Expanding Internationalism - A Conference on ... - Mary Jane Jacob

dialecticize the asymmetrical relations between North and South.
Juxtaposition is a multi valent term:
it refers to philosophical issues
concerned with forms of dialectical or "doubling" in the articulation of
cultural contradiction and heterogeneity;
it relates to the making of
meaning through the mediation of image, metaphor, symbolic and linguistic
difference;
it is relevant to the punctuation of the gallery space with
artworks, juxtaposing text and image, objects, multi-media, orality and
visuality, positioning the spectator;
locating the gaze in the movement
through the te:rrporality of the musemn.
Mc:Evilley' s influential critique -- which objects, in my terms, to
the simultaneous translation of cultural difference -- opens up a debate
both from the critical-theoretical perspective and for the curatorial
function.
I shall only deal with two issues.
First, in objecting to "elective affinities" in the juxtaposition of
modernist and primitive works, Mc:Evilley suggests that the social
intentionality and cultural histories of tribal image makers are repressed
in attributing this or that Western aesthetic to them.
He suggests a form
of autonomy and separatism -- "the fact that the tribal objects were not
shown entirely in their own separate area, that was my point." Secondly,
he says, "I want the objects written about without attributing our motives
to their makers.
I want writing and exhibiting that are as clean as
possible of ego-projections." I will now discuss these issues because
they are resonant and representative problematics wherever
multiculturalism and the Other are in question.
The strategic, political importance of McEvilley' s position cannot
be overemphasised, nor the importance of his critique of that particular
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