreducible cultural forms, but, like all other cultural forms, are seldom free o f political significance T he y range in their political functions from the maintenance of the established order, serving as ‘rituals o f rebellion’, to the articulation o f protest, resistance and violence against that order The same carnival may vary in its politics over time.” 19 I wish to suggest that they may speak with and to more than one voice at the same time and that, indeed, this loophole is the dialogic potential at the heart o f public culture

N O T E S

ment o f this w o r k , both generally and specifically M y greatest intel­ lectual debt is, as always, to Emily Schultz, whose incisiveness and insight strengthened both fieldwork and writing

1 M y cl aims here are limited solely to the eighteen M in ne s ot a festivals about which I have direct knowledge Nevertheless, it is clear from the literature that this assertion is true for many other festivals in the United States See espe­ cially Frederick Err ingt on, “ Reflexivity Deflected: T h e Festival o f N a t i o n s as an American Cultural Performance,” A m erican E thn ologist , no ( ) , - ; Beverly Stoeltje, “Cultural Queens: Moder ni zat ion and Re pre se nt a­ t io n” (paper presented at the annual meeting o f the Association for the Study o f Play, M on t r e al ) ; Richard M Swiderski, Voices: An A nthropologist's D ialogue w ith an Italian-A m erican Festival ( L o n d o n , On ta r io : Cent re for Social and Humanist ic Studies, University o f Western O n t a r i o , ) ; and W Lloyd Warner, T he Living and the D ead: A Study o f the Sym bolic L ife o f A m ericans ( N e w Haven: Yale University Press, 9 )

2 In their 6 study o f Benson, M i n ne s ot a , a count y seat o f s ome , 0 people, Mart in da le and Hanson list the following self-reported o ccupat iona l categories: farmer, ; laborer, ; white-collar worker, ; professional, ; busi nes sman, ; other, 15; total, 7 Even if the “o th er ” category is not included in the middle class, nearly two-thirds o f the sample is still in the s ame basic social category B en so n’s o wn planning report from 19 categorizes sixty percent o f all male employees as proprietors, officials, ma nage rs , fore­ m en , and craftsmen (Don Martindale and R Gal en H a n s o n , Sm all Town and the N ation : T h e C on flict o f L ocal and T ranslocal F orces [Westport, C o n n : G r e e n w o o d , 9 ] , , - )

3 Lynn B ri n k , course essay for H o n or s F ol kl or e, St Cloud State Univer­ sity, St C l o u d , M i n n , 8

4 R o b e r t H Lavenda, “Family and C or p or at i on : Two Styles o f Ce lebr at io n in Central M i n ne s ot a , ” in F nk E M a nn i n g , e d , T h e C elebration o f Society: Perspectives on C on tem porary Cultural P erform an ce (Bowling G re en , O h i o : Bowl ing G re en University Popular Press, ) , and “C om mu ni ty Festivals, P a r a d o x , and the Mani pul at ion o f Uncertainty,” Play an d Culture , no ( 9 ) , - ; R o b er t H Lavenda et a l , “ Festivals and the O rganization o f M e a ni n g : An Introduction to C ommun it y Festivals in Mi nnes ot a, ” in Brian Sut ton-Smi th and Diana Kelly-Byrne, eds., T h e M asks o f Play (West Point, N Y : Leisure Press, )

5 T h e c ount y fairs are the alternative festival for farmers, who are sometimes quite explicit on this point

6 In my experi ence, festivals with ethnic n ames in Mi nnes ota are no different

Festivals and Public Culture I 03

Paul Ricoeur, H erm eneutics an d Human Sciences: Essays on L an gu age,

A ction, an d In terpretation, cd and trans J o h n B T h o m p s o n (Cambr idg e: C amb ridge University Press, )

8 There are many other to wn s in which the C m b e r o f C o m m e r c e , Lions C l ub , or similar service club organizes the festival My observation is that the people in these organizations w ho run festivals are much more interested in them than are the Hutchinson Ja y ce es , who seem to put on the Water Carnival be cause they are supposed to T h es e organizations are not age grades, and members w ho enjoy putting on festivals can continue to work in the o rg an i za ­ tion for many years

9 This is not to suggest that bankers in small towns not deny loans or foreclose on farm mortgages Th e y But on the one hand, they are much closer to ma ny o f their clients, and frequently have multiplex social c o n n e c ­ tions to them O n the ot her nd, small-town bankers ma ke loans to people to w h o m bankers less enmeshed in a community would deny loans S mal l-town ban ks sometimes get into financial trouble because their loan officers find it very difficult to say no or to foreclose

10 T h i s count is accurate for the crowd at the moment the first units passed each block Two students counted the entire parade route, staying even with the flags T h e remaining eight students each t o ok a detailed de mo gra ph ic count on half o f the blocks along the parade route Th e ir totals are very close to half the total o f the first, general count

11 W in t er Carni val is officially twelve days long, beginning on a Wednesday, but the new R oyal Family is inaugurated two days later, on Friday night T h e new Vulcan Kr ewe “comes o u t ” early the following Saturday morning

12 For Boreas and Vulcanus R e x , the m aj or expenses tend to be formal dinners for their supporters, which they underwrite T h er e are also the e x ­ penses associated with travel Boreas is expected to pay for s ome o f the expenses o f his c ou rt , especially the Queen o f the Snows, when they are on the road He also invests in c omme mo ti ve medals, coins, certificates, three uniforms, and so on

13 A student in the field school remarked to me that, earlier in the project , after having read Turner, M a n n i n g , and others on the c oncepts o f liminal and liminoid, she h a d n ’t believed that either really existed in temp orar y urban society T h e n she spent a night with the queen’s chaperone in the St Paul Hotel and the next day with the Royal Family “N o w I kno w it exists,” she told me

14 Abner C o h e n , “D ma and Politics in the Development o f a Londo n Carnival,” M an , no ( ) , 6

15 Even anthropologists, w ho be co me Royal Researchers

16 Th is same irony is found in the M a r x Brot hers’ mast erwor k, D uck Soup.

for the Ant hropologi st : Structure and Anti-structure in ‘Du ck Soup,’ ” in W Arens and Susan M o n t a g u e , eds , T he A m erican D im ension [Sherman O a k s , C al if : Alfred, ] ) , viewers identify with the M a r x Brothers in their assault on the etiquette of public occa si ons and hierarchy, and as a result, the viewers’ o w n private and inchoate experi ence o f those structures is given form, legiti­ m a te d, and t ransformed At the time the film was made, in 3 , the M a r x Brothers were immensely wealthy and fa mo us , living in H o ll y wo od , and a long way from the charact ers they played on screen

17 J o h n F iske, U nderstanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin H y m a n , 9 ) , -

18 R o b e r t H Lavenda, “N o t Carnival But Fellowship: C o mm un i t a s and C o m m u n i t y in M in ne sot a Festivals,” paper presented at the annual meeting o f the Amer ica n Anthropologi cal A ss ociat ion, Washington, D C , 8

C H A P T E R 5

A rt Museums and Living Artists: Contentious Communities

V E R A L Z O L B E R G

You may wonder why in this b o o k , I have left the artist until last T h e reason is simple In the art game he is the least important player I am speaking, o f course, o f the living artist, who is considered by mos t dealers to be a risky investment who has to be subsidized by the profits made out o f dead artists r o b e r t w r a i g h t (1 5)

The museum and the living artist, so poignantly interdependent, must keep a wary distance Th is means strain and altercation, but that is the natural order o f things, a check and balance

WAL T E R D B ANNARD (1 5)

N o one caught on to artists like R o t h k o faster than Alfred Barr and Do ro thy Miller W i t h o u t t hem, I would never have survived I would have starved, and the artists along with me Th e y were always helping and showed all my painters at the museum You’re not going to see that happening today Mus eums have relinquished their re­ sponsibility to keep up with w h a t ’s going on

B E T T Y PARS ONS ( I 984 )

T h e love-hate affair of artists and art museums has been a recurrent th erne o f literature, history, and sociological writings virtually since public art museums came into b e i n g N o one doubts their interdepen­ dence, but the quality o f their relationship depends upon whether the artists are living or dead; whether artists and museums face each other

directly or through the mediation o f dealers or collectors; whe nce comes the support on which both rely; the size and complexity o f the museum; and the condition of the art world in which they find t h e m ­ selves.2 T h e y interact as suitors, duelists, petitioners and, sometimes, confederates Although their relationship has undergone many changes, it seems appropriate to characterize it as one of fretful symbiosis

Although American art museums are much admired throughout the world for their accomplishments in disseminating culture to a broad pu b li c, they tend to exclude artists themselves from au th o rit a ­ tive positions in aesthetic decisionmaking T h is is an anomaly that has been little examined and calls for consideration It is my contention that although museums o f modern art have many occasions to deal with artists, they have rarely viewed living artists as forming a c o m ­ munity towar d which they have particular obligations By the same tok en , exc ep t under certain conditions, artists tend not to form dura­ ble communities Despite the prevalence o f the theme, surprisingly little serious research has been devoted to their relationship, perhaps because those o f us w ho study museums have had other important intellectual priorities that have dominated the research agenda, leav­ ing artists to be studied in other c o n t e x t s

T h i s essay considers the relationship o f art museums and living artists in order to highlight the bases o f both their incompatibilities and their commonalities Typically, once tensions between museums and artists have become public, strategies similar to those adopted in other conflicts are likely: forced or voluntary resignations, administra­ tive restructuring, and/or mutual recognition o f grievances Wh atever the resolution, further conflict is pr ob abl e because o f the structural conditions in which artists and art museums exist, and the divergence o f their personal, institutional, and aesthetic goals

A rt Museums and Living Artists 107

defined, which is itself linked with how the character o f communities of artists is changing today

S O U R C E S O F T E N S I O N I N T H E A R T I S T - A R T M U S E U M R E L A T I O N S H I P

A sym m etry o f N eed

As public institutions, American art museums are expected to provide services to their communities o f visitors and members T he y fre­ quently confront conflicting demands, in particular in balancing the resources they provide to public education as opposed to the conserva­ tion efforts, ex hibitions, and lavish catalogues preferred by many m a ­ jor donors T h e other main source o f contention concerns the art of living artists that they select for their collections Although the espe­ cially contentious o ccasions are the ones that become widely k n o w n , it should be remembered that many art museums depend for their exist­ ence on old works by artists o f the past When they collect or display new wo rks, American museums are likely to receive them as gifts, or purchase them from dealers or other intermediaries rather than from artists directly T h e ir contacts with living artists are often fraught with tension because o f the paradoxical nature o f the relation­ ship between the museum as an institution and the art that constitutes it If they exclude co nt em po rar y artworks they are treated as conser­ vative and timorous; if they welcome certain works but not others they may be accused o f favoritism, o f promoting artists whose works are collected by some o f their donors or are found attractive by the politicians who control public funding; when they reject works that challenge conventional n o r m s , they may be denounced for censorship and for violating creative freedom

in the academies and princely collections, once the works had been purchased they were no longer the artists’ ow-n to with as they would They belonged to the institution and/or to the state, which could decide whether to display or conceal them

If anything, it would appear that living artists create problems that museums prefer to without, such as importuning staff to acquire certain works or objecting to a w o r k ’s placement in the mu­ seum Museums deal with artists directly only w'hen they have to, and on their own terms Among these terms is that the artist must support the museum in upholding the aesthetic ideology o f the au tonomou s a r t w o r k It is no wonder, therefore, that claims to different subject matter (especially when it is political), genres, and art forms threaten the established genre boundaries o f art museums

Beyond aesthetics, artworks in market societies (not very differ­ ently from other things) tend to be treated as commodities Indeed, it is within that logic that artists create: they make art to order (by commission for an individual, firm, institution, or government), or to meet contractual obligations to their dealers, who act as go-betweens representing the artists’ works to a largely anonymous market O n the whole, what happens to the works once these transactions are c o m ­ pleted concerns others, not the artist Although in the domain of commer ce (advertising or commercial films, for example) the c o m ­ moditization o f art is taken for granted, when it comes to the fine arts a certain ambiguity pervades the relationship between artists and their works In most Eur op ean countries artists retain a continuing non- propertied interest in their works even after they have consigned them to others T h is d roit m ora l stipulates that the artists or their heirs have the right to stop works from being mishandled or subjected to ridicule, for example being upside down or displayed in demeaning c o n ­ ditions Aspects o f the idea of droit m ora l are coming to be adopted in certain American states as well.7 However, in the United States in general even museum-quality fine art and its creators are dealt with in a businesslike manner, which tends to exclude moral right from c o n ­ siderations o f material right.8 This highlights the opposition between the interests of museums and those of artists T h is businesslike ap­ proach to art implicitly supports the conception o f the artist as an alienated outsider to society, an idea that has pervaded the way in which artists view themselves in relation to the art market and to mus eum s.9

Art Museums and Living Artists I 09

normal for their contacts to be mediated by collectors or dealers This mediation is dictated both by custom and, practically speaking, by law For whereas in other countries, even where an art market exists, artists themselves may be encouraged to donate or sell their works to m u s e u m s , 10 in the United States the opposite tends to be the case American tax laws have encouraged collectors to donate works to museums by granting them generous tax deductions, but artists are permitted to claim only the “literal cost o f materials in any gifts of their wo rks they might make to charitable institutions.” 11 On e result o f this fiscal discrimination is that it has become extremely rare for artists to donate their own works to m u se u m s 12 M os t artists have little expe ctation or ambition of ever having their works enter a mu­ seum collection Only for artists who identify themselves as actors in the arena o f art history is access to the art museum an issue Th is poses a particular problem for avant-garde artists, who have a vital interest in having their works in museums but who consciously strive to inno­ vate rather than merely produce saleable w o r k s 13 T h e result is that comparatively u nkn ow n artists must come as petitioners for entry to the relatively few institutions that might accept them, which forces them to deal from a position o f weakness that points up the inherent asymmetry in the relationship

Th is co n t ex t clearly suggests that the artist confronts the art mu ­ seum as an individual But what about artists as a community? Fr a m ­ ing the relationship in this way is problematic and suggests that a prior question must be asked: whether a community o f artists is actually capable o f existing, and if so, what its nature is

W hat Is a C om m un ity of Artists?

T h e concept o f community encompasses a set o f meanings, only some o f which may be appropriate to artists today Ordinarily com m unity

of artists is their co mm itm ent to working, preferably full time, as professional ar ti sts 14 Artists or aspirants to careers in the arts tend to locate themselves in a metropolis to which other artists are drawn, and congregate in neighborhoods that enhance access to materials and services and provide large w o r k spaces along with proximity to dealers, patrons, and c o lle ct o r s 15 However, other features commonly associated with communities, such as ethnicity or religion, are gener­ ally absent or less salient Because of their shared professional needs artists may become engaged in concerted action vis-a-vis government agencies in order to improve their material situation.16 Ironically, de­ spite the preference o f artists for living in low-rent districts, their very presence seems to invite the gentrification whose rent increases inev­ itably drive out all but the most successful o n e s 17 Real estate market pressures are among the forces that tend to scatter artists

T h e C ase o f the N ew York A bstract Expressionists

T h e abst ract expressionists constitute the prototype for a modern co m m un it y o f artists, its possibilities, and its probable limits They resided for the most part in or near Greenwich Village during the period from the s to the s , but they were more than a geographic entity As Charles Kadushin has suggested, the New York School functioned not only as a community, but as a “movement circle.” As such, they to o k up arms against certain established princi­ ples, creating a sense o f embattlement that supported the bonding am o ng its members typical o f a social movement T h e y shared an affinity for the Eur op ean modernist tradition, knowledge o f which they elaborated through their participation in intellectual discussions In this they benefited from the companionship o f sympathetic critics and dealers Together they founded the “club” in which they developed a discourse about the styles they pioneered, and which facilitated their unity.18

Art Museums and Living Artists I I I

a serious institution, yet still embodied the spirit o f adventure o f its origins T h e mu se um’s Alfred H Barr, J r , and Dorothy Miller became two o f the most important advocates for the abstract expressionist m o v em en t 20

1 his seemingly idyllic community, which combined location with comm on aesthetic aims, shared interests, and co mp anionship, did not— and perhaps could not— last Eventually, its core group became an “establishment'’ in relation to other artists, tending to exclude still newer artistic ideas.21 In part the community was eroded by success: as is often the case, artists who had achieved great prominence moved away from the city But it is not merely their dispersion that accounts for the decline of the community N or does their dispersion alone explain why successive waves of artists espousing newer styles did not form similarly cohesive communities An important difference that Diana Crane observes is that later artists were more likely to meet through the mediation o f dealers and critics; at times even c o m m o n ­ alities in their stylistic outlooks were “discovered” or constructed by those mediators She notes that “[a]s the number o f artists wo rk in g in New York increased, the character o f the artistic milieu shifted from a tightly knit counterculture to a set of relatively transient, interlocking subcultures T h e maj or New York museums became increasingly conservative in their selection o f new artworks.”22

group shows than in small ones, and rarely individually Treated as temporary crowd pleasers, works in the new styles entered permanent collections in New York museums more slowly than had the abstract expressionist works As a result, artists (or their dealers) were increas­ ingly obliged to seek other outlets and means o f existence: regional museums for recognition; co rp o tio ns for commissions or sales; teaching positions to make a living.25

Despite the favorable conditions that made the New York School o f abstract expressionists possible, their actual artworks represent considerable stylistic diversity T h a t they be came a community had as much to with the social circle that they constructed, and the c o m ­ mon discourse that they and their advocates developed, as with the art itself But their success as a comm uni ty could not survive the develop­ ment o f new support structures, chief amon g them the art ma rk et , that began to define the conditions within which artists now operate In the co nt ex t o f these structures, as I will show ne xt , the artist tends to be treated as an isolated actor rather than as part o f a durable artistic community

Individualists D espite T h em selv es?

Although both historically and more recently groups o f avant-garde artists have often acted for a time as artistic co mm uni ties, these c o m ­ munities have tended to be fragile O n e reason for this is that artists are at the mercy o f market forces, which tend to turn them into competitors rather than enhance companionship T h e m u se um ’s treat­ ment o f individual artists is congruent both with the structure of the art market and with the cultural tradition o f the artist T h e idea for the social type or role of the artist as individual genius originated as early as the Renaissance, converged with the rise o f bourgeois individ­ ualism, and is structurally supported by the development o f modern capitalism T h e art market did not by itself create this role, but its forces contribute to the continuing cultural construction o f that R o ­ mantic image, which has been incorporated into the ideas guiding museums and their pat ronage.26

ab-Art Museums and Living ab-Artists

Fi g - J u l i a n a F o r c e , c i r c a W h i t n e y M u ­ s e u m o f A m e r i c a n A r t , L i ­ b r a r y A r c h i v e s , N e w Y o r k

stract expressionists’ strong, relatively durable community, with their remarkable success in achieving entry into the can on , does not mean that their w o rk s entered museum collections as a group; rather, they did so one w o r k or o ne artist at a time.28

rai-Fi g - O p e n i n g r e c e p t i o n o f t he 9 e x h i b i t i o n U n ­ til T h a t L a s t B r e a t h : W o m e n w i t h A i d s , N e w M u s e u m o f C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t P h o t o b y C a t h e r i n e M c G a n n , c o u r t e s y o f t he N e w M u s e u m o f C o n t e m ­ p o r a r y Ar t

son d’etre as an institution bound by its charter to provide its public with exemplary art in which an aesthetic for its own sake d o mi n ate s 30

In light o f extraordinary aesthetic changes in this century, it is clear that the attack on the idea o f the museum as the home o f a universal, transcendent aesthetic is not a passing phenomenon It is necessary, therefore, to look at the historical and structural co nn e c­ tions that militate in favor of the recurrence of such controversies

A R T I S T S A N D A R T I N M U S E U M S

L o s t in H isto ry

Art Museums and Living Artists I I

out to be incompatible For while the artists wanted to put on exhibi­ tions primarily to sell their own works, the businessmen wanted to use them to show and perhaps sell works from their own collections Once the number o f lay members had increased sufficiently, they w'ere able to reorganize the academy, transforming themselves into a board of trustees In the process, they discovered previously undisclosed debts incurred under artist governance T he trustees resigned in a body and founded a new association to achieve some o f the acade my’s aims “but unencumbered by financial obligations and artists.”31 F ro m having been activists and insiders, artists were made dependents and outsiders

Although both artists and trustees continued to share a com m it­ ment to creating a great museum for the sake of art, thus enhancing their city’s standing, in certain other respects their interests diverged As art collectors, the trustees wished the Art Institute to show great works of the past or from other countries and civilizations Particu­ larly as their own and the museum’s holdings increased, they tried to mak e the museum serve as an exemplar for educational ends, as an inspiration for artists, and as an uplifting institution for the public Even though the trustees accorded the founding artists a certain privi­ leged standing within the museum’s circles (for exa mp le, allowing some of them to rent studio space on the mu seum’s premises for a time), they largely excluded them from decisionmaking Instead, as the muse um’s collection o f European art expanded, local artists were increasingly left out Partly in response to their pleas, the Art Institute o f Chicago instituted annual or biennial exhibitions in which the ar­ tists could compete for space Eventually it established a rental and sales gallery, primarily for their works T his gallery served the dual purpose o f supplementing the city’s meager store of commercial deal­ erships willing to market local artworks, and o f providing a museum- related activity for the waives and daughters o f trustees, who volun­ teered to staff it Still, these were ancillary and marginalized projects Govern an ce o f the collections was kept in the hands o f male trustee- collectors, with professional artists as their employees: teachers in the art school, advisers on collecting and exhibitions, and lecturers to the museum m e m b e r s 32

officials that European art had much to teach them M a n y of them sought to study in the academies and schools o f Paris, M u n i ch , and other European centers Eventually some came to be influenced by European aesthetic innovators But whereas nineteenth-century E u ­ ropean stylistic revolutionaries challenged the aesthetic cano n o f Ol d Master works and academic styles, subject matter, genres, and hier­ archies of values, they did not challenge the privileged standing of the artwork itself, nor did they immediately reject the agencies o f official recognition Instead, many of them, such as Cezanne and Henri Rousseau, continued for some time to submit their paintings to a c a ­ demic salon juries, as had realists and impressionists.33 M o s t artists continued to adhere to the idea o f the autonomous artwork belonging to a realm o f meaning o f its own rather than being a moral narrative By creating new discourses and aesthetic criteria based on formal analysis that would encompass both new abstract styles and recently recognized “primitive” art, they achieved the triumph o f the modern T h e triumph was short-lived: soon it was challenged by several art movements and tendencies, with serious consequences for art museums

Art A fter the Tradition o f the N ew

A rt Museums and Living Artists I I

artistic practice, such artists challenged the very legitimacy o f art museums

T h e dadaist tradition, carried on to the present, highlights one aspect of the problematic nature of art itself Its antiaesthetic and its implied political and social critiques are pervaded by an anarchic zaniness and fantasy that have influenced many artists, especially since the 960 s At a time when a pile of bricks is displayed in a museum, music is composed for performance underwater, and the boundaries between popular and fine art have become fluid, conventional under­ standings o f what art is are strained In these circumstances, how are museums to evaluate art?

While many artists eliminated recognizable imagery altogether, some took this freedom as a rationale for interjecting new, previously rejected themes o f a critical or political kind These themes constitute a contrary challenge to the idea of the aesthetic purity o f the au to n o ­ mous ar twork Mod eling themselves on such forerunners as the so­ cially committed artists of the Mexican mural movement o r — more directly— New Deal artists in the United States, they use both words and pictures to convey their messages Debates that were thought to have been laid to rest with the triumph o f modernism have been reopened, and have become an important element in the process by which art museums and artists confront each other

HOW A RT M U SE U MS DEAL W I T H A RTI S TS

Debates over style and genre boundaries intersect with persistent ten­ sions between local artists’ communities, which want representation in “their o w n ” museums (where some may teach or work in museum- sponsored programs), and the preference o f most art museums for works by “co sm o p o li ta n ” artists Museums with aspirations to a n a ­ tional (let alone international) reputation sometimes view local artists as provincial nuisances.35 Considering that New York City has been the unquestioned art center o f the United States, it may seem surpris­ ing that this derogatory view of local artists was once the case there as well T h e minance o f New York artists on the world scene from the s to the s should not blind us to the past, when American artists in general were considered to be distinctly provincial,36 nor to the possibility that in a world in which transnational corporations support art, American artists may again come to be viewed as provincials

explosion o f auction prices, indicate that the art world is a growth industry in which there is room for many artists to mak e successful careers But, as Diana Crane shows, appearances may be deceptive In spite of the expansion o f every aspect o f the American art world since World War II, art museums now acquire works in new styles at a slower pace than they did when abstract expressionism was new— which was a time when the number of modern-art museums was expanding and when the po st-Wo rld War II government subsidy pro­ grams be ga n 37

Although art museums continue to be confronted by communities o f local artists who seek recognition for their paintings and sculpture, they also deal with artists whose work transgresses the boundaries between art and life, art and politics, and fine art and commercial design As some o f the following cases suggest, when aesthetic consid­ erations come into conflict with the moral beliefs of influential sectors o f the public and their representatives— when larger institutional, civic, and aesthetic aims seem to be at stake— the interests of artists often take second place

T he C orcoran G allery o f Art

T h e controversy centering on the C orc ora n Gallery’s decision in 9 to cancel an exhibition o f photographs by the late Robe rt M a p ­ plethorpe that included some sexually explicit and homo ero tic images is revelatory o f both the tensions endemic to the relationship between modern-art museums and artists in the United States, and the c o m ­ plex, many-layered character o f this relationship But the momentous issue o f the freedom of artistic expression from overt and covert cen­ sorship tends to overshadow the material concerns that artists face, concerns that make them extremely vulnerable to threats against their creative freedom It must not be forgotten that American artists de­ pend for their livelihood on an art market, for symbolic recognition on foundations or the state, and for access to a broader public on mu­ seums T h e combination o f market, state, foundation, and museum constitutes the support structure that may permit an artist to subsist in co mfort and dignity, and possibly to achieve fame T h e crisis at the C orc ora n Gallery needs to be seen in that context

Art Museums and Living Artists 119

visit its numerous museums, but it provides living artists with rela­ tively few opportunities to exhibit their wo rk, especially since the middle o f the s , when the C o r c o r a n ’s Washington R o o m was closed ( T h e Corc ora n had been the principal museum in which the color-field sch oo l, championed by Clement Greenberg, had been e x ­ hibited.) Since then, Washington artists have had to depend chiefly upon comm erc ial galleries But in comparison with New York City, artists in Washington (and, indeed, in most American cities) suffer from being local artists in places that are relatively poorly endowed as art centers Artists are already hampered by the District o f C o lu m ­ bia s lack o f studio space, and because the pool o f potential art collec­ tors is small local dealers have tended to move to New York City, either drawing their artists along or jettisoning them for a stable of New Y o r k - b a s e d artists.38

By the s the tensions between the C o rco n and Washington artists had turned into open conflict Angered by what they took to be an insulting remark by a museum official, a group o f artists began to view the only museum in that area open to regional living artists as their adversary.59 Attempts by the museum to mollify them by inviting them to serve on an advisory panel produced the no doubt unantici­ pated result that some of the artists formed the Coalition o f Washing­ ton Artists in As such, they demanded that the museum extend them greater recognition by including Washington artists in more e x ­ hibitions As the controversy escalated so did their demands: represen­ tation on the board of trustees and its decisionmaking committees, honoraria for allowing their works to be exhibited, and a pledge that the museum set aside special funds to purchase works by Washington artists In the wake o f this contention, a curator and the director resigned, and city funding that the museum had hoped to obtain was diverted to other ends Under a new director (formerly of the Brooklyn M us e um ) , a dialogue with the Coalition was opened It concluded with a promise that the artists would be consulted on maj or curatorial appointments and exhibitions, but their other demands were not m e t 40

the status o f pornography itself as a genre appropriate for art m u ­ seums, and the degree to which government officials or representatives appointed or elected by a heterogeneous public have the right to make decisions that privilege the preferences of one set o f constituencies over another

T h e B rookly n M useum

On e of the country’s oldest art museums (dating back to the s , though in its present building only since the turn of the century), the Brooklyn Museum has prided itself not only on its excellent collec­ tions, but on innovative approaches to art and public-education activ­ ities Because in the Brooklyn Museum (unlike many other art m u ­ seums) collections and education are not mutually exclusive, it is difficult to separate the muse um’s relationship to artists from its gen­ eral community orientation In 19/1 the retiring director noted that the museum had successfully adapted to changes in its sources of patronage: with the departure of many upper-income families from Brooklyn and their replacement by low-income minorities (many of them African American and Puerto Rican families) who usually are not thought to be museumgoers, the museum’s attendance neverthe­ less tripled, with a substantial proportion of the audience being indi­ viduals of blue-collar origin He implied that this unusual success came from playing the muse um’s strong suit: its permanent collection o f ancient Egyptian, M e x i c a n , and African a rts 41

With respect to artists, the museum has tried to reconcile two frequently incompatible aims: on the one hand, as befits a venerable institution, to maintain standards of quality and stay in touch with national and international trends; on the other, to play an active role in the life o f the community Beginning in it organized exhib i­ tions o f young or less well known artists in its Co mm un it y Gallery, a space used to create opportunities “/ or com m un ity artists o f all ability levels to have access to m useum sp ace ” As an au ton om ous unit, its wo rks were chosen no t by the museum s curators, but by a separate advisory committee w ho se members, many o f them artists, came from diverse neighborhoods o f B r o o k ly n 42

num-A rt Museums and Living num-Artists 121

Fig 5-3 Children looking at a work by Espada at the show Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors Brooklyn Museum, 1989 Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum

ber o f artists t o set up installations o f their wo rks, using constructions, media, so un d, and “castaways.”43

welcome, and where there is a sense that the fresh and unexpected are possible.”45

It would be easy to dismiss these innovations as devices for seg­ regating the museum’s social obligations from the business o f ‘ sep­ a r a t i n g ] the artistically worthy from the artistically unworthy.”46 But this would be adopting an extraordinarily narrow conception ot the multifunctional institutions that American art museums have tried to be Each museum decides for itself how much attention it will give to each of the constituencies in its purview, according to its means, congruent with its traditions, and within the changing circumstances o f financial constraints and public wishes In this light, the Brooklyn M useum has been able to take risks that have met with considerable success

T h e W hitney M useum o f A m erican Art

Dedicated to the art o f Americans, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s collection o f six hundred works gave a clear message o f her co mm it­ ment at a time when American artists enjoyed little patronage With her associate, Juliana Force, as director, she designed her museum explictly for “gaining for the art o f this country the prestige which

Fig 5-4 Edward Steichen,

Portrait o f Gertrude Van­ derbilt Whitney, 1937 Photograph 15 s/s x 13

A rt Museums and Living Artists I 23

heretofore the public has devoted too exclusively to the art o f foreign countries and of the p a s t ”4' In recent years the museum has continued to be bound by this idea, but has gone beyond Whit ne y’s own prefer­ ence for figurative art Instead it has plunged wholeheartedly into the aesthetic turmoil o f the contemporary In large measure this shift stemmed from the policies of Lloyd G o o dr ic h, director o f the museum from 19 to Goodrich shared Wh it ne y ’s taste and c o m m it ­ ment, contributing with his scholarly writing to the valorization o f a number o f American painters, such as Winslow Homer, T h o m a s E ak in s, and Edward Hopper Beyond that, however, he was instru­ mental in reorienting the museum from its status as a private preserve to its new mission as a public institution that acquired abstract works by such artists as M a r k R o t h k o and Willem de K o o ni ng 48

G o o dr ic h wrote that he believed the museum’s job was to “main­ tain standards,” but not by narrowing choices to a particular school “T h e museum, after all, is not a dealer or an artists’ society It is an institution devoted to showing, collecting and publicizing the best in art 49 Aside from indicating that each style, whether pop, hard-edge, or various forms o f abstraction, could be evaluated according to its own criteria of excellence, Goodrich (perhaps no differently from most other critics) did not specify what those criteria might be This became increasingly problematic after his retirement, as the mu seum’s annual (biennial beginning in ) exhibitions enlarged their cover­ age o f the range o f existing styles and art forms

tesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

A rt Museums and Living Artists 125

it would acknowledge the growing importance o f other art centers throughout the country, and second, it would rely on “the increasing ability o f co mmercial galleries in N ew York to present the current work o f established artists.”51

Its centrality and visibility have made the Whitney a lightning rod for either delight or anger, more often the latter— for e x a m p le , for excluding well-known artists or for featuring them, or for catering to trendiness to the neglect of solid, less flamboyant a rt w or k s; it was castigated for the biennial specifically because o f its “juvenile exaltations o f an East Village disco.”52 It is assailed for catering to fads and fashions and to influential dealers, and for neglecting art- historical depth, but rarely for neglecting artists After all, Gertrude Vanderbilt W hi tn e y ’s allegiance to her circle through her “studio building” on Eighth Street and as collector and patron is legendary Lloyd G o o dr ic h was equally committed to sustaining American ar­ tists, having helped to administer the Public Works o f Art Project under the N ew Deal Long after, in a speech, he suggested that artists should be paid for showing in museums and for reproductions o f their w o r k s , and should receive a percentage o f admission ch ar g e s 53 T h i s stand is very much in the tradition o f N ew Deal artists’ unions, and converges with the position o f the local Washington ar­ tists in their dispute with the C o r c o r a n , as have indicated above In fact, however, except in a limited way in its biennials and its program o f seminars with artists, the Whitney does not seem to have many direct dealings with artists In the months before the biennial, curators receive hundreds o f slide sets directly from artists aspiring to have their works shown On the whole, however, the bulk o f artists selected are professionals whose dealers act for them T he sympathy for artists that led its founders to create the museum in the first place does not extend to giving them a formal role in decisionmaking processes In certain respects the Whitney serves as both model and antimodel for the N e w M us e um of C o nt e m po r y Art

T he N ew M useum o f C on tem p orary Art

artists rather than to dealers, to controversial rather than to “sani­ tized” art, to the risky rather than the fashionable Unlike mor e estab­ lished art museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art or the Whitney, the New M use um early eschewed the dominance o f modern aestheticism in favor o f an aesthetics that either fully incorporates political and social critique or revels in the interplay of the social with the idea o f the au ton om y of the artwork It welcomes art based on narrative and ideology, performance art, ephemeral wo rks, un known or neglected artists, and conceptual art Although most of the works it exhibits or purchases are by individuals, the New M use um has fre­ quently included works by dual or collective creative t e a m s 54

T h e N e w M us e um is also unconventional in that it acquires many works from its regular exhibitions, yet also acts as a gallery in that its collection is considered semipermanent rather than immobile After ten years virtually everything is reviewed and offered for sale to other public institutions or individuals.55 T h e funds raised by the sales are used to acquire new works, in order to emphasize innovation and freshness rather than what the museum considers enslavement to a permanent co lle ct io n 56

As an institution oriented to experimentation, the N ew Museum sees itself as uniquely suited to probe the limits o f art and the possible role o f artists themselves in redefining it Rather than act as an arbiter o f taste, the N ew M us e um wishes to help interpret the qualities and meanings o f new a r t 57 Accordingly, it shows works by minority ar­ tists who deliberately challenge art history (R ob er t Colescott),

A rt Museums and Living Artists I 27

cal artists w h o challenge regimes, art collecting, and the “art industry” (Hans H a a ck e) , and “am at eur ” artists (such as those in the show Until T h a t Last Breath: Women with A I D S ) 58

Organizationally, the museum's most innovative program c o n ­ cerning the role o f artists was to invite twenty-four artists from around the country to serve as an advisory panel in 198 Charged with debating the muse um’s future, the panel, now stabilized at twenty memb ers, meets to be informed about previous activities and pro­ posals for new ones In reportedly long and heated discussions, they evaluate and offer suggestions for future developments T h e panel includes both collectives o f artists as well as individuals Artists serve three-year terms, and may also be consulted separately throughout the year This does not mean that the museum is an artist-run organiza­ tion, but rather that it acknowledges that living artists are important to it in many ways Significantly, not only are artists viewed as pro­ viders o f the wo rk s shown, but they are recognized as composing a significant part o f the muse um’s public It is estimated that about one- half o f the m u s e um ’s members are artists.59

Although its S o H o location tended to give it a New York flavor, the New' M u se u m has become increasingly oriented to a broader re­ gional and international range o f artworks and ex hi bi tio ns 60 Its global reach has been enhanced by the engagement o f curators from other countries, who have extended and diversified the m us eum ’s net­ works o f artists beyond the United States and Western Europe to Eastern E u r o p e , Australia, and elsewhere T his makes it clear that the

N ew Muse um conceives of the “community o f artists” not as being bound to one locality, but as encompassing a world community

C O N C L U S I O N S

I began by contending that the art museum and the artist mak e an odd couple Mutually interdependent, they tend to interact at one or more removes rather than through direct contact Even though tensions between them may be unavoidable because of their conflicting inter­ ests, and even though in the final analysis museums are d o m in an t, it is nevertheless clear, on the basis o f some o f the experiences I have cited, that they are not ineluctably fated to enmity From the artists’ stand­ point, their own communities tend to be more durable when their aesthetic co mmitments are buttressed by extra-aesthetic interests and traditions, such as gender, ethnic or racial identity, geographic lo ca ­ tion, and professional needs With the changes in aesthetic c o n c e p ­ tions in the s , these concerns are gaining legitimacy T h e p ro fu ­ sion of styles, art forms, and genres that coexist with little consensus about quality is changing the face o f museums as well W h a t is equally clear is that museums are not all the same

Museums that previously held artists at ar m’s length have begun promising experiments in new forms o f participation T h e persistent or recurrent aesthetic, political, and moral issues they face reveal not only their conflicts but also their co m m o n interests Although it may be easier for small, relatively informal museums to develop close ties with artists, even large institutions, as I have shown, have overcome some o f the barriers that artists resent by developing innovative pro ­ grams T h e creation of new institutions that challenge their elders to expand the horizons o f art by including new artists and art forms is increasingly being taken as an opportunity rather than a threat

A rt Museums and Living Artists 129

most of the American museum directors, and many o f the Europeans, to o , expressed special horror at the claim, though not necessarily for the same re aso n 61 T h e keeper o f exhibitions and education at the Tate Gallery argued that ideas o f quality came not from dealers but artists, who were the true validators o f art This was a view with which most of the participants concurred Considering their alacrity in attributing to artists a special ability to judge art, it is somewhat surprising that these directors, both European and American, did not envisage assign­ ing such a role to them within the museum itself When asked if artists could participate in the restricted “subculture o f social rituals that validates and proselytizes on its own behalf,” they avoided any answer at all As reported by Hilton Kramer, they seemed as reluctant to trust artists to speak for the museum as they were to trust the lay public.62

T h e idea that artists might have a role in selecting contemporary art was thought to place artists in too influential a position and in­ volve them in conflicts o f interest The fact that many trustees and curators are also collectors does not seem to raise similar concerns Yet if trustees make gifts of artworks to museums, they might conceivably have something to gain materially from their acceptance Even though the tax benefits of the past have been reduced, donors still receive some fiscal advantages Moreover, when their donations include w or ks by artists whose other works they collect, the value o f works by the same artists that they retain in their collection is likely to increase If artists were encouraged to offer their own wo rks, the hono r o f having works accepted by a museum would go directly to the artist rather than to the collector.63

ently corrupt, timorous, or in some way their enemies, both art mu­ seums and artists benefit In the face o f structural barriers and tradi­ tional practices that militate against it, this understanding is not easy to achieve

N O T E S

1 T h e ambivalence that artists experience t owa rd museums is highlighted in studies carried out both in Europe and in the United States See Bernard Rosenberg and Norris Fliegel, The Vanguard Artist: Portrait an d Self-Portrait

( Ne w York: Quadrangl e, ) ; Sophy B u r n h a m , T he Art C row d (New York: David McKay, ) ; Dore Ashton, T he N ew York S chool: A Cultural R eck ­ oning (New York: Vi king, ) ; Neil Harris, T h e Artist in A m erican Society: The Form ative Years, -1 0 ( Ne w York: George Braziller, 6 ) ; and D ebo h Ericson, In the S tockholm Art World (St ockholm: Depart ment of Anthropology, University o f S t oc kh o lm , 8 )

2 T h e concept o f art w orld was formulated and elaborated by Howard S Becker in his bo ok Art Worlds (Berkeley: University o f Calif ornia Press, ) It encompasses the collectively developed activities o f artists and others who wo rk in one o f the specialized d omai ns o f the arts A rough division of labor characterizes their roles: producers, distributors, consumers

3 S ome observers believe that art museums could much mor e in this field See Vera L Z ol berg , “American Art M us e um s : Sanctuary or Free-for-All?”

S ocial Forces , no ( ) , 7 -

4 We have delineated the ways in which coll ect ors seek symbolic and material gains from having their works in prestigious public institutions (Burnham,

A rt Museums and Living Artists

Patronage o f Science and Art in A m e r i c a ” in Richard A Peterson, ed., The Production o f Culture [Beverly Hills: Sage, 197 6])

5 Francis Haskel l, “ T h e Artist and the Mus eum, ” N ew York Review o f B o o k s , Dec ,

6 In general, except for extremely well established artists whose works are

embraced by art museums under nearly any terms, if artists are concerned with the verdict o f posterity, they are obliged to depend on their heirs It is their ex ecu to rs, widow's, or descendants who have to make a case for a ccep­ tance into museums o f works by dead artists Along with collectors or dealers, and with the support o f art critics or historians acting as advocates, they c o nf ro nt , co mpe t e, or c ol l abor a te to persuade the “gatekeepers” who deter­ mine whether their wo r ks are socially recognized as having high aesthetic value See Gladys Engel La ng and Kurt Lang, “ Recogni ti on and Re nown: T h e Survival o f Artistic Reput at io n, ” American jo u r n a l o f S ociology , no ( 8 ) , -

7 Kenneth P N o r wi c k and Jer ry Simon Chasen with Henry R K a uf ma n, The Rights o f A uthors an d Artists ( New York: B a n t a m , ) ; J ody A van den Heuvel, “M o r a l Rights for Artists: Th e Development o f a Federal Policy,”

jo u r n a l o f Arts M an agem ent an d L aw 19, no ( 9 ) , -

8 F o r e x a mp l e , in its 8 annual report, the American Association of M u ­

seums stated that it had “actively sought protection for museums’ interests” in the Visual Artists Rights Act T h i s proposed legislation, which combines both nonproperty and property aspects, is designed “to provide copyright prote c­ tion for wo r ks o f art without copyright notice and allow artists to claim damages for works subject to unauthorized ‘alterati on’ or ‘mutilation’ ” (re­ ported in M useum N ew s 8, no [ 9 ] , 8) T he vicissitudes o f the bill are recounted and analyzed in van den Heuvel, “ M or al Rights for Artists.” N o doubt this stance is quite appropriate to the A A M ’s mandate to support the interests o f museums vis-a-vis ot he r forces It is unfortunate when these “other forces” are t aken to include artists

9 R os en be rg and Fliegel, T h e Vanguard Artist; Harris, T he Artist in A m eri­ can Society; R a y m o n d e M o u l i n , T he French Art M arket, tr Arthur Gol dh am- mer ( New Br uns wi ck, N J : Rutgers University Press, )

10 Eric son, In the S tock h olm Art World, 5.

11 Karl E Meyer, T h e Art M useum : Power, M oney, Ethics ( New York: M o r r o w , 9 ) ,

artists have rarely donated such a large portion o f their estates during their lifetimes” (Douglas C M cG i l l , “Louise Nevelson Giving Works to M u ­ seums,” N ew York Tim es, 18 Mar ) Mus eum administrators are driven to despair by the results o f the overhaul o f t ax laws, which no longer provide a ma jo r incentive to donors to contribute works to museums

13 T h es e are not the majority o f all artists, to be sure, as Diana C r a n e has pointed out (in The Transform ation o f the A vant-G arde: T he N ew York Art

World, -1 [Chi cago: University o f Chi cago Press, ] , - ) 14 Since artists’ incomes are notoriously low, many who aspire to full-time work as artists are obliged to work as well at other occupations Th es e range from teaching art to any j o b they can find Charles Simpson’s study o f S o H o (S o H o : The Artist in the City [Chicago: University o f Chi cago Press, ] ) indicates that a n umber of artists use their craft skills installing electricity and plumbing in order to convert industrial spaces into habitable lofts, not only for themselves but also for others in barter or for remuneration

15 Hall Winsl ow, Artists in M etropolis: An E xploration f o r Planners

(Brookl yn: Planning De pt , School o f Architecture, Pratt Institute, ) ; J a m e s Heilbrun, “T h e Distribution o f Arts Activity Amon g U S Met ropol it an Areas” (paper presented at the Fifth International Con fer en ce on Cultural E c o n o m i c s , O t t a w a , O n t a r i o , September 88 )

16 Simpson, S oH o: T he Artist in the City.

17 Sharon Z u k i n , L o ft Living: Culture and C apital in Urban C hange (New Brunswi ck, N J : Rutgers University Press, 9 ) , but for a different perspec­ tive see J a me s R Hu ds on , “An Alternative to Succession in an Artistic C o m ­ munity,” paper presented at the annual meeting o f the East ern Sociological Society, spring 8

18 Charles Kadushin, “N e t wo r k s and Circles in the Production o f Culture,” in Richard A Peterson, ed., T he Production o f Culture (Beverly Hills: Sage, ) , 1 -

19 C ne , T he T ransform ation o f the A vant-G arde; Asht on, T h e N ew York S ch ool; Serge Gu il ba ut , H o w N ew York Stole the Idea o f M odern Art: A b­ stract E xpression ism , F reedom , and the C old War, tr Arthur G o ldh ammer (Chicago: University o f Chi cag o Press, )

2 Betty Parsons, quoted in Alan J o n e s and Laura de C op pe t , The Art D ealers: The Pow ers B ehind the Scene Tell H ow the Art World Really Works

(New York: Clarkson N Potter, )

2 Kadushin, “N e t wo r k s and Circles in the Production o f C u l t u r e ” 2 C r an e, T he T ransform ation o f the A vant-Garde,

A rt Museums and Living Artists 133

2 his was the case between 9 and for the Br ookl yn M us eum, the

J ewish M u s e u m , and the Metropolitan Mus eum o f Art, acc ordi ng to Crane Her figures s ho w, however, that attendance at the Mus eum o f Moder n Art and the W hi tne y actually increased (Crane, T he Transform ation o f the Avant-G arde, )

2 Ibid Although C ne largely excludes them from consideration, it is important to note the rise o f specifically antidealer, ant imuseum art forms: conceptual art, perf ormance, and site-specific works (frequently created in inaccessible locations) See Vera L Zol berg, Constructing a S ociolog y o f the Arts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 9 )

2 For a fuller development o f how' the persona o f the artist c ame to be const ructed, see Z o l b er g , Constructing a S ociology o f the Arts.

2 Whi tne y M us e um o f American Art, C atalogu e o f the C ollection (New York: Whi tney M u s e u m , ) , -1

2 In 1 he T ransform ation o f the A vant-Garde, Cr ane reports that the M u ­ seum o f M o d e r n Art purchased its first Pollock in and by had accumulated wo r ks by twelve o f the painters It was not until that the museum finally held works by every member o f the original abstract expres­ sionist group

2 Russell Ly nes , G o o d Old M odern: An Intim ate Portrait o f the Museum o f M odern Art ( N e w York: Atheneum, ) ; Burnham, The Art C row d; New Mus eum o f C o n t e m p o r a r y Art, “O n View at the Ne w M u s e u m , Febru­ a r y - April, 9 ” (pamphlet describing events and exhibit ions at the museum)

3 Hilton Kramer, “Brookl yn Museum Hispanic Show: A U N E S C O - T y p e Approach to Art,” N ew York Observer, - July 9 , “M a r gi n a l ” or

marginalized in this case refers to the artists’ exclusion f rom established, institutionalized mai ns that control what is claimed to be the “legitimate” discourse o f value in the arts

3 Helen L ef ko wi tz H o ro wi tz , Culture an d the City: Cultural Philanthropy in C hicago fr o m the 1880s to 1917 (Lexington: University Press o f Kentucky,

19 /6 ), See also Vera L Zol be rg , “T h e Art Institute o f Chi ca go: T h e Sociology o f A Cultural Organization,” P h D diss , University o f Chi cago,

1

3 Ha rri so n C Whit e and Cynthia A W hi t e , C anvases an d C areers: Institu­ tion al C hange in the French Fainting World ( New York: J o h n Wil ey and Sons,

1 )

3 Becker, Art Worlds; Zol be rg , Constructing a S ociolog y o f the Arts.

3 C h i c a g o is typical o f this ph eno me no n Wi th the e xpan si on from the s o n o f the permanent collection o f Ol d M a s t e r s , Eu rop ean modernists, and American wor ks from outside o f the M i d w e s t , local C hi c ag o artists came t o feel excluded from the Art Institute M a n y felt similarly excluded in the s and after from C hi c ag o ’s M us e um o f C o n t e m po r ar y Art (Zo lbe rg, “T h e Art Institute o f C hi c ag o ” ) Partly in r eact ion, local artists organized mov eme nt s (the Hairy W h o , the Chi ca go Imagists) and disdained museum exhibiti ons Although this gave a number o f C h i c a g o artists a national r eputa­ t ion, which then reflected positively b ack on the mus eum, the tension between local artists and museums persists

3 G u i lb a u t , H ow N ew York Stole the Idea o f M odern Art; Harris, The Artist in A m erican Society.

3 C r a n e ’s study (T h e Transform ation o f the A vant-G arde) is revelatory as far as it goes But she takes for granted that political or social art is pe r ma ­ nently marginal to the art world o f the museum/gall ery/market By excluding or minimizing its presence in her analysis, she has produced an elegant and pars imonious interpretation o f the c o m pl ex developments in the po st - Wor l d War II American art world Yet without considering artists w ho included social and political concerns in their w o r k , the study o f art movement s and artists’ c ommunit ies is inherently impoverished

3 Fl orenc e Rubenfeld, “Washington Artists Pressure C o r c o r a n , ” N ew Art E xam in er , no ( ) , -

3 A cco rdi ng to a report on the incident, a c u r a t o r is supposed to have characterized the Washington art scene as one in which “not hing is going on.” She later denied having made this statement (Ru benf el d, “Washington Artists Pressure C o r c o r a n , ” )

4 Ibid

4 Br ookl yn M us e um , The B rooklyn M useum A nnual, 1 /7 1 ( New York: B r o ok l yn M u s e u m , ) , -

4 B ro o kl y n M us e um , The B rooklyn M useum Annual R ep o rt, 1 /1 2

( N e w York: Br ookl yn M u s e u m , ) , 61 (my emphasis)

4 B ro okl yn M u s e u m , “Site-Specific Installations by 10 Brookl yn Artists to G o o n V i e w at the Brooklyn Museum, ” news release, April 9

4 Kramer, “Brooklyn Mus eum Hispanic Show, ”

A rt Museums and Living Artists I 35

4 Kramer, “ Brooklyn M u s eu m Hispanic Show.”

4 Whit ney Museum o f American Art, C atalogue o f the C ollection ,

4 Douglas C M c G i l l , “ Lloyd G o od r i c h , Art E x pe rt , Dies: E x - D i r e c t o r o f Whit ney Mus eum, ” N ew York Tim es, Mar

4 Whit ney Museum o f Amer ican Art, Whitney Review , - , 17

5 Unlike the nineteenth-century French salon, which was juried and awarded prizes, the Whit ney invited artists to exhibit in its annual s hows, but gave no prizes Its annual surveys had alternated sculpture one year ( so me­ times with watercolors and drawings) with paintings the next {W hitney R e­ view , - , )

5 W hitney Review , - ,

5 Dan to found the biennial “distressing” though understandable, since it “has succeeded in mirroring the times T h e problem this year is not with the Whit ney but with the world o f art Wh a t it shows is wh at , alas, alas, alas, there is (Arthur C D a n t o , “T h e Whitney Biennial,” T he N ation , 16 M a y , 6 )

5 McGi l l, “Lloyd G o o d r i c h , Art Expert , Dies.”

5 Having begun with little material support, the New Mus eum now has a staff o f thirty, supported by ten or fifteen volunteers, to carry on its o p e r a ­ tions Informed as to its selections and programs, its trustees have been gener­ ally supportive o f the frequently unconventional ideas proposed Budgets, salaries, and other issues are worked out by an inner structure o f participatory project teams T h e original plan had intended that all staff members would receive the sa me pay, but this has given way to a mor e differentiated pattern o f remunerat ion as the museum has grown

5 R obe rt Storr, ‘T h e N e w Mus e um : An Interview with Marcia Tuckcr”

Vantage Point 6, no ( ) ,

5 Stuart Gr eenspan, “T h e N e w Museum Raises $ , 0 with Annual Auction o f O u t r e Art,” N ew York O bserver, 15 M a y 9 , 12

5 Storr, “T h e New M u s eu m: An Interview with Ma rc ia T u ck e r”

5 New Mus eum o f C on t e m p o r a r y Art, “On Vi e w at the New Mus eum ” T h e works by women with AI DS were elicited by Ann Mere di th , a profes­ sional photographer from Ca lif ornia She acted as a catalyst in encouraging a group o f w o m e n patients to express their emoti ons in a group o f touching a rt wo rk s that were displayed as part o f the show

5 Interview with the director o f public affairs, N e w M us e um o f C o n t e m p o ­ rary Art, J a n u a r y 9

childhood and death Muc h o f the exhibition space was completely darkened with the sole illumination provided by tiny lights, candles and c lamp-on lamps incorporated in the works One gallery was devoted to [a] series based on a 1931 photograph o f the graduating high school class of a Jewish school in Vienna T h i s series reflects Boltanski’s attempt to co me to terms w ith his Jewish heritage and the horror o f the Holocaust ” This description is f ro m the New M us e um o f Conte mporary Art’s booklet 1989 Twelfth A nniversary

( 9 )

6 One o f them scoffed at the idea o f collusion as the kind o f conspi racy that “is a peculiarly American phenomenon that derives from your t radition o f muckracki ng journalism.” From a different perspective, the director o f the Stedelijk Mus e um in Amsterdam noted “that dealers were absolutely essential to the operation o f any museum specializing in contemporary art, and no one suggested that these dealers were disinterested parties.” M or e wo r ri s om e to the director o f the Kunsthalle in Hamb urg was that the “destabilizing” o f art has threatened to stop museums from serving as the “stabilizing i nstitution[s]” that he considered them to be Only Pontus Hulten, then the director o f the Centre Georges Pompi dou , t ook the position that one should accept the idea that museums validate art, “but not for eternity, only for a very short time.” Hilton Kramer, “M us eum Chiefs Debate Moder n-Art ‘Conspiracy,’ ” N ew

York T im es, June Ibid

P A R T 2

Audience, Ownership, and Authority: Designing

Relations between

Museums and Communities S T E V E N D L A V I N E

Many museums have taken up the challenge o f responding to their various constituencies and re­ lating to them more inventively; many have even begun to reimagine who those constituencies might be Muse ums often try to accomplish these goals by appointing one or more trustees from groups the museum has newly targeted as part of its constituency, or by adding staff, usually in lower-level and out ­ reach positions, from underrepresented groups These efforts result most often in oc casional exhibitions and special festival programs centered around themes designed to appeal to certain target groups Museums hope that these efforts, along with their outreach programs, will win new audiences for their regular w ork These developments increasingly are acco mp ani ed by a good deal o f institutional worrying and conversation— seminars, guest speakers, workshops, community advisory committees— abo ut the relation o f these new enterprises to the institution’s historical mission

Thes e changes, however maj or they may feel from within an in­ stitution, have thus far been modest Large-scale social and de mo ­ graphic changes in industrial societies generally and the United States specifically will inevitably mean that museums will be asked to alter

their p ro g m m in g to a c c o m m o d a te m o r e diverse constituencies In the past, co smopolitan and municipal museums have worked from the assumption that taste and expertise justified the right o f trustees, cura tor s, and museum scholars to present what they believed their au ­ diences should kno w Oft en this expertise was laboriously acquired and contributed to scholarship and education Yet the definition of what should be included in museums is n o w under a tta ck , as are the ca no ns and presumptions of many othe r disciplines Perhaps the most fundamental challenge disputes the value o f “scientific” and “schol­ arly” museum displays by those who argue that feelings about the past, particular groups’ mythological const ruc ti on s, and models for the future are more important than so-called factual accounts T his is a debate that will not soon be resolved But it should be incontestable that even science is organized by cultural and political agendas that shape the body o f facts ex a mi n ed and define the ph en om en a either ig­ nored o r given privileged places in m u s e u m s

Further institutional change is inevitable Since the civil rights and war protest movements o f the 19 s and 19 s , every institu­ ti on— cultural, educational, and governmental— th at is seen to hold power has been open to question T h e stance o f benign neutrality has lost credibility In the case o f museums, this means that exhibitions will be “subjected to searching e x a m in a tio ns for social, cultural., polit­ ical, or sexual commitments.”2 As the demographics o f the U.S popu­ lation continue to shift and we move toward being a society in which the ma jority o f the population will be long to minority groups, we can expect these external pressures to grow At the same time, current scholarship in the arts (as in every discipline o f the humanities and so­ cial sciences) is attending to the subterfuges o f power C a n o n s that justified inclusion and exclusion are being exploded Institutions are being interrogated about their ways o f retaining and dispersing power An ever-greater self-consciousness can be anticipated among museum practitioners as they go a bo ut their business in disciplines and institutions that rest on no settled grounds It is to be hoped that pressures from the outside will merge with changed attitudes from within to produce a mutually tenable redefinition o f museum practice

Audience, Ownership, and Authority I 39

history has combined with the relative unavailability o f materials re­ lating to non whites, w o m e n , and the poor to require new research, collecting, and exhibition techniques; and ethnic and community- based museums, many o f which emerged in tandem with the civil rights movement and have always considered their obligations to community to lie at the heart o f their missions T h a t the richer, c o s ­ mopolitan museums have been slower to act is partially the product o f the particularly hierarchical background out o f which art collecting, connoisseurship, and science emerge and partially related to the c o m ­ plexity attendant on such institutions' mandate to serve not only local but national and international audiences.3

For larger museums, audience research has emerged as an impor­ tant mechanism for achieving community input while maintaining current patterns of organizational control T h r o u g h questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups, curators and educators are able to gain some purchase on who is learning what in their institutions In her es­ say “T h e Co mm unicative Circle: M us eu m s as Co mmunities,” C o n ­ stance Perin draws on a “limited ethnography o f the communicative circle” in the Smithsonian Institution’s N ati on al Museum o f Natural History She argues tha t in the traditional model of exhibition m a k ­ ing, museum professionals draw on their collections when they initi­ ate conversations with audiences and structure those conversations with a syntax o f objects Audiences are expected to listen and learn Since there is rarely a way for exhibition ma ke rs to hear what audi­ ences have to say, they must imagine the way viewers receive and re­ spond to the exhibition, and the co mm uni cat iv e circle breaks down Given the diverse “repertoires o f prior knowledge, semantic systems, and interpretive frames” that audiences bring, it is patently false, and certainly patronizing, to assume a unitary public

Stories o f the disjunction between c u r a to r s’ assumptions and a c ­ tual audience response are c o m m o n p la c e in every museum Given the diversity of audiences and the variety o f reasons for visiting museums, it can be tempting to wit hdraw to a position o f skepticism and relative helplessness: if it is no t feasible to address audiences in all their bewil­ dering diversity, what alternative is there but for the curator and de­ signer to make their best guesses ab o ut what audiences understand and desire, or (in an older mode) what they should k no w and appreciate?

Perin suggests that recognizing the different interpretive re­

socioeconomic b a ckg ro und— provides a way to bridge the chasm be­ tween those who make exhibitions and those w ho visit them By opening the process o f exhibition development to include audiences, information on how audiences use these resources to understand their visit, and information on how they may use that understanding t o shape meaning in other parts o f their lives, it may be possible for exhi­ bition makers to better understand how their own “repertoires o f sci­ entific paradigms, canons, and didactic aims” are likely to be

understood D one sensitively, this may lead to reformulations affec t­ ing not only the packaging or “spectacle” o f exhib it io ns, but also their content T h u s , for ex amp le, an appreciation o f how audiences e m ­ ploy the concept o f tribe may lead to an e xhi bi tio n on the p r o b le m ­ atics o f this concept itself Indeed, one development might well be that the multivocality o f audience response will encourage the cr e ­ ation o f multivocal exhibitions that actually reflect the state o f sc ho l­ arly debate in a way that m o no voc al exhibi tio ns cann ot

A second key theme in Perin’s paper is wh at she calls the principle o f conservation: people “will add new inf or ma ti on if they can c o n ­ serve what they already know alongside it; or, if they can assimilate the new information gradually, they will allow it to replace previous understandings.” T hi s principle, broadly applied, might lead to e x h i­ bitions in which objects are included that resonate with the previous life experiences o f visitors and in which themes are foregrounded that likewise resonate with the lives o f visitors T h e principle o f conse rva ­ tion may have particular relevance to the effort to invest new audi­ ences in museums T h u s , an awareness, derived fro m audience research, o f various communities and the repertoires o f interpretive resources they are likely to bring to museums could lead to fu ndamen­ tal, curator-driven renovations o f museum practice Current patterns of institutional and curatorial authority wo uld be retained; only the definition o f the competence and knowledge o f curators and o f the goals o f exhibiting would evolve

Audience, Ownership, and Authority I I

now twenty-five percent black and ethnic minority) and reflecting is­ sues o f public interest rather than a “traditional academic format.” J o n e s ’s mandate placed her in a comp le x situation She was required

to mediate amo ng the expe cta ti on s of disparate communities in Bir­ mingham, including longtime residents, members o f different classes, museum and municipal administrators, other curators, and the newly arrived (in relative terms) comm uni ties whose cultural heritages were to be part o f the exhibition T h e result was an exhibition entitled A Meeting G r o u n d o f Cultures, designed to “encourage visitors to e x ­ amine assumptions they mak e ab out their own and other people’s cultures.”

Peirson Jo ne s assembled an advisory group whose members were chosen not as representatives o f other communities but for their spe­ cific expertise (a co mm uni ty worker, a journalist, an anthropologist, etc.) They acted as liaisons to communities As she describes it, c o m ­ munity involvement was significant but clearly within the boundaries o f the role o f consultant; the authority remained with the museum professionals, in a co nt inu ati on o f their more or less traditional role

than one group are rare Yet such encounters have a tremendous p o ­ tential to inform people a b o u t themselves, by setting their culture and history side by side with oth er s’

B irm ing ham ’s Gallery 3 demonstrates one way in which the concerns o f current scholarship and o f specific communities can be brought together T h e ex hibi tion utilizes interactive videodisc tec h­ nology to allow the visitor to follow the histories o f four colle ctors — four persons who have s o m e connection with the objects in the m u ­ seum’s inventory T his focus on the collector is indebted to current a n ­ thropological concerns with unveiling and analyzing the specific historical circumstances under which bodies of thought (and museum collections) come into e xi st en c e Yet this device o f focusing on the collectors also raises the question o f the relevance o f scholarly c o n ­ cerns to other segments o f the local community As Peirson J o n e s notes, A fr o -C ar ib be an c o m m e n t a to r s pointed out that an interest in collectors is primarily a Western preoccupation Peirson J o n e s herself was concerned to display a phase o f British history now virtually obliterated in the school system: the nineteenth-century colonial and imperial period In a sense the history o f the objects in this museum stands for the history o f Britain in general and Birmingham in particu­ lar Peirson J o n e s ’s implicit position is that Birmingham is a multi­ cultural society without any historical sense of how it cam e to be so T h e self-consciousness o f this aspect o f the exhibition may have been addressed as a challenge to the white comm uni ty to recognize the other communities in Bir m in g m, rather than to those communities themselves

Large social questions, on the order o f “W h y are we living here?” are likely to place exhibition makers in a difficult position M an y communities would prefer celebrating their distant past to examining their present circumstances If exhibition make rs are simple facilita­ tors, they still have to decide which version o f the past to articulate If they take an active view o f their role as me diators, then they are likely to present material and views other than those provided by the c o m ­ munity that created the o bje cts they may wish to exhibit A solution to this pro blem will be found only if exhibitions turn from monologue to conversation T his is a difficult en deavor; no exhibition described in this section fully succeeds in this task

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selves and their community Among social scientists, there is little agreement ab o u t what produces a crisis in which civil society fractures along ethnic lines In many nations of the world, and particularly in the United States, there is now acrimonious debate about how much diversity should be encouraged as a matter o f policy Under these un­ certain circumstances, should museums, as publicly supported institu­ tions, encourage the celebration and retention o f difference, or should they be wor king to create shared cultures? If museums respond to the concerns o f particular communities, should they have any further obligation to a larger civic whole?

In his recent study T he A m erican K a le id o sc o p e : R ace, Ethnicity, an d the Civic Culture, Lawrence H Fuchs argues that the United States has a virtually unique record of ethnic and racial a c c o m m o d a ­ ti o n Fuchs maintains that the very act o f organizing to maintain eth­ nic differences and to seek redress from social and governmental agencies leads ethnic and racial groups to modify their positions and adopt conciliatory stances vis-a-vis the larger society He suggests that political and social participation eventually leads to partial assimila­ ti on Fuchs traces this pattern in wave after wave o f immigration, and though he carefully details the variety o f tactics used by various groups and the variety o f responses by state and national legislatures, he finds that the pattern holds true

Fuchs’s comprehensive account has as background the civic-cul- ture debate o f the s T h e argument ab out civic culture ran as fol­ lows: civic culture is an ideal realized in only a few societies, notably Britain and the United States, in which communities moderate their demands on society in order to achieve their goals T h e larger society tolerates cultural differences, and all members o f the polity desire to participate but remain willing to delegate authority T h e civic culture is based on political activism combined with the willingness to dele­ gate responsibility to governmental officials T h e civic culture o f the

United States and G re at Britain has “a form o f partisanship which is dynamic yet contained within overarching norms o f a c o m m o n civic unity.”8 Civic culture is characterized by political activity combined with “involvement” and “rationality” and is opposed to “passivity, tra­ ditio nally , and co m m itm en t to parochial values.”9 Fuchs argues that political participation by ethnic and racial groups produces a ch an g­ ing set o f attitudes that presumably moves from parochial values to more universal ones

funda-mental to civic culture in the United States In this view, limiting or denying that expression will only impede participation in civic culture with (perhaps) the unintended side effect o f making the maintenance o f group difference the only alternative A compa rab le viewpoint lies behind many mainstream and minority museums’ arguments for opening up museums to diverse communities It is one o f the articula­ tions o f the role o f the museum in civil society Ivan Karp described in the introduction to part T his position is not without pitfalls S u b ­ stantial reservations can be raised a bo ut civic-culture arguments, in­ cluding Fu ch s’s accou nt o f American social history Th e re is evidence to suggest that even for the United States and Great Britain, the seg­ ments o f society that are willing to moderate their demands are those who are generally better off T h o s e who have the least to gain from remaining part o f the process not feel any great hope or see the benefits fro m co mprom ise and c o a l i t i o n 10

T h e argument for civic culture is also limited by its partial vision o f Western history Corrigan and Sayer’s T he G reat Arch d e m o n ­ strates that cultural organs such as museums were potent instruments o f social control and cultural coercion over the course o f British his­ tory T h e civic culture, from this point o f view, is an instrument o f he­ gemony and a means o f supporting the class position o f elite s 11 Civic culture may be imposed upon the subordinate groups rather than be produced by their willing participation in society It can benefit the few while helping to control the many

Finally, the concept o f civic culture may depend on a characteriz­ ation o f othe r cultures as “traditional,” a way o f thinking that is itself part o f our colonial inheritance If some people are particularistic and others ac co m m od a ti n g, then it is “ob vi ou s” that the more particularis­ tic group should change in the direction o f the more modern other Implicit criteria defined in terms o f universal standards are set up to measure some peoples and find them wanting Exhibiting practices o f the sort examined in part of this b o o k manifest this attitude

Audience, Ownership, and Authority 145

dialogues into monologues While the model o f civic culture may set up two unequal conversational parties, all the experiments in museum practice considered in this section attempt to resist this tendency

For national institutions such as the Ca nad ia n M use um o f Civili­ zation, the problem o f civic culture and civil society looms even larger than for municipal institutions T h e community the Ca nadian M u ­ seum of Civilization serves is, according to the mu seum’s director, George M a c D o n a l d , a society recognized by the Ca nadian constitu­ tion to be “ bilingual but multicultural.” Moreover, the mandate e x ­ tends further, for as a national museum, the Ca nadian M us e um of Civilization is an agent in the community o f nations, and therefore has transnational responsibilities and, practically speaking, an inter­ national tourist audience

Ukrainian C an ad ia n, and others, not t o me ntion those south o f the border, such as African American and Jew ish American) that are spawned by such pluralism require not only that museums e m br ace cultural particularities as a fact but also that they explore the ways cultural differences engage and alter one another T hr o ug h such an in­ vestigation, museums can transcend the limitations o f the civic-cul- ture model Instead o f “th em ” be coming mor e like “us,” the

conversation promises ac co m m od at io n and chan ge on all sides M a c D o n a l d devotes considerable attention to the implications for the museum of the information age He postulates that museum collections are important chiefly for the inf or ma ti on they contain T he Ca nadian Museum o f Civilization attempts to make this in f o r m a ­ tion available to all by using computer-based technologies t o “c u s t o m ­ ize museum experience to the interests and learning styles o f diverse visitor groups” (a strategy that J a n e Peirson J o n e s , working on a far more modest scale, also uses) At the opposite extr em e, computer technologies make it possible for the museum presentation to a p­ proach the level o f spectacle more co m m o n l y found in the entertain­ ment and leisure industry M a c D o n a l d does no t shy away from the en ormous challenge— recognized by m us eum officials but rarely so openly aired— o f balancing the demand for spectacle against the s ub­ tlety required to achieve educational goals for widely varying groups o f visitors M a c D o n a l d , along with several othe r authors in this vol­ ume, classifies visitors in part in terms o f the am o u nt o f time and c o n ­ centration they are likely to devote to the exhibi tio ns they encounter T h e spectacular element o f the museum is designed to capture the a t­ tention o f what are often called “streakers,” people who usually move through the museum very quickly; in addition to providing them with information they can carry away and add to their preexisting store of information, museum personnel hope that these streakers’ interest will be stimulated and that they will wa nt to spend somewhat more time in the future going into greater depth on topics that interest them Spectacle, however, runs the risk o f having to depend on shal­ low, deracinated images O n e is led to pond er the issue o f the authen­ tic object in an age o f virtuality

pro-Audience Ownership, and Authority 147

cess the info rmat ion in exh ib it io ns , and what criteria they find impor­ tant l or a large national museum that serves a broad range of

visitors, this process may seem to involve an almost infinite regress that detracts from the job o f attracting visitors enticed by the pricey lures o f the co mmercial media T h e task o f recognizing and respond­ ing to the diversity represented in museum audiences may require smaller institutions rooted in specific communities

Th e B r o o kl y n Child ren’s M us e um is an institution defined in sig­ nificant ways by its local community Like many museums in urban centers, it has seen its original community change over time In this case, a middle-class E u r o p e a n immigrant population moved away and was replaced by mainly Ca ri bb e an (West Indian and Haitian) and African Am erican families W it h that change has c o m e a ma jo r shift in ec on om ic resources, social and educational needs, and cultural pre­ dispositions Mi nd y Duitz, the current director, tells the inspirational story o f a muse um searching its soul to discover the strengths and obligations o f its new situation

Th e C hi ld r en ’s M u s e u m , as Duitz observes, had always been “conceived as ex pe rie nce-oriented” and focused on “participatory e x ­ hibitions,” and so in the long run change could be evolutionary As so often happens, the change was occasioned first by external and eco­ nomic factors, as the nu mbe r o f visitors dropped (in part because the museum was located in wh at had come to be seen as a dangerous neighborhood) and local legislators made it clear they wanted to see a co m m itm en t to the local neig hbo rho od T h o s e measures led to ten­ sion within the muse um, which in turn led to a formal planning pro­ cess eventuating in a new mission statement and a c o m m on ly shared sense of purpose

T h e mission statement, as Duitz describes it, turns on the rela­ tionship o f the self to the community, the environment, and the past and future It is a usefully suggestive universalizing and particulariz­ ing grid T h e stages o f chi ldhood development provide the univer­ salizing dimension; the needs o f specific communities provide the particular H en ce , for e xa m p le , an early-childhood area provides pro ­ grams in parenting, recognizing the needs o f teen parents and single parents After-school pro grams acknowledge the latchkey problem amo ng me mb ers o f their audience by providing social and educational activities for third to sixth graders Similarly, an exhibition on

dreams, Night J o ur ne y s, deals with phenomena that are both in­ tensely personal and yet presumably universal, and provides a

statement, with its grid— which identifies audiences, and establishes programs that lead to exhibitions and exhibitions that lead to p r o ­ grams— may be suggestive for other types of museums as well To o o f ­ ten a commitment to comm uni ty is seen as fundamentally opposed to a comm itmen t to collections and scholarship, and the effort to serve one community as replacing service and responsiveness to another T h e Brooklyn Children’s Muse um continues to see itself as serving New York City and the metropolitan area, even as it has made a for­ mal comm itmen t to its local community It is clear that for institutions to keep track of their souls, their historical missions, it will be useful to think through the interrelationship o f past practices and c o m m i t ­ ments to current needs and demands

At the same time, the Children’s Museum story underlines the likely ramifications o f new community co mm itm ent s for every aspect o f institutional operations, from staff (where the need to find e m ­ ployees who could feel co mf or tab le in a surrounding comm uni ty per­ ceived as dangerous led t o recruitment from such nontraditional sources as the theater and social-service fields) to public affairs (vol­ unteer groups and special events) and from public pro grams (reflect­ ing new community interests and stressing badly needed after-school activities) to collections (the purchase o f A fr o -C a rib be an materials) Each of these changes spawns others: internships, new c o l l a b o r a ­ tions, new exhibitions T h e process o f change also generates new in­ ternal tensions When broader societal tensions were brought into the Children’s Mus eum , staff training on racism and stereotyping became necessary and was instituted T h e end result o f these multiple, over­ lapping changes will almost certainly involve a reallocation o f time, staff, and funding

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expertise; indeed, Duitz’s examples make the case that there is no rea­ son for one to supplant the other

If we imagine a spectrum from curator-driven to co mmunity- driven institutions, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum remains very much at the curator-driven end While the museum was being pushed by external pressures from legislators and by the problems it was hav­ ing attracting staff and audience, the m us eum ’s transformation was clearly director- and curator-driven Indeed, the first step was to look to the staff, both to those already there and to those newly hired Too often, the addition o f trustees is seen as the first step; in the case o f the Brooklyn Children’s M useum, that part o f the development is still in­ complete T h e staff initiated the change and, significantly, Duitz gives no indication o f community input to that process Indeed, even Kids Crew, which appears to be a cornerstone project for the new m u ­ seum, appears to be staff-driven, deriving ultimately from staff c o n ­ cerns about how to serve unaccompanied students In the Brooklyn Children’s Museum case, with staff competence defined so as to in­ clude deep knowledge o f the community, apparent conflicts between institutional authority and community concern and involvement largely disappear

T h e Ch in at o wn History M u s e u m , as described by its co-founder, Jo hn Kuo Wei T c h e n , is devoted to the effort to “document, r e c o n ­ struct, and reclaim” the history o f a particular local ethnic c o m m u ­ nity Central to its w o r k , however, is interconnectedness and the possibilities o f broader civic and national participation T h e ir labors begin in personal memory and heritage, but the projects’ leaders are concerned to bring that memory up against a broader historical dis­ course, which clarifies “why and how life has become the way it is.” In the process, they c ombine professional responsibility to their disci­ pline with a sense o f obligation to the community studied; they not believe that one necessarily excludes the other For example, they hope to overcome the overvaluation o f the local which so often fol­ lows from social history, thereby contributing to the new synthesis for which many historians have called At the same time, they hope to help Ch in at o wn residents, whose history is their main object, to es­ cape the limits of nostalgia and gain the “more integrative and inclu­ sive community history [that] can help to counter the sense o f

marginalization and dis empow erment.”

separatism implicit in African Amer ica n, Asian American, and other ethnic-group-specific institutions T h e C h i n a t o w n History Museum offers a paradigm that might counter those fears T h e valorization o f a c o m m u n i t y ’s experiences— as in the m u se um ’s exhibitions on laun­ dry and garment workers, which have their root s in the life histories o f older mem bers of the comm uni ty that were collected by the staff and volunteers o f the Chinat own History M u s e u m — creates an exhi­ bition and programming environment resonant with their personal experiences, one that allows visitors from the comm uni ty to identify actively with the production of history But this valorization is only a first step, allowing visitors to think ab o u t differences and continuities in the present N o longer required to defend a past forgotten or under­ valued by the larger society, the muse um is able to achieve “more criti­ cal, distanced insights” that “challenge simple nostalgia.” From this more critical understanding comes a reshaping o f identity

T h is dynamic project— at once historical and moral/social— is possible because the Chinat own History M u s e u m rejects any kind o f ethnic essentialism Its work stands firmly on the conviction that indi­ vidual and collective identities are always c o m p l e x and shifting

W ithin the Ch in at o wn community, there are differences between a bach elor laundry worker and an im p o r t / e x p o r t merchant with a fam ­ ily Further, both participate in not only the history of New York but also that o f the United States, each o f which calls forth and shapes other and overlapping senses of identity

Civiliza-Audience, Ownership, and Authority I I

tion, the Brooklyn Children’s M us eu m , and the Chinatown History Museum all share this vision T h e work o f the Chinatown History Museum cannot take place without a more fully implemented and re­ spectful conversation In this app roach, what T ch e n calls “surface de­ finitiveness”— that authoritative single voice that is so co m m o n a feature in all kinds o f museums— is sacrificed W h at is gained is “a learning environment in which personal history and testimony unfold and are infused by historical co n t ex t and scholarship.”

T h e other exhibitions described above are likewise concerned with engaging visitors in conversations This involves a process of sharing with visitors the e xhi bi tion-making process or the collection process or the selection process An opening is created for more equal conversation and interchange, even though no institutional power is given up in any formal sense— curators and other museum profession­ als will still make all the decisions Tc he n even speaks o f wanting “the seams” o f research to show and the process o f constructing, e x h ib i t­ ing, and interpreting a c o m m un it y to be exposed T c h e n , like Duitz, insists that all museum wo rk assumes a conversation among the dif­ ferent parties; without it, one could not know how to design ex h ib i­ tions T h e Birmingham exhibition seeks to show that its process o f acquiring collections is an artifact o f the same history that brought di­ verse communities to the city In the Canadian Museum o f Civiliza­ tion this conversation exists in a somewhat truncated form, perhaps because o f the national and international ambitions o f the museum and all they imply abo ut the need for spectacle and the desire to serve a greater variety o f visitors

process as part and parcel of product But this change is not likely to happen quickly— indeed, T ch e n cites several projects that have been held up or limited by conventional funding patterns

T h e Chin at ow n History M u s e u m , for all the evident depth o f its involvement in and com m itm ent to N ew Yo rk ’s Ch in a to wn , retained for its professional staff the right to mak e final decisions T h e C A R A project (Chicano Art: Resistance and Af fir m ati on ), organized by the Wight Art Gallery at the University o f C al if o r n ia , Los Angeles, repre­ sents a more radical revision in co nventional museum practice T h e Wight Art Gallery, whose goal was to m o u n t an interpretive e xh ib i­ tion of the C hi ca n o art movement despite the fact that the gallery had no special expertise in this area, created a potentially cumbersome ap­ paratus including an advisory council o f forty to fifty scholars, artists, and administrators; smaller working groups, including nine regional committees; a three-member national executive c omm ittee; a five- member national selection committee; a three-member editorial board; five task forces; and a design team In the process, the W ight Art Gallery limited its ow n authority over the exhibition, casting itself as facilitator and financial manager

So extensive was the process that it b e ca m e , in significant m e a ­ sure, a goal in itself, equal to and perhaps more important than the exhibition T h e challenge, as Alicia Gonz ale z and Edith Tonelli indi­ cate, was to create a process through which an exhibition of artworks

se-Audience Ownership, and Authority I 53

lecting w o rk requires as part o f its methodology an ongoing self-re­ flection Surely no recent exhibition has gone so far in placing the rights and powers of the participants in question Each had to be ne­ gotiated and renegotiated every step o f the way

Can and should co lla bo tio ns along the lines o f C A R A be en­ couraged elsewhere? T h e process added to the length and cost of or­ ganizing the exhibition Cura to ria l authority was broadly shared, but the Wig ht Art Gallery remained the responsible and liable financial agent, which can only have created internal institutional stress Did a

better exhibition result than if a single curator, or a curator with consultants, had organized the show? It is impossible to say But cer­ tainly a different exhibition emerged, one which constructed a new pattern o f involvement and ownership am o ng artist, audience, and museum If museums are to play an active role in reflecting and even shaping emergent identities, an expanded process o f exhibition mak- *n8 imagined as dialogue, conversation, argument, or ownership— may well emerge as crucial Indeed, just as the full analysis o f a c o n ­ temporary blockbuster exhibition requires consideration o f p r o m o ­ tion and shop sales alongside the exhibition proper, so, in the future, it may beco me essential to consider the exhibition and its process as one extended cultural act or artifact

N on e o f the exhibitions thus far considered takes the final step of transferring all aspects o f exhib it io n-m ak in g authority to a c o m m u ­ nity or its representatives T h e development o f African American and Latino museums over the past several decades provides evidence that this process can work O ft e n , assistance and even sponsorship has come from institutions with quite different histories, as, for example, the Anacostia M u s e u m ’s emergence under the Smithsonian Institu­ tion s umbrella, and the M et ro p ol it a n M use um o f Art’s involvement with El Mus eo del Barrio T h e s e newer museums have evolved over time and n o w define their relation to communities in a broad variety o f ways Some have remained local museums, rooted in their immedi­ ate comm uni ties; others have cast their ambitions more broadly Still others try to balance these purposes T h e Anacostia Museum, for e x ­ ample, now sees itself as a regional institution, encompassing the Afri­ can American communities o f the upper South T h e administrators and curators o f these museums, as professionals, share goals, values, and aspirations that may not completely correspond with the aspira­ tions of the communities they serve M o st o f these museums were be­ gun at a more hopeful m o m e n t in American history, as a direct

undertaken by the Ak-C hin Indians o f Arizona manifests this process in the present N ancy Fuller, part o f the team o f Smithsonian consul­ tants w ho worked with the Ak -C hi n , describes the museum as result­ ing from at least three separate impetuses: the increased sense of agency stemming from the development o f agriculture on tribal lands and the settlement of their water rights claims; the ecomuseum move­ ment, which developed out o f the political and intellectual turmoil of l a t e - s France; and the lifetime-learning movement that grew up during the same period It is significant that each stimulus reflects the development of power through action, rather than the discovery of power or the turning-over o f power from previously existing

institutions

In Fuller’s a cco un t, the Ak-Chin Indian C o m m u ni ty ’s e com u­ seum grew out o f the Ak-C hin concern that rapid econ omic develop­ ment was placing long-sustained cultural traditions in jeopardy T h e tribal council reasoned that a museum and archive might help pro­ duce in a younger generation pride in comm unity achievements At first trusting to outside guidance, the co uncil, drawing on some basic audience research, discovered the need for a more participatory envi­ ron me nt than a traditional museum would provide T h e council de­ veloped a museum development plan modeled on their water

settlement strategies— a remarkable instance o f the application o f dis­ covery o f agency in one field to another

T h e depth o f involvement that followed obviated one problem that is encountered by many comm uni ty museums built on the model o f mainstream museums: the tendency to be co m e small treasure houses that enshrine the history and accomplishments o f only one portion o f the community, with the result that there is limited c o m m u ­ nity involvement T h e Ak-Chin project exemplifies an alternative strategy wherein “real-life experiences o f e xpl or ati on, experimenta­ tion, and questioning’' be co me the basis o f the institution It is this co m m it m e n t that Fuller finds inscribed in the ecomuseum concept E c o m u se u m s are designed to respond to a specific area’s problems through an array o f museumlike and educational activities; each mu­ seum would therefore lo ok different, joined to the others by only a shared “participatory approach and a goal to be a catalyst for change.”

Training becomes a central c o m p o n e n t in the ecomuseum con-

pro-Audience, Ownership, and Authority I 55

cess of makin g a museum in a community turns members o f the c o m ­ munity into witnesses to the co m m u n i ty ’s aspirations and difficulties in managing change— difficulties all communities experience T h e staff are moving toward a role described by J o h n Berger and Je a n M oh r as clerk-recorder o f the community.” 12 T h e museum becomes not so much a collection o f objects as an assemblage o f objects and documentation On the surface this makes them no different from any other museum; objects and some sort o f documentation are part o f all museum collections T h e co mb in ati on o f objects, records, and oral histories is co mm on ly found in ethnographic collections W h a t is im­ portant here is not that the museum will co me to look much like other museums, but that the wo rk o f cultural documentation is an organic process that is part of h o w a changing community defines itself Here, the Ak-Chin museum, based explicitly on the ecomuseum idea, draws close to the some what more traditional but still community-centered efforts described by Peirson J o n e s , Duitz, T c h e n , and Gonzalez and Tonelli T h e difference is that the impetus derives from the c o m m u ­ nity itself T h is is not a process without tensions As the staff finish training they will begin to bring in perspectives derived from outside the community As a result, they will inevitably have goals that c o n ­ flict with those held by some members o f the community Nor does the co mm unity itself speak with a single voice; no community does If the museum works, however, the conversations continue

c i a l i m p l i c a t i o n s A s a s o c i e t y , w e a r e d e b a t i n g h o w m u c h d i f f e r e n c e is t o l e r a b l e a n d d e s i r a b l e G i v e n t h e i n f l u e n c e o f m u s e u m s as v a l o r i z i n g a g e n c i e s , w h a t e v e r v i e w is p r e s e n t e d is ( a t lea st a t t h i s h i s t o r i c a l m o ­ m e n t ) o f c o n s e q u e n c e E v e n i f t h e i n f l u e n c e o f m u s e u m e x h i b i t i o n s is l ess t h a n w e like t o i m a g i n e , m u s e u m s c a n e x p e c t t o find t h e m s e l v e s c h a l l e n g e d , w h i c h e v e r d i r e c t i o n t h e y t a k e T h e r e is n o w a y t o a v o i d c h a l l e n g e s , a n d n o t t o t r e a t t h e m s e r i o u s l y will s i m p l y r e n d e r m u ­ s e u m s i r r e l e v a n t R a t h e r , m u s e u m s a re s u m m o n e d t o t r e a t c h a l l e n g e s n o t so m u c h a s p r o b l e m s t o be s u r m o u n t e d , b u t as i n v i t a t i o n s t o e n ­ g a g e in c o n v e r s a t i o n s w i t h t h e s h i f t i n g p u b l i c s w h o c o m p o s e t h e i r m o s t i m p o r t a n t c o n s t i t u e n c i e s

N O T E S

1 Sandra Harding, T he Science Q uestion in Feminism (It haca, N Y : Cornell University Press, )

2 Neil Harris, Cultural E xcu rsion s: M arketing A ppetites an d Cultural Tastes in M odern A m erica ( C hi ca g o: University o f Chi cago Press, 9 ) , 85

3 See the discussion o f these issues in the introduction to part

4 See the discussion o f this issue in Ivan Karp, “Ot her Cultures in Mus eum Perspective,” in Ivan Karp and Steven D Lavine, eds., Exhibiting Cultures:

T he Poetics and Politics o f M useum D isplay (Washington, D C : Smithsonian Institution Press, 9 ) , -

5 George W St ocki ng, J r , e d , O bjects and O thers: Essays on M useums an d M aterial Culture ( M a d i s o n : University o f Wisconsin Press, ) ; J am es Clifford and George E M a r c u s , Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics o f E thn ography (Berkeley: University o f California Press, ) ; Ivan Karp and Steven D Lavine, eds., E xhibitin g Cultures: The Poetics an d Politics o f Mu­ seum D isplay (Was hi ngton, D C : Smithsonian Institution Press, 9 ) ; Ivan Karp and Cori nne K r at z , “T i p p o o ’s Tiger: A Critical Account o f E t h ­ nographic Display” ( Lo s Angeles: Get ty Center for the History o f Art and the Humanities, 9 )

6 Lawrence H Fuchs, T h e A m erican K aleid oscop e: R ace, Ethnicity, an d the Civic Culture ( M id d l e t o w n , C o n n : Wesleyan University Press, 9 )

7 Ibid., -

Audience, Ownership, and Authority I 57

9 Almond, “T h e Intellectual History o f the Civic Culture Con ce pt , ” - 10 See Carol P a te ma n ’s “T h e Civic Culture: A Philosophical Critique,” in Gabriel A Almond and Sidney Verba, eds., T he Civic Culture R evisited ( B os ­ ton: Little, Br own, ) , for a fuller exposition o f these criticisms

1 Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, T he G reat A rch: State F orm ation , Cul­ tural R evolu tion ( O x f o r d : Basil Blackwell, )

Change and Challenge: Museums in the

Information Society G E O R G E F M A C D O N A L D

It is easy to imagine that muse um s, fo­ cused as most are on matters o f the past, are timeless institutions standing apart from the processes of change o perating on the present— observing and recording, but not participating in, nor affected by, change T h e history o f museums itself contradicts this We may remember, for instance, that museums were not always accessible to the general public— no t until the democratizing trend o f the last century Museums are products o f their social c o nt ex t, and it is proper that they should be so It is, however, dangerous to assume that a place is guaranteed for museums in the society o f the future If we accept that their purpose is to be o f service to society, then it is vital they be responsive to their social environment in order to remain relevant to changing social needs and goals

T h e current direction o f change has been characterized as taking us toward an information society T h e r e are many forces for change operating today, but one o f the most resonant is the rapid develop­ ment o f information, c o m m un ic a tio n, and media technologies, which are infiltrating all aspects o f our lives: public, professional, domestic, educational, and even recreational A colleague o f m i n e recently noted that the movement toward democracy in the former Warsaw Pact nations owes less to T h o m a s Jefferson than to Ted Turner— that

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is, less to democratic principles than to the access television provides to information about events going on in other countries

T h e transition from industrial age to information age necessitates a review o f museum philosophies and practices, and a reevaluation of how w'eli museums are serving their communities For a national m u ­ seum such as the Canadian Mus eum o f Civilization, the “c o m m u n i t y ” is a multicultural society, a nation o f nations— not unlike the United States in origin, but never subjected to the same pressure to be a melting pot T h e Canadian constitution recognizes the country to be bilingual but multicultural It is the responsibility of C a n a d a ’s national museum o f human history to reflect this multicultural chara ct er ; and, by extension, to be concerned with all the peoples o f the world, since they are part o f us and we part o f them T h e collections o f the C a n a ­ dian Museum o f Civilization (hereafter C M C ) cover over specific cultural groups, o f which almost one hundred are our native peoples We see it as a museum not just for the Ca nadian nation, but for the global village C ana da is often described as a cultural mos aic , but I like to think that a hologram is a more appropriate image for such postcolonial societies; Europe is moving toward the same model

T h e consequence o f the above is that C M C ’s audience comprises not merely the whole Ca nadian population, but also foreign visitors to C an ad a ’s capital and people around the world who have a need for knowledge about Ca nad ia n history and culture T his may seem o b ­ vious But if we not remain consciously aware o f the character o f our community, we may fail to perceive some o f our ob ligations— particularly the implications concerning outreach

Part o f the reevaluation o f museums currently under way entails reconsideration of their fundamental role or mission Insofar as this takes the form of defining some idealized model for the co nce pt o f museum, the effort is misdirected Diversity is one o f the great strengths o f the museum world— it is for museums, as in evolution generally, a survival m ec n ism — and to try to fit all museums into one mold is counterproductive N o single museum can respond to all social needs with equal effectiveness; for this reason alone we must have a variety o f museums and museum styles, serving different pur­ poses or tackling challenges from different approaches This does not invalidate a role review, since that process gives the opportunity to reexamine what we are doing and how we are doing it, and to point to necessary adjustments

if we define ed u cation in broad enough terms But consensus will thereafter begin to trip up over the value-laden co nnotatio ns o f the term For me, it has co nnotatio ns o f prerequisites, classroom disci­ pline, lectures to a passive audience, e x a m s , and so on Such features, in the context o f democratization, are alm ost wholly inappropriate to museums prefer to think in terms o f learning rather than ed u cat io n, as the former implies a process directed by the recipient o f k nowledge, with the museum as facilitator rather than authoritative imposer o f “facts.”

T h e premise underlying this essay is that all museums are, at the most fundamental level, concerned with information: its generation, its perpetuation, its organization, and its dissemination Implicit in this premise is the idea that museums’ principal resource— their coll ec ­ tions of material remnants of the past— are o f value, and are worth preserving, primarily for the information embodied in them T h e in­ formation may be intellectual, aesthetic, sensory, or emotional in n a ­ ture (or more likely some co m b i n a ti o n ) , depending on the object and its associations T h e same value is also applicable to the newer, n o n ­ material resource collections museums are building, such as oral histo­ ries, photographs, audiovisual materials, replicas, and reenacted processes

It is beyond this level o f being in fo rm at io n institutions that differ­ ent museums begin to go their separate ways For one thing, while original artifacts are inherently objective arbiters o f our understanding o f the past, h o w we understand them is inescapably subjective.2 his is true of the names we give them, the im por ta nce we ascribe to them, the ways in which we relate them to other o bj ec ts (such as through classification systems, or in the co nt ex t o f period rooms, for instance), or anything that falls under the heading o f “ interpretation.” Another way in which museums differ is in w h a t they d o with their information or, to resort to current jargon, how they p a c k a g e information E d u c a ­ tion and entertainment may be viewed as tw o forms of packaging

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Fig 6-1 By breaking tree of cultural paradigms of architectural style, and by speaking of the historical landscape (here the Grand Hall, depicting the melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age), Douglas Cardinal’s creation is appropriate for the global village in which all peoples seek their common heritage Photo by Stephen Alsford, courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Civilization

perceptions that ac co m p a ny the technological transition from indus­ trial to information society can make it possible for museums to achieve their full potential as places for learning in and about a world in which the globetrotting mass media, international tourism, migra­ tion, and instant satellite links between cultures are sculpting a new global awareness and helping give shape to w h a t Marshall M c L u h a n characterized as the global village Aspects o f this new global aware­ ness include a greater sensitivity to environmental issues that affect all nations; a growing pr eoc cup ati on with social justice; and a fuller appreciation of the increasingly culturally pluralistic character of Western society, and the ramifications o f this in terms o f cultural values T h e se issues themselves present challenges to which museums need to respond and are, indeed, beginning to respond

to participate in the process o f portraying and interpreting their cultures

Overall, people seek from human-history museums some under­ standing of their society in terms o f its historical development and o f their own place within that society Ideally, museums should e n c o u r ­ age and assist their users to develop the skills to make their o w n interpretations o f history using museums’ information resources W t precisely they will with the interpretations they may acquire is difficult to predict, and it is arguable whether this is really any business o f museums But C M C ’s hope is that through acquiring an understanding o f other cultures, people will co me to appreciate the inner logic o f social systems that are different from their o w n , and will develop an appreciation and respect for them that will c o m b a t p r e ju ­ dices Mutual appreciation and cooperation among the cultural groups that make up Ca nad ia n society is seen as the necessary fo un d a ­ tion for Canada to remain a single nation

Museums alone can n ot create a sense o f cultural identity T h e media and the entertainment industry have much more impact here But what museums particularly offer is an o bj e ct base— the collection o f the real, material remains o f the past— as a sort o f yardstick that people could use (if they were taught the skills) to evaluate cultural mythologies

In sum, the importance o f museums to the future development o f society lies not merely in their role as repositories o f information It is also in how they use that information to create understanding; or, perhaps more significantly, how they help their audiences to exploit the information resources in the quest for knowledge

T H E M U S E U M A U D I E N C E

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well into the design phase that the need beca me apparent for theatrical facilities associated with the galleries themselves, for a fiber-optic- based telecommunication network, and for television production stu­ dios lortunately, these needs could be a cco mm od ate d W it ho u t these facilities we could not expect to achieve our vision o f being an interac­ tive museum that could serve both on-site visitors and electronic users at a distance

Since the community for a national museum is extensive, one of our chief concerns was to differentiate the various co mp o ne nt s o f that community Museums have tended to view their audiences as homoge­ neous groups, and to provide services and programs on a single level This approach has been reinforced by visitor studies, which c o n ­ sistently characterize the typical museum visitor as a middle-class WASP ( white An glo-Saxon Protestant) with an above-average income and education Perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy is at work here It is really only in the c o nt ex t o f the social changes I have already outlined, as well as in the face o f e om ic pressures, that museums have recog­ nized their restricted audience appeal as a problem T h is failing o f mainstream museums is one reason why we are seeing growing num­ bers o f specialized museums designed for specific audiences, such as children, indigenous peoples, and specific ethnic communities

O ne o f the challenges o f the future is to utilize computer-based technologies in imaginative ways to customize museum experiences to the interests and learning styles o f diverse visitor groups We have scarcely begun to experience the impact o f culturally interactive soft­ ware — that is, software that allows members o f one culture to learn another cultural grammar By “cultural g r a m m a r ” I mean the hidden rules that drive the social systems and aesthetics (right down to things such as sports, music, and cuisine) that characterize each culture Anthropologists have spent almost a century defining social and cul­ tural gra mm ars that can now be programmed into interactive soft­ ware, in a variety o f formats from games to full roleplaying O n e such program, used in C M C ’s Children’s M u s e u m , encourages the user to become an Inuit hunter and to make life-and-death decisions for the community, such as how many animals to harvest each season without endangering the herd on which comm uni ty survival depends This kind of cultural literacy— familiarity with cultures other than one’s o w n — is a way of promoting intercultural understanding, and should be addressed very seriously by cultural-history museums

battle-Fig 6-2 The teaching of cultural grammars through exhibits will require em­ phasis on visual literacy, to break across barriers of ver­ bal language, and on com­ munication with the senses as much as with the intel­ lect Photo by Stephen Alsford, courtesy of the C a­ nadian Museum of

Civilization

Change and Challenge I 65

rectly or indirectly, from our audiences; we must therefore be aware of and responsive to the requirements o f those audiences N o museum, however high the quality o f its information products, can be consid­ ered successful if it fails to m a k e those products relevant to what concerns the society in which it exists

So at C M C , market segmentation was an important part o f plan­ ning the design of ex hibi tions, programs, and facilities for the new museum It was a question o f trying to a cc o m m o d a te better the infor­ mational, social, and personal needs o f the existing user community, as well as to attract nontraditional audiences Audience segmentation is a very co mplex affair T h e r e seems no end o f ways in which the public can be broken d o w n — the ideal being to address the specific needs o f every individual All such bre ak w ns , like any classification system, involve some generalization and some subjectivity Far more audience research is required before museums can properly appreciate the characteristics and, particularly, the needs o f their existing publics, as well as a far greater effort at sharing the results o f research among museums

West characterize as museums.) Rental o f museum facilities to c o m ­ munity or private groups, and events such as receptions and exhibition openings, as well as the existence o f “friends o f the m us eum ” and volunteer associations, also answer these social needs

At C M C we are responding to intellectual needs by readying the museum to operate on three levels We differentiated am o ng what we call streakers, strollers, and students, in terms o f the degree o f detail of information sought by visitors Streakers spend relatively little time in the exhibitions, and will not m a k e side trips into subgalleries, nor are they inclined to read labels Such visitors receive messages in an im­ pressionistic fashion O n e o f the reasons we built life-size environmen­ tal reconstructions in our G r a n d Hall and History Hall was so that streakers might obtain a holistic sense o f the cultures represented there, one that we hope will c o m m u n i c a te some o f the main themes of the exhibitions We have yet to undertake evaluation to determine the educational effectiveness o f this

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For strollers— who more closely appr ox im ate the traditional m u ­ seum visitor, prepared to spend more time in the museum— it has been important to provide additional info rma tio n, such as labels, gallery guides, and audiovisual presentations, depending on the appropriat e­ ness of each medium for any particular exhibit Strollers often want more information on specific topics (though their inquiries are still likely to be, for the most part, casual and often impromptu), so we provide a degree o f depth to the exhibits, as well as supplementary exhibits o f f the main circulation route

O u r third category— students— includes people (not necessarily enrolled in some formal course o f study) who come to the museum with strong interests in particular areas T h e level of knowledge they seek can n ot be adequately ac c o m m o d a te d through the main e xh ib i­ tions alone Although we have yet to put in place the facilities to serve them, the forms these will take include: study collections in secondary areas o f galleries; gallery-based electronic information kiosks that al­ low querying o f museum data ban k s, including a pictorial database with a complete visual inventory o f the mu se um ’s artifactual collec­ tions— in effect permitting typological displays that can be configured to each student’s special interest; and a multimedia library accessible to public use

Crosscutting the streaker/stroller/student categorization are others Age, for exa mp le: we felt it desirable to provide exhibitions specifically aimed at the interests and learning capabilities o f children, and so established the C hil d ren ’s Muse um within C M C Visitor de­ mand outstripped available space there on several occasions during our opening year; fortunately we still have fifty percent o f the allo­ cated space to develop To bring us in closer contact with the needs of this audience, we have established an advisory committee o f children aged eight to fourteen to help staff evaluate programs and exhibitions, and steer the future course o f the museum Seniors are not so easily provided for; while they will bec ome an increasingly important audi­ ence as the ba b y - b o o m generation ages, their particular needs have not yet been studied in detail Here, t o o , I see the urgency for more research to determine h o w museums can better meet their needs

nese tourists (a increasingly important audience), whose visits are often timed to the minute A potential audience not often appreciated is business visitors to the city, who like to mix relaxation and sightsee­ ing in their evenings, as well as the opportunity to purchase souvenirs for the family Wh en we are talking a bo ut ex pectat ions, it is no less important to be aware o f the effects that the media, the entertainment industry, and new infor mat ion technologies are having on the public Regrettably, it is no t museums that establish public expectations on how information is packaged and co m m un ic a te d; we are obliged to play a reactive role here, or risk being ignored by a leisure-seeking public

One o f the keys to audience development is to provide for as much diversity of experience and as much flexibility in programming as is possible, not least because predicting the future is, at best, a guessing game In this age o f rapid change we must not bo x ourselves in Although at C M C we have placed large, relatively permanent exhibition structures in the Gr and Hall and the History Hall, we have made space in both areas for changing exhibitions Because those galleries include live interpretation, perf orm anc es , and audiovisual elements, they can easily be reprogrammed Another m a j o r gallery, our First Peoples Hall, has yet to be developed, but we have moved away from our initial idea o f large, permanent structures and toward the idea o f flexible spaces for changing exhibitions In addition, we have devoted one whole level o f galleries entirely to temporary exhibi­ tions In terms of flexibility and programmability, we have also four.d that our lobby areas have provided a good deal o f scope for mounting small and short-lived exhibi tions or for serving as demonstration areas

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cific interests We are presently developing these for our galleries New computer-based technologies now emerging promise greater potential for future customizing o f tours to individual needs: for e x a m p le , the digital transmission of information from individual exh ibits into a Walkman-type device would allow visitors to explore m us eum s wit h­ out following the preset route that corresponds to the narrative o f an audio cassette I should also mention films as an im portant vehicle for communicating co nt ex t; information-intensive and holistic, they can be experienced at a variety o f levels, if guidance is provided T h i s is an area we are hoping to develop at C M C in association with Imax Systems, a maker o f giant-screen films that are shown on either rect­ angular (Imax) or dome-shaped ( O m n im a x ) screens

At the same time, we must not forget the importance o f ta k e ­ away materials; for most visitors, the best a museum can really hope to is spark an interest that will encourage return visits and/or further investigation o f a topic elsewhere T h e museum shop plays a central role in such dissemination At C M C we have established a secondary shop adjacent to our library and specializing in info rmat ion products; it will increasingly make available our own resources, such as videotapes, laser-disc-based collections catalogues, and copies o f archival materials

All these factors must be provided for in modern muse um s if they wish to maximize their audiences At this point in time, a museum can n ot be customized to meet perfectly the personal mix o f interests, behaviors, learning styles, physical needs, e tc , o f every individual But the greater the range o f experiences and opportunities available, the wider the audience a museum can hope to attract, and the greater the number o f visitors w h o are likely to leave the building stimulated, satisfied, and informed T h e pressure on publicly funded museums to generate a larger percentage o f their revenues directly fro m their pu b ­ lic is leading them to b e co m e more concerned with the perceived quality o f their services, and to add services targeted at the more affluent segment o f their audience

which they have no familiarity; its preference for new information technologies, with which many people feel co mfortable and in c o n ­ trol, and which allow them to query more ; its greater interest in behind-the-scenes technical opera ti on s; and its demand for non-collec- tions-based facilities and services, such as lounges, restaurants, and film presentations

T h e challenge for museums is to be relevant to this new social elite, or else face being defined out o f its list o f leisure activities T h e future is likely to see a more competitive e om ic environment for museums, partly because the nu mber o f recreational institutions g en­ erally, museums included, is increasing at the same time as population growth is facing a d ow nt urn , and partly as changing lifestyles and work habits reduce the am ou nt o f shared leisure time available to families, resulting in greater value placed on meaningful use of leisure time

T H E C O M P E T I T I V E E N V I R O N M E N T

From almost the beginning o f the pro je ct to design the new Canadian Museum o f Civilization, our staff were busy looking at other new museums and institutions outside the museum world in order to a n ­ alyze their successes and failings and to seek inspiration It was also essential to examine ho w , in general, the public spends its leisure tim e.6

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this is the need to build “living history” collections o f o bje cts — origi­ nals or replicas— that can be used in such programming We are en- gaged in such a task at C M C But there is lacking a philosophical rationalization of the natures o f , and relationship between, the collec­ tions o f touchables and untouchables in museums It is unfortunate that the term living history has n o w beco me a marketing catchword, overused and abused, promising things museums cannot deliver.8

The influence o f open-air museums is certainly seen in our His ­ tory Hall, where we have adopted a modified streetscape appro ach, and in the Pacific Coa st Indian village in our Grand Hall An indoor setting inevitably imposes constraints on total environmental rec on­ struction, but it is possible to improve upon existing indoor street­ scape exhibitions, as well as to ob tain the same benefit as outdoor museums o f establishing a mor e intimate bond between visitor and exhibits Live costumed interpretation and audiovisual effects— such as the projection o f weather effects o nto the vaults above our street- scapes, or the rear-screen pro jec tio n o f animated scenes viewed through building windows— can enha nce the environmental setting of the exhibit structures, in terms o f both plausibility and interpretive effectiveness M o st indoor museum streetscapes have neglected to p ro ­ vide that animation element

At C M C we have gone so far as to employ a small but full-time troupe o f professional actors from various ethnic and linguistic b a c k ­ grounds During the first year o f o pe ti o n, they experimented with interpretive theater by mounting almost a dozen set-piece, scheduled playlets, varying from fifteen to thirty minutes in length M o s t were written to provide supportive interpretation o f specific exhibits, and are presented in the c o n t e x t o f those exhibits T h is theatrical use added another complication to the design o f the exhibits While the vignettes have proven popular with visitors, it has not always been easy to acquire a ready audience in the off-peak season, and some audience members not wan t to stay in one place for half an hour— the museum ritual is a mobile one Although there is a certain audi­ ence-cast intimacy and even interaction in some performances, theatri­ cal interpretation still leaves the audience in a largely passive role T h e re is certainly a place for this in museums, but our next thrust is to supplement it with visitor-responsive, one-on-one interpretation in first-person mode

Fig 6-4 The adaptation, for children, of a sixteenth-century folk play about Robin Hood is used to provide a lighthearted examination of sexual stereotyping— for Robin and his Merry Men are all played by women! Photo by Stephen Alsford, courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Civilization

incorporate replicas as well as original artifacts), and o f the O m n i m a x presentations o f the cu dr am a co pr od u ced by C M C : T h e First E m ­ p ero r o f China. O ne reason we selected that film technology for the museum was because o f its ability to help viewers suspend disbelief and imagine themselves witnessing— alm ost participating in— actual events, rather than screened replays T h e intent is not to deceive, but to create a more intimate and mor e powerful experience that leaves a greater impression on the viewer’s memory

Despite co nn o tat io ns o f imitation o r fakery associated with the term sim u lation, I find it hard to be disturbed by the charge After all, the term derives from the Latin word meaning “similar,” w hi c h— notwithstanding museums’ warranted conc er ns for authenticity— is the best we can realistically hope to achieve with any exhibition or interpretive program W h a t our critics fail to remember is that all knowledge o f the past is a recon stru ction, tying together isolated hard facts by the use o f hypothesis W h a t is this if not simulation? O n the other hand, despite the incredible current popularity (all around the world) o f traveling exhibits of r o b o t ic dinosaurs— which is one hun­ dred percent simulation— we should no t ignore the fact that people have a special, if inexplicable, experience when looking at real, origi­ nal artifacts M use um s need a finer understanding o f the appropriate balance o f real and replicated o bj ec ts in an exhibition

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design approaches have been validated by the findings o f a Gallup survey o f visitors By quite a large margin, the favorite exhibitions were identified as the History Hall ( % ) and the Grand Hall ( 2 % ) , with the I m a x / O m n i m a x theater ranking third ( % ) Exhibitions using traditional, passive display styles (which remain the most appro­ priate for some subjects) were the least popular T h e I m a x / O m n i m a x theater has proven the biggest success o f our commercial facilities, and has confirmed the existing theory that, with a local population of half a million, it is possible to keep a good film showing at a profit for about six months T h e we akness o f Imax at the mo me nt is the lack of films with human-history themes; there is a need for museums to collaborate in ensuring that new films are made that fit their m a n ­ dates At C M C we also feel that a film in isolation is less effective than if it is part o f a larger pro g m m in g package At the same time as we ran T he First E m p ero r o f C h in a, an exhibition o f props (museum- quality replicas) used in the film was being shown, along with a major exhibition on Chinese C a n ad i an culture and a series o f performances and demonstrations by Chinese community groups We hope to pur­ sue this model o f mutually reinforcing prog ramm ing m o r e in the future

A careful study o f Disney theme parks was made early on in our building project T h is fact (which we have never sought to hide), combined with our own nontraditional exhibition styles, has led critics to level the charge that C M C is Disneyland N or th Probably this notion has done more to draw visitors than turn them away Like it or not, theme parks are part of our competitive environment in North A m e r i c a In the O r l a n d o , Florida, region there are now six­ teen theme parks! O n average you would find that leading American parks draw about a million visitors a year Only a handful of mu ­ seums— even if we limit the survey to large urban centers— can make that claim T h e newest trend, movie studio theme parks, combines two powerful elements o f popular culture, and promises to be the biggest dr aw yet

Another important attribute o f theme parks is their detailed attention to the physical and psychological needs o f their guests, all aimed at ensuring a visit that leaves only good memo rie s and a desire to return T h e challenge, for larger museums at least, is to be prepared to adopt techniques and technologies employed outside the museum wo rld , while ensuring that the c ontent they co m m u n ic at e adheres to the high­ est standards of quality If we are simply prepared to learn, I believe we can co m b a t the growing public need for escapism and show them that fact can be more interesting than fiction

A similar approach might be taken to the rest o f the competitive environment To take the e xam p le o f television: We may love it, we may hate it But it has co mm and eer ed too prominent a role in the lives o f our citizenry to ignore it or its effects on the tastes, behaviors, and expectations of the public T h i s is especially true o f the younger gener­ ation In 8 , as part o f the process o f designing C M C ’s Children’s M us e um , we held a seminar with the creators o f Sesame Street in order to obtain a better understanding o f the effects o f television on children Among the points that were brought out against T V at that meeting were that it can be addictive, causing children to neglect other activities or family and social relationships, and that it encourages a spectatorship attitude, inhibiting active o r creative play Th e s e two factors can slow down language development, which requires conver­ sation; because visuals fill in much o f the meaning, T V narrative is often inadequately explicit and does not a good job o f teaching language structure, vocabulary, o r verbal reasoning Also, T V gives children access to all sorts o f experiences and issues with which they are not equipped to deal; above all, it exposes them to violence at an age when they are trying to suppress their own aggressive behaviors T h e rapidly paced, image-based events call for an emotional rather than intellectual response, encouraging an unreflective style in viewers Finally, stereotypes are mp ant in many T V programs; also, that which is not shown (e g , minority cultures) may consequently be peripheralized by children in real life

Change and Challenge I 75

through slow m o t io n ) and so can help teach physical skills Children who understand what is involved in making a television p ro g r am — editing, special effects, and so for th— might be better equipped to evaluate what they view; for this reason C M C has given some consid­ eration to creating a simple television studio in the Children’s Museum

Again, it is a question o f differentiating the medium and the message; as M c L u h a n pointed ou t, though, this can never be done entirely All methods o f c o m m un ic a tio n have their dr aw b ac k s , but many o f television’s relate more to the programming than the tec hn ol­ ogy We must distinguish between commercial broadcast television, which has largely succumbed to a purely market-driven ap pr o a ch , and educational television and other specialty services We ca n n o t expect to divert audiences en masse from T V to museums, but if we could create a specialty service, or at least contribute much more p r o g r am ­ ming to educational television, the potential exists to take museums to a much wider audience T h is is a project in which museums need to combine their resources to make an impact

Television is creating an audience more familiar with the use of visual information than textual in fo rm at io n, with consequences for museums’ interpretive technologies While it is right to be concerned about television’s adverse impact o n verbal literacy, we must accept— particularly in a multicultural wo rld , where language embodies cul­ tural biases from which we need to free ourselves— that visual literacy is an important skill that should be fostered Muse ums need to de­ velop further their co m m u n i c a ti o n s skills, and particularly to deter­ mine which types o f ideas are best conveyed visually and w'hich ver­ bally At the same time, museums could help co m ba t the subversive effects o f television by introducing children to the technology and the techniques, and allowing children to control them Already a number o f museums have established television studios for this educational purpose Media literacy is increasingly found as a compulsory subject in school curricula, and there is a role here for museums, too

ing co mm un ic ati o n channels, offer ano ther route for electronic o u t ­ reach Technology has often been accused o f controlling our lives, but it also presents the potential for e m p o w e rm e nt T his means being a ble to select the info rmat ion to which we are exposed; being able to t a k e the initiative in charting one’s o w n educational course; being able to

qu ery information resources, not merely receive information p a s ­ sively; and being able to contribute info rmat ion and perspective to the body of understanding In theory this mean s a greater democratization o f the process o f interpretation, as individuals and communities could decide for themselves what inf or ma ti on is important in interpreting a subject M us e um s must be prepared to meet people’s new expectations about what they can learn and with their leisure time and to steer the novice learner in the right direction

C U L T U R A L C R O S S R O A D S

If empowerment means participation, it also implies the right to par­ ticipation by all elements o f the community A multicultural society is emerging hand in hand with the info rmat ion society T h e current ethnic consciousness in what was formerly the Soviet Union , the ef­ forts to create a more open E u r o p e a n Co m m u ni ty by 9 , the cul­ tural effects o f immigration in the English-speaking world— all these, in one way or another, reflect the apparently conflicting needs to build a global society in which all peoples ca n participate while preserving specific cultural heritages and identities

M y own country is presently facing a crisis along these lines, attempting to create a vision o f a Ca na di a n identity that a cc o m m o ­ dates the distinct cultural entities falling under the national umbrella A fundamental issue today is whe ther na ti on ho od remains a viable concept at all It is in this area that a national museum o f human history has a possibly crucial role to play, as a forum for discussion and exchange o f understandings If museums are to play a useful and relevant role in a multicultural society, they must be institutions that represent the viewpoints o f all o f their constituents These viewpoints may often be at odds with one an o th er ; but if we can accept the notion that no interpretation is truly definitive, that all are subjective, it will be easier to develop a tolerance for ambiguity and dissonance

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This is presently used to serve the in-house information needs o f the staff and the public, but we are looking toward its future use for electronic outreach T h e hope is to create a network o f museums and other cultural institutions interested in sharing information resources and programming via satellite— not merely in C a n ad a , but interna­ tionally A number o f nationally based museum networks are already beginning to form for this purpose, such as the Eu ropean Museums N e t w o r k , which hopes to have its first field trial at E x p o in Seville, and the North American netwo rk that has grown out o f the Jason P r o j e c t 11 In the longer term, the network envisaged by C M C could become an “information utility,” into which every computer-equipped home could plug, as one plugs an appliance into an electrical wall socket It will be vital to avoid using such a network merely to rein­ force, through a one-way co mm un ic ati on flow, a concept o f national identity that, in C a n a d a , is already technologically mediated T h e challenge will be to give free access to co mm un ic ati on technology, to empo wer the co m m u n i ty — to use the network for interactive exchange o f infor mation, a conversation that could itself contribute to the for­ mation o f a communally based consciousness o f identity

n a t i v e c o m m u n i t i e s t o r e t u r n m a j o r s e g m e n t s o f C M C ’s c o l l e c t i o n s t o t h e i r m u s e u m s

O u r C h i n e s e C a n a d i a n e x h i b i t i o n ( B e y o n d t h e G o l d e n M o u n t a i n : C h i n e s e C u l t u r a l T r a d i t i o n s in C a n a d a , w h i c h r a n f r o m 9 t o 9 ) w a s a l s o s u c c e s s f u l in k i n d l i n g t h e e n t h u s i a s m o f t h a t c o m m u n i t y a n d e n c o u r a g i n g t h e m t o p a r t i c i p a t e by s u p p l y i n g a r t i f a c t s a n d i n f o r m a ­ t i o n a n d p r o v i d i n g live p r o g r a m m i n g t h a t , a g a i n , p e r m i t t e d a m e e t i n g o f c u l t u r e s F o r t u n a t e l y , w e a l r e a d y h a d o n s t a f f a C h i n e s e C a n a d i a n c u r a t o r t o g u i d e t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f t h e e x h i b i t i o n B u t t h e w h o l e i s s u e o f b r i n g i n g o n t o t h e s t a f f m o r e r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f m i n o r i t y c u l ­ t u r e s , a n d o f f i n d i n g m e c h a n i s m s f o r c o n s u l t a t i o n w i t h t h e m a n y c o m m u n i t i e s , is o n e t h a t w e h a v e t o a d d r e s s m o r e in t h e i m m e d i a t e f u t u r e O n l y t h r o u g h a p r o c e s s o f d i a l o g u e — a n e x c h a n g e o f u n d e r ­ s t a n d i n g s b e t w e e n m u s e u m s t a f f a n d c o m m u n i t i e s , a n d b e t w e e n m e m ­ b e r s o f d i f f e r e n t c o m m u n i t i e s — c a n m u s e u m s p r o d u c e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n t h a t a v o i d s t h e p i t f a l l s o f t h e “v o i c e o f a u t h o r i t y ” o n w h i c h t he y h a v e t r a d i t i o n a l l y r e l i e d , a n d i n s t e a d b e c o m e s t h e v o i c e o f t h e p l u r a l i s t i c s oc i et y

W h a t w e h a v e a c h i e v e d s i n c e o u r o p e n i n g in J u n e 9 is t o s i g n a l o u r i n t e n t t o b e a m u s e u m f o r all C a n a d i a n s , n o t j u s t t h o s e o f E u r o p e a n h e r i t a g e a n d p e r s p e c t i v e P r a c t i c a l i t i e s o f s p a c e m a k e it

Change and Challenge 179

N u m 'l l in l i i f c f l w i i i f j j i }IWH il U|l|l||«i! P.?

y j»ii in niunnv* %« mm u

Imr n *

Fi g - A f t e r t h e p e r f o r ­ m a n c e c o m e o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f d i f f e r ­ e n t c u l t u r e s t o m e e t a n d e x ­ c h a n g e u n d e r s t a n d i n g s P h o t o by S t e p h e n A l s f o r d , c o u r t e s y o f t h e C a n a d i a n M u s e u m o f C i v i l i z a t i o n

i m p o s s i b l e f o r us t o r e p r e s e n t e v e r y c u l t u r e s i m u l t a n e o u s l y , b u t o u r C h i n e s e C a n a d i a n e x h i b i t i o n w a s r e p l a c e d b y o n e o n t h e U k r a i n i a n c o m m u n i t y in C a n a d a , a n d t h a t g a l l e r y wi ll b e used t o s h o w c a s e a d i f f e r e n t c o m m u n i t y e a c h y e a r T h i s is b e i n g s u p p l e m e n t e d b y s m a l l e r , m o r e t e m p o r a r y e x h i b i t i o n s , b y f i l m s , a n d b y live p e r f o r m a n c e s , r e ­ f l e c t i n g b o t h C a n a d i a n e t h n i c c o m m u n i t i e s a n d t h e h o m e l a n d s o f i m ­ m i g r a n t s t o C a n a d a In o u r fi r st y e a r w e wi l l h a v e s h o w n s o m e t h i n g f r o m C h i n e s e , J a p a n e s e , F i l i p i n o , U k r a i n i a n , J e w i s h , M e x i c a n , A r ­ g e n t i n i a n , K o r e a n , M a o r i , ( E a s t ) I n d i a n , a n d s e v er al A f r i c a n c u l t u r e s , t o n a m e o n l y s o m e , a n d n o t t o m e n t i o n t h e m a n y n a t i v e C a n a d i a n c u l t u r e s p r e s e n t e d It is p e r h a p s in t h e a r e a o f live p r o g r a m m i n g t h a t C M C h a s b e e n m o s t s u c c e s s f u l , w i t h w el l o v e r a t h o u s a n d p e r f o r ­ m a n c e s in its fi rst y e a r b y g r o u p s a n d i n d i v i d u a l s b r o u g h t f r o m a c r o s s th e c o u n t r y a n d a r o u n d t h e w o r l d

these Although we have yet to undertake formal evaluation o f the educational effectiveness o f our exhibitions and programs, we have nonetheless learned much about what does wor k and what doesn't C M C is, in many ways, experimental and will remain in that mode for some while All museums have to be prepared to experiment— to succeed and to fail— in order to meet the challenge o f the future C M C has been planned to be a museum that should meet the needs of audiences o f the global village I hope it will be both a national m u ­ seum and an international museum, since I think that best reflects the needs and character of the Canadian people themselves

N O T E S

1 Peter Sterling, director o f the Indianapolis C h i l d re n ’s M us e um , in a presen­ tation to the Gr eat er Pittsburgh M us eum Cou nci l symposium “Energizing the Museum Exper ienc e— Entert ainment with Schol arship, ” Ma rc h 9 , O a k ­ land, California

2 This is an increasingly popular theme in museologi cal writings See, for example, Chris M i l l e r- M ar t i, “Local History M u s e u m s and the Creat ion of the Past,” M use , no ( ) , - ; R o b e r t Sullivan, “T h e M us e um as Mora l Artifact,” M oral E ducation Forum , nos - ( ) , - ; Brian Durrans, “T h e Future o f the Ot her: C n g i n g Cultures on Display in E t h ­ nographic Museums, ” in R obe rt Lumley, e d , T h e M useum T im e-M achin e

(London: Routledge, 8 )

3 See, for ex ampl e, Cuyler Young, “ Value Dri ven, M a r ke t Ori ented, ” R o­ tunda , no ( ) , - ; Roy St rong, “S c h ol a r or Salesman? T h e Cura to r of the Future,” M use , no ( 8 ) , - , and the reply by Terry Fent on in the same issue ( - ) ; Peter Ames, “A Cha ll eng e to Moder n M us e um M a n ­ agement: Reconcili ng Mission and M a r k e t , ” M useum Studies Jou rn a l , no ( 8 ) , -

4 Mar jorie Ha lpin, “Quali ty and the P o s t - M o d e r n Museum, ” paper pre­ sented at the C a nadi an M us eums Ass ociat ion Trainers Works hop, O t t a w a , August

5 R ob ert Kelly’s wo r ks include “Int ernat ional Tourism: Pilgrimage in the Technological Age,” in Chi n T i o n g Tan, W il l i a m Lazer, and V H Kirpalani, eds., Em erging Intern ational Strategic Fron tiers: Proceedings o f the American

Change and Challenge 181

6 T h e results o f this study o f the competitive e nvironment are reported at more length in George M a c D o n a l d and Stephen Alsford, A M useum fo r the G loba l Village: T he C anadian M useum o f C ivilization (Hull: Cana di an M u ­ seum o f Civilization, 9 ) , -

7 Stephen Alsford, “T h e L o o k in g -G la s s World: A Study o f Reconstructed- Co mm un i ty M us eums in C a n a d a ” ( O t ta wa : N at io na l Mus eum o f M a n ,

1 )

8 O n this, see J o h n Fortier, “T h e D il e mm as o f Living History,” in Proceedings o f the Annual M eeting /A LH FA M ], Ju n e - , 1987 (Washington, D C : Association for Living Historical F ar ms and Agricultural Mus eums , 19 9) George F M a c D o n a l d , “T h e Future o f M us e u m s in the Gl obal Village,”

Museum 5 ( ) , 2 - ; G e o r ge F M a c D o n a l d , “E p c o t C ent re in Mus- eological Perspective,” M use , no (April 8 ) , - ; M a c D o n a l d and Alsford, A Museum f o r the G lo b a l Village, - 5

10 F or further info rma ti on, see Ian and Lis Angus, “T h e C a nadi an Museum o f Civilization: T h e M o s t Intelligent Building,” T elem anagem ent 6 (June

1 9 ) , - ; M a c D o n a l d and Alsford, A M useum f o r the G lo b a l V illage, 2 - 2

The Communicative Circle: Museums as Communities

C O N S T A N C E P E R I N

Museums and their audiences are no longer taking their re lation­ ship for granted T h e y are re­ considering it in every dimen­ si o n— intellectual, cultural, educational, political, and aesthetic Muse um professionals are themselves rethinking disciplinary canons and exhibition methods, while citizens, critics, anthropologists, and historians are becoming more involved in the choice and interpreta­ tion o f exhibition t o p ic s Paralleling this ferment, empirical studies o f museum visitors as well as those w ho not visit museums have begun to appear.2 In order to bring together the concerns o f museum professionals, scholars, and critics, on the o ne hand, with the ex pe ct a­ tions and experiences of museum audiences, on the other, I examine the workings o f the communicative circle th at links them as exhibition make rs and viewers

T he museum-audience relationship is mor e complicated than cur­ rent conventions suggest— an inevitable conclusion, perhaps, from a cultural anthropologist, who is always, in Clifford Geertz’s phrase, a “professional comp lica tor ” o f received knowledge To simplify these complications, this paper offers a cultural theory o f representation and reception to guide the reassessment o f both research in cultural studies and practice in museums To develop and ground this theory, I carried out a limited ethnography o f the communicative circle at the

The Communicative Circle i 83

Smithsonian Institution’s Natio nal Museum o f Natural History in Washington, D C T he se data illustrate how, once we acknowledge the cultural processes at w o r k , we might begin to ask and eventually to answer new questions ab out museums’ relationships to their audi­ ences Far from definitive, the theory opens new grounds on which to think abo ut the processes o f exhibition making and viewing, in all their variety and contexts

Draw ing on discourse theory, semantics, and the anthropology o f knowledge, this theory describes the operations o f an ideal co m m u n i­ cative circle for museums, in which exhibition makers and viewers co op erate in achieving mutual understanding Understanding does not necessarily entail agreement: it may lead not only to audience ratifica­ tion and appropriation o f the exhibition makers’ perspectives, but also to audience resistance and reinterpretation as well Acknowledging the existence o f two-way com m uni cat io n between exhibitions and viewers changes conventional conceptions of the exhibition develop­ ment process Currently, museum professionals, drawing on their c ol­ lections, initiate conversations with audiences and activate the c o m ­ municative circle E x h ib it io n makers structure their turns in the conversation with a syntax o f objects Audiences “hear” the messages exhibitions convey, but wh at audiences say during their own turns can today only be assumed Talking only to and among themselves, audi­ ences find that their turns in the muse um’s communicative circle rarely if ever co me up

It is here that the circle breaks apart As they shape their messages exhibition makers have assumed that they have little choice but to imagine viewers’ reception and responses But there is no guarantee that viewers w'ill interpret exhibitions as their makers intend: exhib i­ tions messages are as much constructed by audiences’ interpretations as by cura tor s’ and designers’ intentions Instead, if exhibition devel­ opers’ ideas a bo ut the im portan ce and significance o f a collection— concepts both simple and sophisticated— were to take into account the various ways in which audiences already understand, misunderstand, and see the pertinences o f those concepts, they would enlarge the chan ce o f successful co lla bo tio n between themselves and their audi­ ences T h is theory proposes that by considering representation and reception as cultural processes, this rupture in the communicative circle might be repaired

of this paper was the point of departure for a wo rkshop discussion with about twenty members of the Smithsonian Institution s profes­ sional staff— curators, educators, designers, audience advocates, and administrators from several museums on the M a ll T h a t discussion was recorded, with permission, and its contents are reflected th rou g h­ out this paper (without attribution to particular speakers) Thr oug h­ out, the expe ctatio ns, models, experiences, and perspectives that associate with museum professionals are drawn from their own dis­ course And, to include the wider professional discourse o f historians, anthropologists, and critics, I also refer to relevant published work

In parallel, engaging in discussions with visitors to the National Museum o f N atural History ( N M N H ) , I listened for the frames o f reference they bring to their reception o f exhibitions' messages and through which they understand and interpret them I heard adult visitors talk about their viewing experiences by randomly inviting them to join tape-recorded discussion groups held over coffee and by listening to people w ho were willing to talk a bo ut what they were looking a t I joined a Highlight Tour o f the N M N H led by an experi­ enced docent O f f the M a l l , I recorded a discussion with adults about museumgoing and other subjects, and later I draw on direct quo ta­ tions from these discussions as well as on visitor com m ent s recorded in other studies

As they construct exhibitions museum professionals assume one-way comm unica tion and an unmediated relationship between sending and receiving T h e i r model of the museum-audience relationship assumes that if they kne w how exhibitions ma ke their “im p ac t” on audiences, it would then be possible to develop techniques to assure that their intentions will be received just as they hope they will But this model not only implies audience research projects o f a scope and on a scale that are well beyond museums’ means; it also underestimates the sig­ nificance o f an ex hibition’s “im pact” after the visit ends T h e relation­ ship between exhibitions and what audiences carry away is not linear, but rather is complexly mediated by myriad fact ors , not least o f which are audiences’ repertoires o f prior knowledge, semantic systems, and interpretive frames To reduce these to their lowest co m m o n denomi­ nators (in co ncert with much o f the mass media) not only stereotypes, patronizes, and impoverishes, but also assumes a unitary public

The Communicative Circle i 85

should include rationales for choo sing exhibition rhetorics and te ch ­ niques intended to stimulate, enlighten, and inform museum visitors in ways that other media c a n n o t replicate T h e theory o f representa­ tion and reception I present here and the practices it implies can o f course only partially transform muse ums ’ mo nologic stance toward their publics; to acknowledge a plurality o f audience voices in m u ­ seums’ communicative circles, many kinds o f strategies are needed

By concentrating on adult audiences, I complicate a second model through which the audience-exhibition relationship is currently under­ stood, namely the teacher-student relationship At the extreme, some curators regard an exhibition as a direct translation o f their semester lectures to undergraduates Students tend to represent a relatively homogeneous age and s o c io e c o n o m ic group Adults, by contrast, have experienced more varied life co nt ex ts and situations, which c o n ­ dition their viewing experiences and interpretations Moreover, stu­ dents are more likely not only to experience museums as extensions o f classrooms but subsequently to talk abo ut their museum visits in more or less structured situations with peers and teachers

As differently as adults’ museum experiences may be situated, we know little abo ut them, however We can speculate that adults’ view­ ing experiences are less likely to be structured ahead o f time; nor is there any institutionalized interest afterward in the immediate or long­ term intellectual, affective, or cognitive consequences o f these e xp e r i­ ences In the days and weeks after a visit, adults may or may not refer to their museum experiences as they carry on their everyday lives Although it stands to reason that they continue to integrate th e m — with their reading, in co nv ers at io n, and at the movies, for e xam pl e— we just d o n ’t kn ow much a bo ut the longer-term “impacts” o f m u ­ seums on adult visitors

o f newspapers and television, they prefer exhibi tions that are st r u c ­ tured to resemble familiar media If the “headlines” are right, they believe, more visitors will be motivated to mo ve to the next “layer” o f exhibition details, and thereby learn more E x h ib it io n makers discuss these as “ten-second points” and “sixty-second points, for e xam pl e

Such expectations define a co ntinuum anch ore d by tw o poles that I call spectacle and cabinet Spectacles that emphasize large scale and dramatic portrayals are believed to draw viewers into the deeper “layers” o f elaboration that offer detailed evidence and e xp la n at io ns o f patterns In offering a “quick read,” which is believed to appeal to streakers, spectacles require curators to condense their conce pts into “basic underlying me ssa g es ” C u to rs may then feel themselves lim­ ited to co mm unicating only the most general conce pt s, which may no t justice either to the collection or to visitors’ curiosities T h i s t e m p o ­ ral model o f reception processes may e xa ce rb a te rather than reduce the political and creative tensions between curators and designers in­ herent in the exhibition development p r o ce ss

Besides those impact, academic, and temporal models, here are others I distill from the ways that museum professionals express their conceptions o f the relationship between exhibi tio ns and audiences:

A ctive learning. Active-learning models emphasize physical interac­ tion with co mputer screens and k ey bo ard s, levers, buttons, and other such sensory interfaces, which involve visitors by giving them some control over their viewing T he se techniques recognize an increasingly wide range o f learning styles (such as nonlinear, affective, and expe ri­ ential) Children’s learning is stressed

The Communicative Circle I 87

cant principles o f design, administrative decisions, and funding op po r­ tunities During the exhib ition development process, entertainment values are in tension with educational values, and museum profes­ sionals sometimes characterize their choices as being on a co ntinuum between “glitz” and “pure in fo rm at io n ”

R hetorical. T h is model for reaching audiences combines curatorial charisma with the theatrics o f design Dedicated to their subjects and engrossed in their complexities and mysteries, curators are indefatig­ able champions of enlightenment; exhibitions translate their passion for persuading, converting, and proselytizing on behalf o f their spe­ cialties and the excitements o f scholarship Jus t as enthusiastically, designers strive to achieve visually dramatic exhibitions During the development process, cu to rs and designers continually negotiate the priority o f content and form C u t o r s may nevertheless regard their exhibition-making activities ambivalently: their honor, reputation, and membership in the curatorial community, inside and outside their discipline and museum, depend far more on their specialist research and publications than on co m m u n i ca ti n g with lay audiences M u c h o f the work o f educators and administrators, who are perforce c o n ­ cerned with audiences, is structured by that ambivalence Pushing charisma to its limits, audience studies and a team approach to e x h i b i ­ tion development are so metimes eschewed; in this model, curators alone should be the comp os er s and orchestrators o f messages that they “intuit” will appeal to audiences

A esthetic. In this model, gaze, not voice, is the chief me diator o f the relationship between viewer and ex hibi tion, the formal and aesthetic qualities o f which are seen as being valuable and compelling in th em ­ selves apart from the cont ent In tension with didactic and rhetorical models, the aesthetic model raises questions that preoccupy profes­ sional discourses

M U S E U M S A S C O M M U N I T I E S

interpretive communities that construe and construct the knowledge o f their special fields M us e um s’ internal sociology, politics, and cul­ tural structures significantly affect the nature o f exhibition m a k e r s’ conversations with audiences

But because the dynamics o f this inner circle tend not to be a c ­ knowledged as affecting its interpretive w o r k and its representations, “the museum” tends to be conceived as a single, co rporate agent T h a t totalizing illusion has given rise to the legalistic if not adversarial notion o f audience “advocates”— museum professionals who represent the concerns and interests of various publics T h e re is no denying that museums— that is, the communities that fund and w o r k in th em— have more often limited than widened their circles Considering now ho w to listen to audience voices requires that we understand more about how curators, designers, ed ucators, and administrators talk among themselves and how their discourse is affected by bringing others into it

These professional communities c a n , understandably, be th rea t­ ened by what they see as challenges to their expertise and their social and institutional authority, as well as by challenges to their preconcep­ tions o f audiences In practice, however, this theory o f representation and reception, as I will illustrate, is intended to broaden rather than narrow their freedom to express a wider scope o f intellectual and disciplinary concerns and to maintain balan ce between exhibition con­ tent and display technique

Visitors, too , belong to co mm uni tie s, which, from a c o m m u n i c a ­ tive perspective, are more significantly defined as interpretive c o m m u ­ nities rather than as ethnic communities o r age or interest groups, for example W he n visitors are viewed as m em be rs o f the communicative circle, it is more telling to identify them by the frames o f reference that filter their viewing experiences than by s o ci o ec o n o m ic criteria The ir relative opportunities to discuss their muse um experiences during a visit are also significant differentiae: the kinds o f wo rk that visitors to assimilate and situate their museum experiences depend on social contexts, as does any learning experience Yet, as I have said, we know little about how visitors process their reception either on-site or later, alone or in discussions

The Communicative Circle I 89

school groups led by teachers; in family groups; in groups o f peers (older or younger adults, adolescents or children); in pairs; or alone

A couple looking at an exhibition on M in n e s o t a history at the National Museum of American History were recollecting memories of a visit they had made to family members ab o u t ten years before A museum educator wh o overheard them reflected to me, “If you looked at them, you wouldn’t kn o w wh at they were doing I imagine that this happens many times, but it was the first I’d seen T h e exhibit designer would probably be upset, because that was not the experience he had the intention of creating.” Similarly, this educ ator recollected, a study o f visitors to an o utd oor science museum found that mothers most o f the talking in family groupings; they refer to objects as a way of talking ab o u t values and family history, rather than talking about the objects per se T he theory o f representation and reception that I pre­ sent here redefines such w o r k o f interpretive communities as invalu­ able consequences o f museum visits, rather than as evidence o f exhib i­ tion make rs ’ failure

At the Portland (O re g o n ) M use um o f Art, where the Rasmussen Collection o f Northwest C o a s t pieces is being reinstalled, J a m e s Clif­ ford reports that many pro minent Tlingit elders were brought in to interpret particular ob jects and to “say how they thought ab out these objects.” Until then, he and many o f the curators had been “very much focused on the objects themselves.”

I guess we were expect ing the elders to explicate them in some sort of detailed way: this is h o w this obj ec t functioned, it was made by so- and-so, this is what its po we r is in terms o f the clan, in terms o f our t raditi ons— whatever B u t, in fact, the objects were not the subject of much direct co mm ent a ry by the elders, who had their own agenda for the meeting N o t that the object s were u ni mpo rt an t; they were i mpo rt ant But they served essentially as kind o f aides-memoire for the telling o f rather e l a b o r a t e stories and the singing o f many songs And in s om e sense the physical o b j ec t s, at least as I saw it, were left at the margin W h a t really took center stage were stories and songs And these stories suggested by the o bject s are very po we r­ ful s tor ies

W h e n audiences “read b e y on d” ex hi bi tio ns , as it were, rather than reading them directly, they are draw ing on various ways o f ratify­ ing and appropriating ex hi bi tio ns ’ messages T h e Japanese “art o f citation,” a convention whereby obje cts intentionally refer audiences to collective myths to remind them that they belong to the same inter­ pretive community, is a cultural process with distinctively American parallels.6

After outlining the sociolinguistic dimensions o f the c o m m u n i c a ­ tive circle, I illustrate how to gain access to the cultural resources tha t populate audiences’ ordering systems and provide evidence of w h a t , in this instance, I found there All together, my approach aims to give both curators and exhibition designers access to a theoretically grounded body o f information ab o ut audiences’ conceptual recep­ tivities Knowing more abo ut these receptivities puts museum profes­ sionals in a better position to m a k e principled choices th roughout their representation processes

A C U L T U R A L T H E O R Y O F R E P R E S E N T A T I O N A N D R E C E P T I O N

T h e C om m u n icative Circle

T h e central issue for the comm uni cat iv e circle is audiences’ conceptual receptivities to exh ibitions, no matter whether audiences assimilate or contest exhib it io ns’ contents E x h ib it io n contents and rhetorics that activate relevant resources and repertoires stand a better chance o f inviting audiences’ involvement in interpretation

In exhibition making, as in speaking, I suggest, the audience understanding that curators and designers seek “comes to fruition only in the response” :

fhe Communicative Circle I I

In choosing among various ways o f conveying their ideas, speakers and exhibition makers draw on their expectations of and beliefs about what their audiences are likely to “assimilate in their conceptual sys­ tems.” For comm uni cat io n to occur, audiences must collaborate with them Indeed, sociolinguists suggest that the audience should be c o n ­ sidered a “co a ut ho r ” in that the resources it draws on equally define what it understands.8 Audiences are as creative and constructivist in receiving exhibitions’ messages as curators and designers are in c o m ­ posing them

T he ir previous knowledge or curiosity about a particular subject is only one aspect o f audiences’ “ground for understanding.” T he ir ordering systems fill out the rest— the frames o f reference through which they situate, co nt ex tua liz e, translate, evaluate, and interpret what they see and experience T h e museum c o nt ex t, almost by defini­ tion, presents audiences with artifacts and information that fall o ut­ side o f the demands o f their daily routines and relationships, yet their responses are grounded in many o f the same assumptions, wo rld ­ views, knowledge, and associations through which they make sense o f the world

The relationship between exhibitions o f ethnographic artifacts and viewers is considered by M ic h a e l Baxandall as a “field o f ex hibi­ tion ” occupied by the original ma k e rs o f ob jects on display, by e xh ib i­ tion designers, who label and situate these objects vis-a-vis one a n ­ other in the present, and by the viewer, w h o , upon reading labels and viewing o bj ec ts, occupies a “space in which [he] will act by his own lights to his own ends.”9 T h e ex h ib i to r should help to enlarge that mental space, thereby putting viewers to w o rk at making their own connections:

To offer a pregnant cultural fact and let the viewer work at it is surely both mor e tactful and st imulating than explicit interpretation Suffi­ cient interpretation lies in the selection o f the fact Th is can be made even more wholes ome by incor por at ing a c on ce pt , indeed a word, from the culture that produced the object T h e systematic i n c o m ­ patibility o f another culture’s c on ce pt with o n e ’s own culture not only makes the viewer w o r k , but reminds him o f cultural di f fe re n ce 10