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Editorial: Representing the other
by:
Christopher Thompson
In the preface to the 2003 edition of his 1978 monograph Orientalism, the humanist writer and critic Edward Said reiterated his argument for a greater understanding on the part of the West of the cultures of the East, contending 'that there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for there own sakes'. Extrapolating this position and reflecting on changes in the role of the humanities in the globalised world that has arisen since the World War II, Said observed ruefully that 'both the idea and practice of humanistic research have shrunk in scope as well as in centrality. The book culture based on archival research as well as general principles of mind that once sustained humanism as an historical discipline have almost disappeared'.
The same reductionist developments are discernable in the fields of material culture. From the renaissances that have characterised periodically the development of all modern cultures whether they be in Europe during the fourteenth century, in Ottoman Turkey during the fifteenth century or Meiji Japan in the late nineteenth century-the visual arts and its related disciplines have played a significant role in defining and enhancing not only those cultures in which they are generated but also those that have sought to understand and appreciate them, no matter-as Said demonstrated-how disastrously.
For the greater part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, material culture was collected, researched, analysed and commented on: by great institutions devoted to centralising knowledge and understanding, for-ostensibly-the greater benefit of humanity; by enthusiasts often labouring in fields deemed unfashionable; by scholars and researchers seeking to establish a sort of truth.
But, over the past decade or so, this approach to material culture has been increasingly replaced by one determined by economic concerns: many of those 'great' nineteenth century museums-particularly in countries where market rules prevail-have been transformed into cash cows, celebrity venues for the display of the trivialised object; smaller museums are struggling to find both audiences and the wherewithal to maintain let alone develop their collections; scholars and researchers have been sidelined by marketers and media managers; and collectors of material culture-whether it be prints, paintings, ceramics, model trains, lace doilies or bus tickets-have been marginalised by those whose primary rationale is one of investment, of making a profit for the institution or the individual.
Rather than delighting in the development of collections be they public or private or exalting in the discoveries and reassessments of scholarship, the mainstream media concentrate on the profits or losses that have been achieved at auction or on the celebrity of wealthy collectors. This focus on the market has been of particular benefit to international auction houses whose role in the culture of collecting, over the last two and a half decades or so, has become overwhelmingly dominant, to the detriment ultimately of dealers, collectors, scholars, educationalists, researchers, enthusiasts and the general public.
Increasingly, public institutions are aping the auction houses by milking their collections for all they are worth. Museum scholarship-once the most erudite and exacting in the world of empirical research-has been redirected into the production of glossy catalogues, published to accompany populist blockbuster exhibitions, which suck up available resources and whose purpose seems to be a mix of 'wow' factor and-viewed cynically-a wonderful marketing exercise to ensure further record breaking auction results.
Increasingly, we are being moulded into a monoculture; one governedas the eminent New York art historian Dore Ashton observed recently-'by people whose qualification is wealth, and now corporate wealth, and they pull strings behind the scene ... Perhaps it's the excrescence from the whole market psychology that rules, but in the arts we need not be marketed.' This market madness has lead to situations where art is acquired solely for its commodity value: many of the works of art purchased by Japanese corporate players during the auction house-fuelled buying craze of the late 1980s now apparently languish in the vaults of banks as seized collateral for bad loans, still encased in the packaging of the auction houses that sold them.
Sadly, these are not the only objects of our material culture locked away; inaccessible, unseen and unappreciated. As a rule of thumb, in excess of eighty per cent of public museum and art gallery collections are now held in storage; the space once devoted to their display sacrificed for the use of temporary exhibitions, interactive visitor centres, restaurants, retail points and all the other appurtenances of the 'modern' museum. Researchers, scholars and enthusiasts seeking access to these collections are often charged; one archive in the United Kingdom charges researchers an 'access' fee of ﾣ50 ($118) per half day. Those seeking to publish the results of this research are, more often than not, stung with 'licensing', 'reproduction', 'copyright (sic)' and 'digital delivery' fees, of up to over $750 for a single image. As the authors of a recent report published by the British Museums Association argued 'what business would allow up to eighty per cent of its assets to go unused, while continuing to consume significant resources?'
To appreciate 'the other', to comprehend and articulate diversity and difference, society needs access not only to its own material culture but also those of others; to see not just what those holding the purse strings dictate but also that which results from the efforts of those outside the institutions; as the Museums Association report urges 'Museums need to put a higher priority on developing knowledge and sharing it with others.' Yet, in adopting the relentless 'user pays' mantra of the private sector, many of our publicly-funded institutions are in danger of destroying the altruistic foundations on which they were conceived and constructed. Museums must be reminded that, notwithstanding what their governing bodies might declare, they do not own collections; they hold them in trust for the public.
Christopher Thompson |
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