Hiller - The Myth of Primitivism. Perspectives on Art - Esoteric Online

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Art and meaning 193 10.5 Jah Hut men with recent sculpture (photographed by the author). When a Canadian anthropologist, Marie-Andrée Couillard, went out to study these Jah Hut carvings, she was amazed to discover that their production was a very recent phenomenon. Apparently, an Englishman who worked for the Department <strong>of</strong> Aboriginal Affairs, had known that the Jah Hut made wooden effigies as part <strong>of</strong> their healing ceremonies. He was concerned that the Jah Hut should be able to make some money as they become more and more exposed to the outside world. Armed with a motley collection <strong>of</strong> photographs <strong>of</strong> wooden sculptures from New Guinea, Oceania, and various parts <strong>of</strong> Africa, he suggested that the Jah Hut set up business, carving wooden sculptures specifically to sell. Several individuals agreed, and the Englishman arranged for an exhibition at the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur, from where it was but a short step to the international circuit. A new ‘primitive culture’ had been discovered whose wooden sculptures amazed and delighted all (Couillard 1980 and personal comunication). Meanwhile, back in Jah Hut land, more and more individuals, men and women, took up this pr<strong>of</strong>itable and, to many, enjoyable work. <strong>The</strong>y showed a keen interest in similar work done elsewhere and were not reluctant to borrow ideas. <strong>The</strong>y began to take a pride in their own carvings and some individuals emerged who were generally acknowledged as better carvers than others. <strong>The</strong> iconography became increasingly elaborate, the distinguishing features <strong>of</strong> the various bes ever more pronounced, and the buyers increased. However, the healing ceremonies continued as before. <strong>The</strong> wooden effigies were made in the same way, their efficacy could not be questioned. Apparently, there was
<strong>The</strong> myth <strong>of</strong> primitivism 194 no suggestion that the new elaborations would improve the healing ceremonies in any way. <strong>The</strong> large, elaborate sculptures are never used in ritual, they are made solely for sale. It is still too early to draw any firm conclusions from the Jah Hut example, but some tentative suggestions may be made with regard to the production <strong>of</strong> ‘art’, and the borrowings <strong>of</strong> art practices and art objects from cultures different from one’s own. In the example <strong>of</strong> the Jah Hut, it is members <strong>of</strong> the ‘primitive’ culture who appropriate the art styles <strong>of</strong> other cultures. Perhaps surprisingly, I wish to suggest that the introduction <strong>of</strong> pictures <strong>of</strong> sculptures from other cultures to the Jah Hut is similar to the exhibitions <strong>of</strong> African sculpture in Paris during the first decade <strong>of</strong> the twentieth century. Both were momentous events. In Paris, the exhibits were influential with the cubists and the German expressionists, among others. Among the Jah Hut the pictures inspired a new discourse and practice. Each instance demonstrates how members <strong>of</strong> one culture react to, and treat, the art <strong>of</strong> another. <strong>The</strong>re is, I think, a tendency to assume that it is only westerners who appropriate art from elsewhere. Who then is to say that in the case <strong>of</strong> cubism and expressionism the influence was beneficial while in the case <strong>of</strong> the Jah Hut it was destructive? Indeed, Couillard argues that the Jah Hut woodcarving is ‘not just a new way <strong>of</strong> earning a living…but is an extension <strong>of</strong> the traditional ideological framework’ (1980:14). With regard to the possible ways members <strong>of</strong> one culture might react when confronted with ‘art’ from another, it is interesting to consider the differences between the two examples. <strong>The</strong> European artists may be interpreted as reacting in conformity with a need for the primitive other—attributing mystical ritualistic purposes to the objects, while paradoxically also proclaiming some universal unity. <strong>The</strong> following quote from Gottlieb exemplifies a typical attitude: Modern art got its first impetus through discovering the forms <strong>of</strong> primitive art, we feel that its true significance lies not merely in formal arrangements, but in the spiritual meaning underlying all archaic works…. If we pr<strong>of</strong> ess kinship to the art <strong>of</strong> primitive man, it is because [we think] the feelings [we suppose] they expressed have a particular pertinence today…. All primitive expression reveals the constant awareness <strong>of</strong> powerful forces, the immediate presence <strong>of</strong> terror and fear, a recognition <strong>of</strong> the terror <strong>of</strong> the animal world. (In Cooke 1985:19; my parentheses) Picasso expressed similar sentiments describing his first encounter with African sculpture: <strong>The</strong>y [the tribal artists] were against everything—against unknown threatening spirits…. I too, am against everything. I too believe that everything is unknown, that everything is an enemy…. I understood what the Negroes used their sculptures for…all were weapons…. I understood why I was a painter. All alone in that aweful museum with the masks, the dusty mannikins. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon must have been born that day, but not at all because <strong>of</strong> the forms, because it was my first exorcism—yes absolutely! (Quoted in Foster 1985:45)
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PART I Contents List of</st
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Illustrations Display case, Berlin
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10.2 A blend of sa
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Display case, Berlin Ethnographical
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little pictures inserted me neatly
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10 Christian Metz (Fall 1985) ‘Ph
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assumptions of the
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PART I
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Outsiders or insiders 19 Th
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Outsiders or insiders 21 content it
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Outsiders or insiders 23 honoured i
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Outsiders or insiders 25 If the con
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Outsiders or insiders 27 of
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Outsiders or insiders 29 free-range
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Outsiders or insiders 33 Melly, Geo
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‘Remember, you are the stranger.
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Editor’s introduction The
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5 Emil Nolde’s ‘ethnographic’
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From primitivism to ethnic arts 133
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Page 172 and 173: PART III
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14 Unsettled accounts of</s
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15 Locality fails IMANTS TILLERS Al
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16 Aboriginal representation and ki
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17 Born from sharp rocks Edgar Heap
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Notes on contributors 294 P.S.122.
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Index aboriginality, as Australian
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Brecht, Bertholdt 53, 56 Breton, An
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Index 300 Eurocentrism 14-15, 21, 8
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Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig 99, 144, 240
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School Museum Committee 204 mutilat
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Index 306 ‘soft
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Tower monument 126 technology, and
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