Week 7

1. Cultural
Appropriation

2. • Walk Like An Egyptian –The Bangles (1986)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tuzHUuuk
• Unconditionally - Katy Perry at AMA (2013)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXqcjgX-I9E

3. Cultural
Appropriation
1. The taking of intellectual property, traditional
knowledge, cultural expressions or artifacts from
another culture without permission
2. In most cases, it is a borrowing of cultural elements
(imagery, artifacts, clothing, music, religion, style)
from people who have been marginalized by
racism, stereotypes, colonialism and global
oppression

5. Music
Fashion
Sports
Politics
Popular Culture

13. “As a Cherokee Nation citizen, I
have witnessed countless
examples of the appropriation of
NativeAmerican imagery and
identity by non-Indigenous
people. But Angeli’s pose—and its
iconographic significance—is not
just another instance of cultural
appropriation. It is also an
expression of an enduring desire
for indigeneity without Indigenous
people.”

14. Whatdoescultural
appropriationlooklikeinart
world?

15. Definitions

16. • ”Culture”
• Cultural Specificity and Culture Clash
• Cultural Property
• Cultural Policy + Repatriation
• AppropriatingCultural Identity
• Cultural Borrowing + Cultural Appropriation

18. “Culture”
Raymond
Williams “Key
Words”
• A particular way of life, whether of a people, a period, a group, or
humanity in general
• Used to emphasize national and traditional cultures –including
‘American culture’, ‘Indigenous culture,’ ‘folk culture’
• A society or particular way of living – ’fraternity culture’,
‘European culture’, ‘SouthernCulture’ also subcultures included
here. i.e., ‘ballroom culture’
• Used to refer to minority/marginalized groups within a larger
dominant culture – ‘Catalan culture,’ ‘African–American culture’,
‘Inuit culture’, ‘Kurdish culture’
• A synonym for ‘civilization’ – ‘high’ vs. ‘low’ culture/’popular’ vs.
‘intellectual ‘culture or arts and culture

20. Cultural
Organizations
Examples
• Art organizations (museums, theaters, dance halls,
symphony spaces, etc.)
• History museums
• Libraries
• Culturally-specific organizations - Native American
Cultural Center, Hispanic Heritage Cultural Institute,
The Centro Culturale Italiano di Buffalo

21. Culturally Universal Culturally Specific
Marriage monogamy,
polygamy, gay
marriage, arranged
marriage
Diet vegetarian, fasting,
omnivore
Death rituals cremation, burial

23. Cultural Position of the viewer:
Sturken – our cultural positioning determines, in part,
how we interpret image
Nationality/religion/race/gender/politics + law/age/etc.

24. TheGuggenheim+
CultureClash

25. Art And China
After 1989:
Theater OfThe
World
October 6, 2017
–
January 7, 2018
• 150 artworks in exhibition – most never seen in US.
• Work in exhibition highly experimental
• Pulled 3 works which all involve animals after protests by PETA
(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and others
• The three works in the Guggenheim show were created
between 1993 and 2003 and were intended to symbolically
depict oppression in China
• Cultural interpretation vs. artist intention in the use of animals
as artistic material

29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-
vxuesH75w

30. PETA’s letter to
the
Guggenheim
Museum
September 25
(except)
“In this exhibition, you invite visitors to examine a video of dogs
trying to fight one another while chained to a non-motorized
treadmill as well as a piece in which live insects and reptiles will
devour each other inside a cage….The animals in these exhibits
are not willing participants, and no one should force sentient
beings into stressful situations for ‘art’ or ‘sport.’
People who find entertainment in watching animals try to fight
each other are sick individuals whose twisted whims the
Guggenheim should refuse to cater to. …Dogfighting is
reprehensible, and it’s up to each of us to do what we can to stop
it.The Guggenheim can do its part by simply refusing to display
exhibitions that encourage such abuse to animals.”

31. CollegeArt
Association
“The Use of
Animal Subjects
in Art:
Statement of
Principles and
Suggested
Considerations”
Artists and other professionals in the visual arts must be allowed
the full range of expressive possibilities in order for art to
maintain a vital role in human society.With that expression,
however, comes responsibility when artists and others use animal
subjects in art. CAA does not endorse any work of art that results
in cruelty toward animal subjects. Further, given that animals do
not have the right of refusal, CAA calls on artists and other
professionals in the visual arts to examine with the greatest of
care any practices that require the use of animals in art.

33. Cultural
Difference
1. In U.S. we have come to an agreement as a
culture/around protection of animals/animal rights
2. China = a different cultural perspective on the
exhibition of animals/use of animals as artistic
material
3. In U.S. we also have a cultural agreement
regarding freedom of expression

34. • Varied cultural P.O.V.
• curatorial/artist intention vs. spectatorial
reception
• free speech vs. animal rights

35. Guggenheim
Museum
Statement
“Although these works have been exhibited in
museums in Asia, Europe and the United States,
the Guggenheim regrets that explicit and repeated
threats of violence have made our decision
necessary.As an arts institution committed to
presenting a multiplicity of voices, we are
dismayed that we must withhold works of art.”

36. Criticism from ArtWorld
“Museums are here to show works
that are difficult, uncomfortable,
provocative.The chilling effect of
this of course is museums will now
look to make exhibitions that won’t
in any way offend.”Tom Eccles,
executive director of the Center for
Curatorial Studies at Bard College
PEN America called the
Guggenheim’s decision “a major
blow to artistic freedom”

38. CulturalProperty+
Repatriation

39. Cultural Appropriation (again)
The taking of intellectual property,
traditional knowledge, cultural
expressions or artifacts from another
culture without permission
In most cases, it’s a mainstream
culture borrowing cultural elements
(imagery, artifacts, clothing, music,
religion, style) from people who have
been marginalized by racism,
stereotypes, colonialism and global
oppression

40. Cultural
Property
artworks, antiquities, books, manuscripts, scientific
collections, collections of books or archives, monuments
of architecture, groups of buildings, and archeological
sites. It has been further expanded to include
ethnological and paleontological objects, including the
bodies and bones of individuals.

43. Repatriation

44. • Repatriation is the return of art or cultural property to
the country of origin or former owners (or their heirs).
• Repatriation of cultural property happens on national
+ international levels

46. Parthenon
Marbles/Elgin
Marbles

47. Parthenon Marbles/Elgin Marbles
Removed from the Parthenon on the
Athenian Acropolis byThomas Bruce, the
seventh Earl of Elgin in the early 19th century.
Elgin’s men removed the objects under a
royal mandate granted to Elgin by the
Ottoman government, then occupying
Greece
The British government purchased the
sculptures from Elgin in 1816, and they have
resided in the British Museum since that
time.
The Greek government has called for the
return of the sculptures since Greece secured
its independence in 1832

49. Do counties have rights to antiquities that are part of their
cultural history before they were modern nations?

50. Issues with
repatriation
• No museums/proper archival care/storage
facilities or money to build them
• Dictators who may sell off work
• Colonial/Western systems of display/need for new
ideas around display

51. Two
arguments re:
Elgin Marbles
I.
“A museum is not entitled to possess another people’s
cultural heritage simply because a representative of their
nation had the means to plunder objects during a
vulnerable time”
Leila Amineddoleh, Executive director of the Lawyers’
Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation

52. II.
“In an era of globalization that is nonetheless marked by
resurgent nationalism and sectarianism,… Cultural
property should be recognized for what it is: the legacy
of humankind and not of the modern nation-state,
subject to the political agenda of its current ruling elite.”
James Cuno, President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty
Trust, and the former director of the Harvard Art
Museums, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the Art
Institute of Chicago

56. “With regard to the notion of belonging and possession
of objects of other cultures, the artists intention is to
make cultural objects publicly accessible.”
“With the data leak as a part of this counter narrative we
want to activate the artefact, to inspire a critical re-
assessment of today’s conditions and to overcome the
colonial notion of possession in Germany”
Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles
Open Source:
http://nefertitihack.alloversky.com/

57. RepatriationintheU.S.A.

58. “The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has sent back
52 objects — 46 to Italy, six to Greece — since 2005,
while the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NewYork
ceded title to 19 antiquities in its permanent collection to
the government of Egypt in 2010, and 16 to Italy in 2006;
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts transferred 13 objects to
Italy that same year, and the Cleveland Museum of Art
sent back 14 works to the country in 2008.”
Daniel Grant, March 18, 2014, Hyperallergic

60. US to Return Looted
Antiquities to Iraq

61. Native
American
Graves
Protection and
Repatriation
Act (1990)
• Describes the rights of Native American lineal
descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian
organizations with respect to the treatment, repatriation,
and disposition of Native American human remains,
funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural
patrimony, referred to collectively as cultural items.
• Federal agencies and museums receiving Federal funds
inventory holdings of NativeAmerican human remains
and funerary objects and provide written summaries of
other cultural items.
• The agencies and museums must consult with Indian
Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to attempt to
reach agreements on the repatriation or other disposition
of these remains and objects.

62. Native
American
Repatriation =
Slow
• NativeAmerican groups must show a relationship
of lineal descent or cultural affiliation for
repatriation to happen
• Sometimes conflicting claims
• Who owns the past?Who defines lineage?

63. NAGPRAComics
SonyaAtalay
(Anishinaabe-Ojibwe
https://nagpracomics.weebly.com/the-
comics.html

64. CulturalBorrowing

65. Cultural borrowing is the adoption of ideas, practices or
rituals from another culture, ethic group or religion.
Christians practicing Buddhist concepts
Non-Christians celebrating Christmas
Cultural borrowing in the arts is adopting techniques and
practices from another culture, ethic group or religion.
Western musicians incorporating sitars into rock music

66. Sketching at the museum

67. History

68. Borrowing of
Techniques:
Impressionists +
Japonisme/Japonism
• Japanese influence on Western art, often known as
“Japonism”
• Large-scale exhibition of prints made from Japanese
color woodblocks (ukiyo-e) Paris in 1890
• Huge influence on Impressionist painters
• They were fascinated by the exuberantly colored
works + started making color prints for the first time in
Europe

71. Picasso’s
“African
Period”
• From 1907-1909 Picasso had what is known as his
“African period"
• He became avid collector of African art, and especially
masks that inspired him for the rest of his career.
• African masks, and their three-dimensional
representations, influenced Picasso’s cubism

76. When does cultural borrowing move from
influence to exploitation???

77. German
Expressionism
1903-1933

78. German
Expressionism
+
“Primitivism”
• Borrows/appropriates techniques, imagery and art forms from
non-Western peoples and tribal artifacts
• Evoke the “primitive” as a sign on which to map what they see as
a socially, sexually and psychologically suppressed German
culture in the early 1900s (anti-bourgeois values)
• “Primitive art + culture” = desire, emotion and sexual abandon
• Non-western art = “primitive”
• Ethnocentric/degrading/racist term and POV
• “primitive” and “primitivism” in quotations

85. DamienHirst
2017VeniceBiennale
"TreasuresfromtheWreck
oftheUnbelievable"

86. Treasure from theWreck ofThe Unbelievable
was an an installation Hirst created for the
Venice Biennale that was staged across two
galleries– 5000 square feet .
The installation tells the story of the
ancient wreck of a ship, the ‘Unbelievable’
and presents what was discovered of its
precious cargo –
Took Hirst 10 years to make all of the items
that are in the exhibition – its not real
shipwreck but a narrative, fantasy that he’s
created

89. ‘Commemoration
Art’asCultural
Appropriation
Rashmee Roshan

90. Guernica (1937)
Pablo Picasso
The commemoration of horrific international, national or regional events is not new to artistic practice

92. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM32T
L7VnOw

93. Rashmee
Roshan
“Can cultural
appropriation
ever ease Syria’s
suffering?”
• “Can creative commemoration by outsiders ever be more than a
form of cultural appropriation?”
• “The Names ofThose Killed in the Syrian Conflict”(2017) -
Santiago Sierra’s 8-Day performance in which the names of those
who have died in Syria were read aloud at the Center of
Contemporary Art.Tel-Aviv, Israel
• “It counted up people who were identified by their full names or
by a clear relationship to another identified person on the list.
And it arrived at 144,308 people who were definitely and
identifiably killed in the Syrian conflict from 2011 to 2016. Of this
number, it said, 16,272 should be listed as “non-identified” or
without their full names.
• Does counting ease suffering? Does providing a full accounting
ease suffering? Does it highlight suffering for the rest of the
world? Does this event “belong” to a global community?

94. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxz
PlzdMrP4

95. What about this work? Is it the cultural appropriation of grief? Does it ease Syria’s
suffering? Do you see this work differently now that you’ve read about cultural
appropriation?

96. Casestudies:
TheWalker
+
TheWhitney

97. How
exhibitions
work…
(highly
abridged
version)
1. Curators and other museum personnel select the works that are
exhibited in a museum (temporary exhibition or from the collection) and
design the exhibition (location of work, educational materials, etc.)
2.The artist signs a contract for a temporary exhibition/different
contracts
3. If the museum owns the artwork, there is often no specific contract –
they have a right to exhibit the work
4. It is often very difficult for an artist to withdraw a work of art from a
temporary exhibition once it has been installed– this can violate their
contract
5. However, museums often have clauses that allow for things like –
closing an exhibition early, etc.
5. It is illegal for a museum, gallery etc. to destroy an artwork they own
without the permission of the artist (public art) –VisualArtists RightsAct
(1990)

101. Description
A representation of seven gallows used in historic U.S.
government executions, including those of abolitionist
John Brown in 1859, four anarchists in Chicago’s 1886
Haymarket affair, credited as the inspiration for
international workers’ May Day observances, the
deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2006 and, in
1862, 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minn. — the largest
mass execution in U.S. history

103. Exhibition
Intent
“We were always hoping to bring awareness and
understanding to this event in Minnesota history as part
of the larger context in history that the piece represents,
but we came to understand that the work would only be
really seen through the lens of trauma. What we hoped
would be legible as a way to surface a little-understood
and suppressed moment in Minnesota history could
really only be seen on literal terms, and not on
representational terms. Again, really just seen through
the lens of trauma.”
OlgaViso,Walker, Executive Director

104. Some context
• Exhibited in Europe, but never previously in US
• Purchased byTheWalker in 2014
• The specified siteing of the work: It was to be
exhibited in a public space, rather then within the
museum, with non-political works
• Exhibited in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in
2017 as a project of the Walker and the
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

115. Statement by
artist Sam
Durant
“I made Scaffold as a learning space for people like me,
white people who have not suffered the effects of a
white supremacist society and who may not consciously
know that it exists. It has been my belief that white
artists need to address issues of white supremacy and its
institutional manifestations. Whites created the concept
of race and have used it to maintain dominance for
centuries, whites must be involved in its dismantling.
However, your protests have shown me that I made a
grave miscalculation in how my work can be received by
those in a particular community. In focusing on my
position as a white artist making work for that audience,
I failed to understand what the inclusion of the Dakota
38 in the sculpture could mean for Dakota people. I offer
my deepest apologies for my thoughtlessness. I should
have reached out to the Dakota community the moment
I knew that the sculpture would be exhibited at the
Walker Art Center in proximity to Mankato.

116. Process
• Mediation with Dakota elders
• Work dismantled
• Work buried (not burned)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCFdtKH8zUk

117. Statement by
NCAC
National
Coalition
Against
Censorship
“Cultural institutions and artists urgently need to develop
creative ways to respond to such critique and controversy
and productively engage diverse communities while taking
seriously their responsibility for the artworks that are in
their care.Without active institutional support for their
work, artists—who can face extreme pressure on social
media, ad hominem attacks and even physical threats—may
feel they have little choice but to consent to their work’s
destruction, to commit to avoiding certain subjects in their
art (self-censorship), and or even to sign away their
intellectual property rights.
TheWalker’s decision to destroy Scaffold as a way to
respond to protests sets an ominous precedent: not only
does it weaken the institution’s position in future
programming but sends a chill over artists’—and other
cultural institutions’—commitment to creating and
exhibiting political, socially relevant work. ”

118. Critical
Analysis:
Tease out
different
issues
• Thinking of the artwork, itself:What is the difference
between Scaffold and commemorative artworks by
Picasso, Diller, and Julien? Is there a difference? By
Sierra? By AiWeiWei?
• What role does the siteing of this work in the sculpture
garden play in the controversy?
• What is the role/responsibility of the museum to the
community and to the artist?
• What does it mean to destroy an artwork, even one
we disagree with, in a country that values freedom of
speech (and where freedom of speech is under
attack)?

124. Artist Intention
“I made this painting in August of 2016 after a
summer that felt like a state of emergency—there
were constant mass shootings, racist rallies filled
with hate speech, and an escalating number of
camera-phone videos of innocent black men being
shot by police.The photograph of EmmettTill felt
analogous to the time: what was hidden was now
revealed.
The painting is very different from the photograph. I
could never render the photograph ethically or
emotionally.”

125. 2017Whitney
Biennial
Theme:
curators,
ChristopherY.
Lew + Mia
Locks
The 2017 Whitney Biennial, the seventy-eighth
installment of the longest-running survey of American
art, arrives at a time rife with racial tensions, economic
inequities, and polarizing politics.Throughout the
exhibition, artists challenge us to consider how these
realities affect our senses of self and community.The
Biennial features sixty-three individuals and collectives
whose work takes a wide variety of forms, from painting
and installation to activism and video-game design.

126. Hannah Black,
Open Letter
• “I am writing to ask you to remove Dana Schutz’s
painting ‘Open Casket’ and with the urgent
recommendation that the painting be destroyed and
not entered into any market or museum.”
• “Although Schutz’s intention may be to present white
shame, this shame is not correctly represented as a
painting of a dead Black boy by a white artist — those
non-Black artists who sincerely wish to highlight the
shameful nature of white violence should first of all
stop treating Black pain as raw material.The subject
matter is not Schutz’s; white free speech and white
creative freedom have been founded on the constraint
of others and are not natural rights.The painting must
go.”

128. Artist Devin Kenny, in a Facebook post from March 16,
posed a series of questions that spoke to the concerns of
some of those who were hearing of the painting for the
first time: “what action is this work purportedly, and
actually, doing? does it inform? shock? build connection?
help a new audience understand either emotionally or
intellectually the complex set of factors all falling under
the umbrella of white supremacy, sexism, and anti-
blackness that led to this young person’s death? if no,
what element of the history is being tapped into and
depicted? if not regarding the history referenced in the
image, and instead about the culture of photography
and its circulation, why was that particular example
chosen?”

129. Bright wore a t-shirt saying “Black Death Spectacle.”

133. Critical
Analysis:
Tease out
different
issues
• How do we read this work? Commemorative work like
Picasso, Diller, Julien (part of their country’s recent
history)?Appropriation of grief like Sierra, AiWeiWei,
etc.?
• What was the responsibility of the curators/museum?
• What was the responsibility of the artist?
• Should a work of art ever be removed from an
exhibition?