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

Americans and European settlers, the dilemmas of identity, the
possibilities of new language, new metaphors.
Instead they chose to
include a neo-traditional Navaho sand painting by Joe Ben, Jr.
I am not criticizing the painting itself and certainly not the
painter, but actually the inclusion of this work, along with a number of
others, raised difficult and problematic questions which point to the
confusions and struggles which are going on over the concept of art. It
is known that Navaho sand paintings are traditionally part of a healing
ritual -- just a part, "one among a great number of things." But
"Magiciens" was prevented from explaining this function because, in the
name of treating everyone as "artists," they were displaying little more
than the artist's name, place of origin, and title of work.
They had,
thus, prevented thernsel ves from carrying out what was supposed to be the
raison d'~tre of the show: to consider artists as "magicians," shamans,
with an aesthetic practice and social role different from the traditional
Western one.
But again, apparently the only way open to them to explicate
the painting would be through anthropological, text-panels, which would
relegate it to an etlmographic category and lower its status in comparison
with the work of the Western artists. Was, in any case, the Joe Ben, Jr.
painting an authentic liturgical work, or had it been modified, as I think
has been the custom, to allow it to enter the Western realm and concept of
art as a museum exhibit
I don't believe these are merely hair-splitting distinctions. They
have very much to do with our relationship to art today, and in what way
we consider art to be efficacious. Our society makes everything visible,
consumable, buyable. A few years ago I was deeply stunned and moved when I
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