Art and Genocide

Ellen,

In your article, What is Art it made sense that you started with "everything (including whistling. aerobic dancing, children's scribbling, interior decorating, TV programs) as art.

You later mentioned Plato's discourse on beauty (kalon), poetry (poeisis), and image making (mimesis) which I thought was an important distinction in regards to our desire to label "art." The act of labeling objectifies the item being labeled. You declined to pursue this notion in terms of objectification, but the act of labeling is problematic. It creates unnatural boundaries. Your essay then goes on to explore how creativity refuses to conform to unnatural boundaries. Art refuses to be objectified and owned, always dodging our best attempts to compartmentalize and force it to wear that label.

On page 44 you comment that "the only conclusion is that art, diverse and inexhaustible, will remain ultimately beyond explanation." Although I agree with your sentiment, I think this sentiment extends even further, to all attempts at affixing labels, and is not unique to the realm of art. The labeling problem was addressed extensively by Roland Barthes, who wrote, "language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire." The use of language mutes the experience of "being."

In attempting to label art, you are reaching for a sort of fundamental truth, a philosophical theory of everything. Have you forgotten that Dadaism was an art movement devoted to thumbing its nose at the idea of a formal approach to art? Have you forgotten that around the same time Dadaists were busy throwing art labelers out with the bathwater, Russian formalists were busy trying to stuff literature into stocks and chains.

They were trying to tame literature, the same way you are trying to tame and control creativity by stuffing it into a dank, stuffy little compartment called ART. When you quote Thompson, "that only by viewing [art] can its full significance and power be appreciated, I think Thompson makes a good point. Art and artifacts do act as cultural signifiers, formed by the raw material... institutions and customs, myth and ritual...into a complex and unified whole." I think you would have done well to explore this further, the notion of enculturation as raw material = the art/artifacts as cultural signifiers.

In Chapter 3, you begin to solidify this connection. When you comment that "making and using art objects affects the system of social relations," it makes sense that if art is made from the raw material of enculturation, then art becomes a cultural totem. Your article continues to explore the use of art in terms of building cultural cohesion. When you mention that "art can help the individual adapt to an often uncomfortable and indifferent world," you are speaking to how art can re-establish one's sense of belonging and sense of community. A good example of this connection is how soldiers frequently carry pictures or objects. Warfare is ugly and horrific. Most soldiers carry items with them that help them feel connected.

Where Chapter 3 explores the idea of What Is Art For?, you declined to discuss the absence of art. The spread of colonialism is enhanced by the destruction of communal cohesion. In producer areas around the globe, the lack of art is a disturbing void that feels like death. This hollow feeling that saturates a place is cultural genocide. It is a practice as old as recorded history.

Empire requires people and resources to exploit. Genocide performs a very real function. It dissolves community and creates a favorable environment in which to exploit human labor. The familiar view of genocide is shock-journalism where piles of dead bodies jar our noble sensibilities. The version of genocide we never see is a version called cultural genocide. Communities are not wholesale murdered in cold blood.

Instead, their cultural identity is systematically destroyed. Crops are burned and the means of sustenance are destroyed. "Food is power; those who regulate its production, distribution, and consumption can control others" (Jeremy MacClancy, Consuming Culture). Desperate populations, left with no means to sustain themselves or their families are then exploited to fill a role as migrant laborers. As a result, families and communities are shattered. These shattered communities share one haunting feature, a lack of arts and artifacts. The feeling is indescribably creepy. This void is a common feature among dead and dying cultures. In fact, when we see an artistic void, we should be appalled, because this void represents a dramatic loss of community and cultural cohesion. It represents cultural genocide.

While discussing what art is for, and researching the diverse cultural manifestation of art and artifacts, I think you should add a chapter dedicated to how art is an important marker inexorably linked to cultural well-being. Sad to say, but the cup of coffee you drank this morning was harvested by some of these same displaced indigenous migrant workers.