During our discussion today about the contemporary Haitian art on display at Crealde, we mainly focused on discovering what connections there might be between Haitian culture and religious practice, and the objects we found in front of us. We did not discuss the artists as individuals with different things to say, rather we painted their intentions with a broad brush. Why do you think this was a natural first step for our group in engaging with this work and what would be the next logical step in trying to gain a better understanding of the work in the exhibition?
As Western students, we automatically labeled all of the work on display as a national representative of Haitian contemporary art. We did not consider the fact that Haitian art is as broad as our own nation's works, nor did we consider that each of the artist's had his or her own identity issues at hand. This is not only a byproduct of our singular, Western way of thinking, but also because of the way the works are displayed. Compiling the works of several different artists into one gallery automatically makes us search for a common theme among the pieces. This is applicable to other galleries outside of the Crealde setting. For example, when entering a "modernist" gallery we are more likely to ask, "how each work contributes to modernism?" than contemplate on each singular artist. Yet, the fact that we are outsiders to this nation's art also lead us to simplify it into a more manageable category and search for common national themes.
ReplyDeleteTo rectify the situation we should attempt to research the individual artists, as we have with other contemporary artists. In this way we may be able to understand more of the imagery at play. For example, we were only able to apply national themes to the light box art and there certainly seems to be an identity issue at hand. Understanding the artists would allow us a more in depth perspective about the artwork.
The broad generalizations that we used to describe the art found in the Crealde gallery was, in my opinion, a harkening back to Sontag’s theory that art has the ability to make us nervous and, therefore, our interpretations of it tend to diminish it in order to make it more manageable. Because none of us are particularly learned in Haitian culture and religion, I think the art we encountered was intimidating and our anemic interpretations attempted to make the images more palatable. In one case, I was simply dismissive of the three works using dolls because of my ignorance of the nuances of the religion. There was definitely an intimidating factor when I viewed them and I was less inclined to study them in-depth because I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at. I think that David is correct when he said that the way in which we encountered the art, in one gallery show, heavily influenced how we then discussed it. The inclusion of these specific works into one show made us automatically look for the common denominator in all of the works and not for the individuality of the artists and their own personal messages. I believe that in order to have a deeper conversation regarding these works we would have to investigate the individual artists. I also think that a better understanding of Haitian culture, especially religion, would greatly benefit the discussion of these works.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I was not a part of the discussion on the Crealde exhibit, I can understand why it was the group's natural inclination to address the artists collectively over individually. In our discussion on postcolonialism, we talked about the way the Western perspective on other cultures is predominant, so it is essential that artists from these "foreign" cultures create works to represent their backgrounds. This is both a blessing and a curse because we receive exposure to a representation of a specific culture, but we do not see each artist's personal intentions. For instance, in the case of Kimsooja's bottaris, a viewer will likely only see an Asian-looking decoration with beautiful aesthetic qualities. If the viewer did research, he would understand the work on a deeper level because he would know what they mean in Korean culture. When my classmates viewed the Haitian art, I believe they got caught up (I would have, too) in the idea that the works are a representation of Haitian culture. As both David and Clareese said, it would be beneficial to research each of the artists' intentions to achieve a better understanding of the works. As I have been saying since the beginning of the course, the experience of a work is shared by the artist AND the viewer, so it is important for the viewer to make an effort on his side as well. Had we not learned about El Anatsui and Kimsooja in class, I would have had a much lesser experience in viewing the works.
ReplyDeleteArt provides people with a chance to encounter new ideas, cultures, and identities and learn about the significance behind each one. However, the expansive bodies of works by artists all over the world make it impossible for the viewer to understand each artwork or be comfortable with the content being displayed. I experienced this reaction to the Haitian art exhibit at Crealde. Knowing so little about the background of Haitian art and the practices of its people, I naturally took what little knowledge I did have and generally applied it to all the pieces. I agree with Clareese that, “the art we encountered was intimidating and our anemic interpretations attempted to make the images more palatable.” There were quite a few pieces that were somewhat disturbing to view and daunting to try and interpret.
ReplyDeleteThe next step in trying to gain a better understanding of the work in the exhibition would be to conduct research on the country’s history, people, and culture to have some context in which to interpret the art. I would also find a few well-known Haitian artists, in addition to the ones displayed at the exhibit, and research their works and what see topics these artists focus on.
Most of the time, or at least from what I have witnessed, when coming across something that we, either as a person, a group, or a society, will almost automatically generalize the situation. It’s used as a coping mechanism to help us decipher whatever is in front of at the time. This applies to how we didn’t not, as David points out, ‘consider the fact that Haitian art is as broad as our own nation’s works, nor did we consider that each of the artist’s had his or her own identity issues at hand.’ It’s hard to go that far deep into the art’s conceptual design, but understandable. We knew nothing of the culture, and that was really the only thing we could get a grasp on.
ReplyDeleteThe next step would be, now that we have already been introduced into this culture, is to look into the works and find out when they were made and what was going on in that time period. It would serves extremely purposeful to understanding the artist’s personal intent, rather than just the cultural intent.
When we visited Crealde last week, we were given one hour to engage with several pieces of Haitian artwork. We were asked to decipher these works based on their formal elements (medium, color scheme, movement, symbolism) as well as our understanding of Haitian religious practices, namely voudoo. Given the time alloted to us and our limited prior knowledge, it wasn't surprising that we lumped these works together in a collective unit--"A Haitian voudoo exhibit" per say--rather than trying to understand each artist's background and content individually.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this class, we've come to learn that this is problem: each artist SHOULD be researched in order for us to fully understand their work. The culture they represent should be researched to fully understand their work. It's impossible to grasp the message behind the medium otherwise. As Western students and artists, its our responsibility to educate ourselves and try to see things through other people's lenses as much as possible. This involves taking extra time out of our crazy, fast-paced lives to do some extra research though, so it's not something we always make the time to do.
Seeing as we did not have much background knowledge about these Haitian artists, I think using this “broad brush” technique of evaluating was exactly where we should have begun. It allows the viewer to engage with the work, and draw comparisons without knowing much about their intentions behind the piece. Naturally, we are quite biased due to our Western origins and how we see and interpret works of art. It makes the most sense for the next step to be finding out more information about the artists and their intentions behind the pieces. For example, we could gather information about the kinds of colors used and what they represented in regards to the spirits and culture of Haitians. Knowing these color schemes for different spirits and those having to do with identity can open up new doors to our interpretation of the pieces. Also, just knowing more about their culture, and the identity of the artists would help aid our understanding.
ReplyDeleteI think Caty's statement, "We were asked to decipher these works based on their formal elements (medium, color scheme, movement, symbolism) as well as our understanding of Haitian religious practices, namely voudoo," is a main reason why we generalized the artists by lumping them together into one big group. Limited time as well as limited knowledge on Haitian art forced us to rely on what pervious knowledge we had on the subject. Since I don't think any of us has seen much Haitian art in our lives, we immediately drew influence from popular culture. I know one of the first things I thought of was the Haitian drug dealing gangsters from the movie Bad Boys II: dread locks, devil-ish worship, drug and alcohol abuse, and speaking in a native unrecognizable tongue. The fact that we did immediately clump all the artists together as these types of people speaks to our underlying belief in stereotypes as a society. As much as we try and not believe in stereotypes, the different times throughout our lives when we've have experienced certain stereotypes to be true are what stand out to us the most. So when we encounter a certain culture again, whatever ideas the stereotypes we hold of that culture will stick out in our heads unless we are taught or experience otherwise.
ReplyDeleteWhen we think and look at art, Haiti is not the first place that comes to mind. I think we are ethnocentric in a way, because we do not necessarily see this as high art. We are very used to our cultural values and heritage that we did not dig deep at first with their culture, which is rich and does have elements of high art. We are prone to viewing art that is more on the surface with Greece, Rome, Italy, France and England. This is not our fault, as this is what we have been taught, but it does make us biased, even if it is unintentional.
ReplyDeleteThe next logical step in trying to gain a better understanding of the work in the exhibition would be to educate us on the rich culture that Haiti has. Instead of seeing their art as not developed from Renaissance to Baroque to Impressionism to Modernism, we look at it as a completely new world of art. It does require one to educate themself, especially with Voodoo. Their religion is extremely large and unaccounted for its significance and following. If the viewer were to start with these two steps, than Haitian art would be very enjoyable to our senses and knowledge.
during our discussion today about the contemporary Haitian art on display at Crealde, we mainly focused on discovering what connections there might be between Haitian culture and religious practice, and the objects we found in front of us. We did not discuss the artists as individuals with different things to say, rather we painted their intentions with a broad brush. Why do you think this was a natural first step for our group in engaging with this work and what would be the next logical step in trying to gain a better understanding of the work in the exhibition?
ReplyDeleteWhen I first walked in to the Haitian art exhibit at Crealde, I was immediately drawn to a large sequined/beaded piece on the wall. At first, the images depicted in the piece looked somewhat celebratory and reminded me a bit of a Mardi Gras celebration. I then took the time to read the background of the piece and it was far from what I had expected- rather, the piece was more morbid and related to death. I had judged the piece from my own interpretation and experiences and looked at it how I saw it, rather than the artist's intentions (personal or cultural). I think this is a natural response of how people look at art without knowing meaning or reading the artist statement ("art for the sake of art"). It is interesting though to see how important content and providing an artist statement is when producing artwork. The next logical step to gain a better understanding of the work in the exhibition is to read up on the culture's history as well as current events to understand where they are coming from and why they are producing this artwork. This will eliminate ethnocentrism, help us learn something new, inspire us, and possibly spark us as viewers to look in to issues in their culture and possibly help.