Postcolonialism and the Museum

Enwezor begins with a call for a new and critical look at artistic production and how it relates to the postcolonial global culture that we live in today. But, he also thinks that a look at the artwork itself can give a clearer picture of what our postcolonial world really looks like today than can simply looking at what he calls the “postcolonial constellation.” He says that his article is a response to previous assertions that he made about the content of art being based “around the norms of...postcolonial...forms.” These forms are named as hybridization, creolization, etc., with a cosmopolitan flavor. He also asserts that in order to discuss this art, a discourse has to base itself on modernity and imperialism as well as the postcolonial discourse. He ends the first section by introducing a discussion about the proper role of the curator in our current postcolonial imperialist, modernist based cultural world.
In the next section he begins by talking about the kinds of criticisms on curatorial work today. One is speculative and general and sees contemporary art as a novelty. The second is institutional and is either academic or museological. He says art is scientific and autonomous – not cultural. One of his examples is the appropriation of African sculptures by European artists and a failure to properly and fully address this appropriation. Enwezor contends that the analysis has been largely formal (or scientific).
At this point Enwezor brings in the discourse of Peter Burger who says, “Conceiving of art’s apartness from society as its ‘nature’ means involuntarily adopting the l’art por l’art concept of art and simultaneously making it impossible to explain this apartness as a product of a historical and social development.” I love this “catch 22” aspect that he gives to the formalist approach. Enwezor says this has led to opposing traditions that can be described as the same type of criticism that he calls institutional. Institutional criticism is a domain fought over by traditionalist and progressive groups, who Enwezor says, reject any social function of art. Enwezor gives two examples of this phenomenon; one of which scrutinizes the situation at the Tate Modern. Here the curators had decided to initiate a more dialectical approach to explain the heritage of European modernism, which ends up being troubling rather than “progressive.” Enwezor can only surmise that this failure is due to the Tate’s logical position as the heir to European primitivist discourse.
Enwezor then discusses the ever-multiplying problems of and with museum curatorial work in the postcolonial climate. He then posits that the curatorial response has been to assimilate five historical effects, which are impermanent and contingent. They are the “enlargement” of exhibitions, decolonization and cultural identity, heterogeneity, mediatization of culture, and globalization of economic production and culture.
With all of these in mind, how does the curatorial process work intellectually? The curator has to think within and outside of the canon. Enwezor suggests that it is impossible for the curator to NOT ally himself or herself with the institutionally ordered experience of art. This is true, although in an ideal world people would use their abilities to think and allow for their own discourse of thought with that which the museum sets forth. Enwezor says, “Another way of approaching the discourse on curatorial practice is to understand the work of the curator as a mode of practice that leads to particular ways of aligning thought and vision through the separation and juxtaposition of a number of models within the domains of artistic production and public reception.” Is this not what the artist does? Artists work in a way that lead to particular ways of aligning thought and vision. Often the work of artists is meant to make us think or to portray a particular point of view. Why is it that the curator or the museum must always have this aura of authority? Why can’t they be seen as an extension of the artist in that their work is there to make us think and talk – not to produce yet another master narrative, but rather “continuous redefinitions” to discuss, reject, act upon, accept, etc.?

Vogel’s article was an interesting account of an exhibition that she put together in an attempt to be as idealistic as possible in the representation of African art within the museum setting. I found her methods interesting, but disagreed with many of the things that she said. For example, “If the audience knows one thing about African art, it knows these objects were never meant to be seen in museum buildings.” That may be true, deep down. But, I think that a majority of the public doesn’t even consider the possible uses of the objects it sees in the museum setting. Most people are trained to look at an object and decide whether they like it or not. Not enough people are educated enough about art to truly be discerning about the social history of any object without some explanation.
I enjoyed Bann’s article and particularly that he addressed the fact that the discourse within a mode of display is largely dependent on the system of knowledge within the period in which the display is made. This related very well to Enwezor’s article and his discussion of the modes of display (and discourse within that display) in the postcolonial period. Bann also asks what it means “to see a culture and to understand it by looking at objects.” I think this is an extraordinarily pertinent question, yet almost impossible to answer. All it really means is that we can never get a full view unless we actually live in the moment of those objects – and even then, the experience is entirely subjective.
Eilean Hopper’s article was very clear and practical and offered some valuable insight into the history of museums and the manner in which they have related to systems of knowledge over the years. But, she also talks about how we look at things by trying to show how they are similar rather than different. She offers a doorway to explore how museums might follow a path that differentiates their goals and methods of conceptualizing themselves that can be quite different from how it has been done in the past.