Review Essay: Collecting the ‘Other’: From Cultural Expressions to World-Class
Art
New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of John and Marcia Friede.
Ruth A. Peltason, ed. San Francisco: Publications Department of the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2005. 852 pp. (Co-published with 5
Continents Editions.)
Kathleen Barlow and Lene Pedersen
This
lavish two-volume edition of photographs and essays on the Jolika
Collection of Melanesian art, held by the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco (FAMSF), has arrived in the midst of a lively
interdisciplinary conversation in which anthropologists and art
historians reprise earlier discussions and critiques concerning both
the relationship of art and culture and the concept of primitive art
with ever greater insistence on the political and economic dimensions
of the production, display, and exchange of art objects.[1]
The exhibition and associated publication of the Jolika Collection of
New Guinea art join the ranks of major events in the art world through
which the boundaries of art in Western paradigms of knowledge are being
expanded. Debates and contests of ownership, authenticity, ethics, and
value swirl amongst artists, local communities, scholars, collectors,
and the now global marketplace of art and artifact. These discussions
urge us to re-think the bases of interpretation by raising questions
that jar older categories and privileges.
Born
into this fertile ground, the publication itself presents multiple
approaches to understanding art and culture. Each of the authors
examines the collection differently, in terms of the history of
collecting (Robert Welsch) and the themes of New Guinea art (Dirk
Smidt), in relation to surrealism, the moment at which such art entered
into Western philosophies of art (Philippe Peltier), and from a
scientific perspective, using radiocarbon dating to discover the age of
the wood from which the objects were made (Gregory Hodgins). John
Bigelow Taylor and Dianne Dubler have produced stunning sharp
photographs that reveal minute detail, while John Friede, collector and
art patron, presents his personal perspective on the long-term project
of collecting, a widespread but seldom studied practice.
For
us as anthropologists, certain questions press forward: how is the
activity of collecting viewed by the collector(s)? What impact does it
have on the peoples whose art it is? What cross-cultural
communications—or elisions—are involved? Do they—or do they
not—contribute to mutual understanding and to the cumulative knowledge
base of the societies involved? This publication makes an extensive
array of New Guinea art available to a predominately Western public for
the first time; and the essays provide, in the words of Harry S. Parker
III, Director of
Museums, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, multiple entry points and
ways of appreciating this unfamiliar art world. Yet they stop short of
making their criteria of artistic value explicit, the terms and
processes of acquisition transparent, or the meanings fully localized.
Objects in the collection, and the collection itself, are described in
superlatives (by contrast to “inferior examples,” Vol. 1, p. 23). They
are not only “spectacular,” “dazzling,” and “superb” (e.g., Vol. 2, pp.
9, 22), but discriminations are made as to the “the finest,” the
“best,” and “most important” specimens (e.g., Vol. 2, pp. 12, 19, 20,
21, 23). What renders a piece inferior or important—and to whom? How do
the “experts” evaluate pieces? More troubling in this monumental work
is the near total absence of New Guinea voices.
The
presentation of the Jolika Collection to the public, at the new de
Young Museum and in print, epitomizes the tension between global
economics and the legacies of colonialism on the one hand, and local
politics and indigenous systems of value, on the other. Friede’s essay
describes his goals and experiences acquiring the objects in terms of
collector prestige values and capitalist economics. Social scientists
long ago observed the extent to which money dissolves the boundaries of
different systems of value and thus allows transactions that otherwise
would be incommensurate, such as the purchase of objects prized for
their religious, aesthetic, historical and sentimental value. Friede
recognizes the invasive power of capital as he describes acquiring
objects from other collectors who “had dreams of their own, who had
hoped to keep their objects together, but for one reason or another
could not” (Vol. 1, p. 15), then he thanks both the NOMOS Corporation
for its profitability and his agent at Citibank for the “access to
liquidity” that have made the enterprise possible (Vol. 1, p. 23).
Using the metaphor of the hunt to describe his collecting adventure,
Friede set out to fulfill a dream “that a definitive and comprehensive
collection of the art of New Guinea could still be built and presented
to the world” (Vol. 1, p. 15). He “learned to track down my scarce game
with the same zeal as the New Guinea hunters pursue their quarry in
their protein-poor forests” (Vol. 1, p. 15). The rarity of his results
extolled, the Jolika selection is also treasured for how “much of it
was made before the effects of contact with foreigners” (Vol. 1, p.
17). Representing a common Western contradiction, the collection is
thus a celebration of that which has not been polluted by foreign
influence, while it, itself, epitomizes that very history of foreign
impact.
Although
he is aware that for their creators the objects express spiritual and
human values and motivations, Friede implies (but never makes explicit)
aesthetic values drawn from a Western universalist art tradition—form,
balance, creativity—and positions the makers of New Guinea art as
definitely “other,” and most times as “primitive.” For him, the objects
have “the freshness of the paintings and carvings of the Cro-Magnon
people of the last European Ice Age” (Vol. 1, p.16). The objects
“engaged my love of natural objects, my fascination with ancient religious artifacts, and my preference for surrealist
images” (Vol. 1, p.16, emphases added). The activities of collecting
included field trips to New Guinea, but have taken place primarily
amongst other collectors and dealers in Europe, America, and Australia.
Anthropologist
Welsch traces the history of collecting in New Guinea in detail. The
discussion of who the explorers, traders, and missionaries were and
their motives and goals is fascinating, and presents material that has
not been pulled together like this elsewhere. As political climates
changed in Europe, the degree of contact and acquisition in New Guinea
varied. Contradictory statements both recognize and deny the
one-sidedness, opportunism, and often outright brutality that
characterize collecting both in colonial times and now as Western and
local values collide. While assuring us that “Western collectors were
largely dependent on what villagers were willing to part with, and
typically they only sold, bartered or exchanged objects that were no
longer important to them” (Vol. 2, p. 10), in the next paragraphs
Welsch describes how missionaries were often coercive in their efforts
to acquire objects that they could then sell back home to support their
work (Vol. 2, p. 10f.); and most extreme, how one collector “the
flamboyant d’Albertis. . . exploded sticks of dynamite to chase away
the villagers. Then he entered their homes and took whatever he wished”
(Vol. 2, p. 11).
This
ability of capitalism to invade other domains of value reaches far back
into the history of cultural contact. Although more humane dynamics may
prevail today, there is little doubt that the desire and need to
participate in enterprises that require capital (e.g., to gain access
to education, health care, taxes, and transportation) continue to
pressure New Guineans to part with objects of value. Such transactions
may exact their own costs or consequences locally. During field
research in the Sepik in 1988, Barlow encountered a situation in which
a young mother’s untimely death was attributed to the inappropriate
sale of a powerful object to an art dealer. Other objects of historical
and sentimental importance to their owners had been sold to pay for
school fees or hospital stays.
Welsh
concludes his essay by urging that “[i]t is now up to the museum
visitor to listen and to hear what these pieces can tell us about the
diverse symbolic and ritual lives of New Guineans” (Vol. 2, p. 24). But
following his disturbing account of relentless collecting, what presses
most at this point is a need to hear the more specific stories of the
objects in this collection. Objects in the Jolika collection represent
a broad sampling of the major collecting expeditions—and as such cannot
be divorced from the history of exploitation and “lack of regard for
the rights of New Guineans” (Vol. 2, p. 11).
Although
dealers and collectors largely deny responsibility for knowing where
their objects came from and how they were obtained, this is a practice
and a form of privilege that is being rapidly eroded as indigenous
peoples and descendants of original producers and owners become more
knowledgeable and vocal about their rights. Welsch does not raise this
point about the history of collecting; but when the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, the Getty Museum of Los Angeles, the Austrian National Museum,
and other giants of the museum world are being called upon to openly
examine their collections, these issues cannot be avoided. Already, the
existence of several items of national cultural property of Papua New
Guinea in the Jolika collection have been noted in an article in Nature (Dalton 2006).
Asked about this, Friede reportedly expressed that “[r]epatriating the
artifacts is ‘crazy’” and that “They are a lot better off in San
Francisco (Dalton 2006:723).” Some of the very
objects of the Jolika collection originally were extracted from New
Guinea by people who generally saw them as “evidence of the villagers’
extreme backwardness” (Vol. 2, p. 10), and it is hard to not read here
an implication that the reason they should not now be repatriated is
still somehow New Guinea’s backwardness. By contrast, Friede, who sees
himself as the objects' loving collector-parent, characterizes San
Francisco as an expressly progressive and appropriate place for the New
Guinea objects, “a place unburdened by the narrow attitudes of the
past” (Vol. 1, p. 23)—referring to Westerners who did not appreciate
“primitive art.” In fact, much as objects from New Guinea once helped
construct German or Hungarian or Surrealist authority, pride, and
identity (Vol. 2, p. 12), here the objects of the Jolika Collection are
linked to San Francisco, which “now at any given time, …can be relied
upon to present a breathtaking array of New Guinea art” (Vol. 1, p.10).
Yet New Guinea and New Guineans do not feature as relevant to this
collection.
As
for what the Jolika Collection, as Welsch suggests, “can tell us about
the diverse symbolic and ritual lives of New Guineans,” Smidt provides
the only few pages in these volumes to focus on the cultural context
for the objects and what they might have meant to those who made and
used them—a task undertaken in broad strokes given the islands’
“hundreds of cultures” (Vol. 2, p. 31). Smidt certainly conveys rich
appreciation for the general cultural roles of objects such as those
now held in the Jolika collection, making it very clear that they “are
much more than just art works or instruments for making music or
issuing signals. They are imbued with the soul and the power of the
spirits” (Vol. 2, p. 38). Even an object such as “a shield may be seen
as a human being” (Vol. 2, p. 42). In fact, Smidt describes in some
detail the current process of carving and painting such
shields—constructing them like humans and achieving their
transformation into supernatural beings (Vol. 2, p. 43)—indicating that
they obviously still have relevance, and rendering even more glaring
the absence of New Guinean voices in presenting this collection. It is
also emphasized that such objects “cannot be isolated” (Vol. 2, p. 48),
but are “inextricably linked to other forms of art” and to their
broader contexts. At this point, the volumes’ only New Guinea voice
appears, as Smidt refers to scholar and poet Dr. Jacob Simet of the
Papua New Guinea National Cultural Commission, “who stresses an
unbreakable unity between the work of art, the society in which it
plays a role, the rules of that society, the songs, the magic, and the
setting”—with particular emphasis on the setting (Vol. 2, p. 48). Smidt
continues logically that though objects in “Western museum showcases
and depositories may please us” etc., “there is still a gap to be
bridged to do justice to its real significance as dynamic repositories
of supernatural spirits influencing all major aspects of life,” and
hopes that “the objects shown in these volumes open our eyes, our
minds, and our souls” (Vol. 2, p. 48).
The
photographs by Taylor and Dubler have an extraordinary vitality of
light, shadow, and texture—a vitality that depends not only on
photographic technique (which is excellent), but also on the traces
left by the rich lives of these objects outside of a collection vault
that both Welsch and Smidt entreat readers to appreciate. But the
gorgeous, seductive photos also objectify these spirit representations,
in a way that cannot help but be at odds with what we learn about them
in their once cultural contexts. Individual objects are presented with
minimal specific information, while the articles speak mainly of
categories of objects. Thus the identity and particular story of each
object is effaced and it comes instead to represent the genre. Though
we learn, for example, of the “great symbolic and emotional
significance” of slit-gongs, which generally have their own personal
stories (e.g., Vol. 2, p. 38), we hear no personal stories of the
objects in the Jolika. Rather than toward cultural analysis, the
process of discovery has been furthered in the direction of scientific
analysis. Dating of the wood, for example, revealed samples of
extraordinary age, and some of the objects have been photographed with
magnification, with similar “revelatory effects” (Vol. 1, p. 21).
Friede points out: “Viewing our objects at one hundred times
magnification made possible by [the photographers’] camera, exposed
structure, color, and materials that had always been there but had gone
unrecognized for decades until this time” (Vol. 1, p. 21).
What
we hear, then, as we tune into the pieces for their particular
histories and the details of their making, use, and significance, is a
telling silence created by their abstraction from cultural context.
This break and re-orientation are represented well by the black space
surrounding them in the photographs. From that void the objects stand
out starkly—the “best” and very “important” examples of the collector
aesthetics according to which they were assembled. This makes even more
poignant the stories of what brought them into this space—the stories
that they cannot or perhaps are not supposed to relate. The details of
the thumbnail sketches in volume two tell other stories. They present
pedigrees of the objects in the Western art world—the collectors from
whom they were acquired, comparable pieces in other museum collections,
exhibits, and publications (see objects 150-153, Vol. 2, p. 105f)—and
the personal impressions of the collector—his favorite pieces (object
#62, Vol. 2, p. 92) and associations to them (ex: #148 “always reminded
me of Groucho Marx” Vol. 2, p. 105f). Given this re-contextualization
outlining the collecting process, it would be interesting to know in
more detail about the development of the collector’s values,
strategies, and skills.
The
gift of the collection to the de Young and the exhibition transform the
objects from private collection to public museum accession. This
transition makes the objects available to a new and potentially very
broad public audience, and is a threshold for this audience to begin to
learn about a vast and complex range of cultural productions. It will
be useful to art historians and to teachers, and perhaps ultimately to
New Guineans studying their own art traditions. Also exhibited is the
transition of these objects from their roles in the “diverse symbolic
and ritual lives of New Guineans” (Vol. 2, p. 24) to collector display.
The publication documents the power relations implicated in such
exchanges. It also shows that there is yet work to be done to turn from
a Western cultural monologue on art and aesthetics toward dialogue that
encompasses a broader range of cultural worldviews and experiences. Note1. The two volume work under consideration here—New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of John and Marcia Friede—was
“published on the occasion of the inaugural exhibition of selected
works from the Jolika Collection in the Marcia and John Friede Gallery
at the re-opening of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, San
Francisco, California, USA in October 2005” (p. 2). Together with the
Legion of Honor, The de Young Museum is part of the larger Fine Art
Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF).Reference CitedDalton, Rex2006 Guinea Experts Cry Foul on Tribal Exhibits. Nature 440(6):722-723.Kathleen
Barlow is Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Central Washington
University, in which she also serves as an Associate Professor. She has
written widely on the ethnography of Oceania, including studies of
motherhood and of material culture. She teaches courses in cultural and
psychological anthropology, and in museum studies. Lene Pedersen is an
Associate Professor, also in the Department of Anthropology at Central
Washington University. She pursues research in Indonesia on a number of
topics, including ritual, social organization, and visual culture. She
is the author of Ritual and World Change in a Balinese Princedom (Carolina Academic Press, 2005).