THE ADVENT OF ASIAN CENTURY IN FOLKLorE - Wiki - National ...

ON FOLK ART MUSEUMFolk art in the museumPravina Shukla is Assistant Professor, Department ofFolklore, Indiana University, USANot all results of fieldwork are presented in booksof ethnographies or depositedin archives, generally for limitedand privileged consumption.Rather much of the information,and especially objects collectedand documented, are presentedin public exhibitions inmuseums, accessible to thePravina Shuklageneral public, beyond thescholarly realm. For this veryreason, we should pay attentionto not only how we document traditional culture, butalso more importantly, how we present the culturesstudied in the context of a public display. This paperwill consider some possible directions for the future offolk art in museum exhibitions. Our collective goalshould be to bring the ideas, the theoretical andintellectual perspectives of folklore, out of the textbookand into the museum, whether the museum is dedicatedto history, anthropology, folk art, or even fine art.When exhibited, so-called folk art is often regarded asthe art of the common man (literally man, as displaysare frequently gender biased). Other implicit andexplicit assumptions are that the art is anonymous anduntutored (with a complete disregard for a notion offolk ateliers and rigorous systems of learning andteaching the traditional arts). Even though someexhibitions of folk art today may highlight individuals,most exhibitions still present the artist as rooted in heror his community, and not as an individual of strongpersonality, innovative and rich in personal aesthetics,the way in which artists are regarded in museum offine art.Broadening this discussion in an attempt to understandcurrent trends as influenced by historical practices ofexhibition, we should look at current thinking aboutart, folk art, and display, both by scholars and museumpractitioners. There is still much preoccupation withthe definitions of folk art versus fine art. Ethnographicobjects are shown primarily in their function as culturalobjects; what matters is the function of the object in thedaily life of its user. Unintentionally, this presumptiontends to lower the aesthetic standards of museumpresentations, causing a glaring dichotomy between artmuseum exhibitions, where objects are chosen for theirbeauty and aesthetic excellence, and exhibitions inethnographic museums, where culturally meaningfulobjects may or may not embody the aesthetic excellenceof the culture that they are meant to represent.What are directions that museums should take in thefuture, while utilising new general paradigms of artand culture? First of all, when possible, museumexhibitions should display the objects using nativesystems of organization. Instead of taking tribal orvillage art and fitting it into our urban way ofunderstanding — for example, in the contrast of craftand art — we should understand how the peoplethemselves conceptualise the art, its meaning, its beauty,its functions.Secondly, curators and scholars should acknowledgethat objects are engaged in multiple moments of creation –therefore many of the people who come in contact witha specific object can be seen as artists. An object is madein the atelier, then it is beautifully displayed in a marketstall, then it is bought and artfully displayed in anassemblage in a home. Not only are these differentcontexts of use, they are actually different contexts ofcreation, incorporating and adhering to differingaesthetic criteria, maintaining simultaneously a veryindividual and idiosyncratic choice, while conformingto a set communal standard of display and meaning.The study of folk art, among other things, has yieldedan understanding of how the personal biography of an○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○Museum exhibitions should presentnot only the object in context, but inmultiple contexts. The same objectshould be shown in different contextsto explain that not only does anobject take meaning in relation to aperson or a situation, but alsoobjects take on meaning in relationto other objects. Museums then cancombine different perspectives, tocreate a holistic view of the nativesystems of organising, understanding,making, using and constantlyrecreating the art in ritual andmundane daily life.○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○artist should be used to appreciate the object properly(for example, works by Ralph Rinzler, Henry Glassie,Michael Owen Jones, John Burrison, Terry Zug, and41INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001