James Clifford Essay Review
Histories of the Tribal and the ModernIn James Clifford's essay, "Histories of the Tribal and the Modern," the appearance of tribal art(ifacts), some grouped with modern art, in several museum galleries comes under fire. He very critically addresses such museum's attempts to classify and reclassify primitive art and modern art into one by pointing out only vague similarities. Clifford also highly objects to one museum's, the Museum of Modern Art, use of the word 'affinity' in a gallery held in 1984 entitled, "Primitivism in 20th Century Art." The driving force behind this essay is that the status of tribal artifacts has been forced to shift and deviate from their original classification as remnants of an ancient past with anthropological definitions, to those with more modern, aesthetic definitions.The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) exasperated Clifford on numerous levels. Their 1984 gallery, "Primitivism in 20th Century Art," coupled so-called tribal artifacts with modern works in order to show a correlation between the two. In particular, the word affinity was used, meaning a "deeper or more natural relationship than mere resemblance or juxtaposition." Clifford felt that MOMA incorrectly represented this word; he said the e
They could have just as easily assembled a gallery on the striking differences between the cultures. An example of MOMA's misuse of the term was on the catalogue's cover, which featured an image of Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror alongside an image of a Kwakiutl mask. Much of Clifford's denigration with the exhibition is that the artifacts collected were from a broad range of cultures and tribes, which make the possibility of finding similar traits between them increase substantially. Sometimes the objects danced back and forth between sides; a certain piece could have functionality to it, but also have been created with an aesthetically conscious mind. He claims that her words would be his contribution to a show "affinities of the tribal and postmodern. In the beginning of modernism, non-Western objects were strictly placed in the institutions and conversations of either artists or anthropologists. They exploited their traditions as art to aid in a current resurgence in New Zealand. 'Although Clifford is very critical of much of the primitive and modern art mingling, he did mange to find a few exhibits that impressed him. xhibition was an intriguing but problematic exercise in formal coalescence. All of these examples given by Clifford seem to do with the tribal objects presented in a very historical and unbiased fashion. '" He also says that the existence of tribal cultures and artists is ruled by the process of either making up the 'traditional' worlds or by appreciating their products in the timely category of 'art. Another show which was running in New York had been made much more discernible. This situation was the same for Asante leaders in the Museum of Natural History. " Non-Western objects have been classified as primitive art or ethnographic specimens since 1900.
Common topics in this essay:
Girl Mirror,
Barbara Tedlock,
Century Art,
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African Masterpieces,
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Natural History,
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Acceptance Essays
