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Art and the Social
From: London School of Economics and Political Science
| By:
Henrietta Moore |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Explaining art has been the controversial province of aesthetics and anthropology. Does the production and appreciation of art exist in an autonomous aesthetic sphere, or is there a social and cultural element? Henrietta Moore argues that such boundaries sometimes obscure rather than clarify the issue.
Drawing on the fieldwork of anthropologist Johannes Fabian, Moore explores the work of Tshibumba Kanda Matulu, a Zairean painter prolific in the 1960s and '70s, as an example of the necessary relationship between art and the social. Tshibumba's conversations with Fabian prompted him to produce a series of paintings representing the history of Zaire, using motifs and methods that collapsed the boundaries between aesthetics, culture, history and performance. |
Creating boundaries
The drawing of boundaries has been central to the definition and development of disciplines. Where would anthropology be if it could not distinguish itself from sociology or history? This may be an old-fashioned view, but it is a strange feature of recent academic scholarship that the more we try to abolish, even transcend, boundaries, the more they haunt contemporary discourse and scholarship. Such academic preoccupations finds its parallel in the political world, where supranational entities propagate and swell as ethnic divisions and cultural distinctions reform and cohere. So boundaries of all kinds are still very much on the agenda, politically, socially and intellectually. |
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| A presentation of Zairean genre painting | |
This is not particularly surprising, given the fact that boundaries by their very nature simultaneously divide and bring things into relation. In the formation of boundaries and in establishing relations between groups, objects play a significant role. Cross-cultural contact has, historically, involved not just relations of power and domination but also processes of exchange and commodification. As Danny Miller has persuasively argued, material objects objectify social relations and give them form. This insight forms the starting point of my discussion of the relationship between art and the social. |
Between art and anthropology
The definitions of anthropology and art have shifted dramatically over time. Indeed, self-definition is now a crucial part of both domains. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the art world contains practitioners, art critics and academics whose positions vis-à-vis the philosophy and practice of art cannot simply be overlooked. Anthropology's own critique of methodology, reception, power and audience does find many parallels in discussions within the art world, but its particular politics cannot be mapped unproblematically onto the same distinctions. Nevertheless, within a set of rather circumscribed discourses there is something that art and anthropology share, and that is a contested relation to the ethnographic. |
The "ethnographic" can be seen both as the social in its broadest sense and as a social context. Anthropologists who work within what is termed the "anthropology of art" have historically asserted the primacy of the ethnographic context. By this they simply mean the importance of understanding objects within their social contexts. Theorists of "primitive" art, on the other hand, have frequently claimed that a work of art must be self-evidently "art" regardless of social context: it must in some sense be transcendent. |
Discourse relating to authentic aesthetic experience as being outside or beyond the social is clearly at odds with these equally powerful theories of the social production of art and the historical nature of aesthetics and appreciation. However, this sets up an interesting engagement between anthropology and art that circulates around the question of encounters with others, though it is predominantly focussed on discussions of so-called "non-Western" or "primitive" art. The incorporation of non-Western art by modernist artists in the early twentieth century marked the commencement of the battle between the autonomous aesthetic and the ethnographic. But to focus only on this would be to obscure the shared history of anthropology and art in the nineteenth century, as well as the long history of contact, trading and commodification between Western and non-Western peoples. |
Art and civilisation in the nineteenth century
The category of art formed an important part of nineteenth-century anthropological theorising on the nature of human evolution and progress: the existence of objects conforming to a universal aesthetic (that is, to the evaluative categories of Western fine art) were taken as evidence of civilisation. |
Art objects from areas outside Europe were collected by anthropologists, missionaries, explorers, colonial officials, tourists, traders and private citizens. The attribution of aesthetic value or beauty to objects made by "primitive" peoples identified such value with "the natural" as well as with the notion of a transcendent art freed from social context. Such ideas connected to broader concerns about the impact of industrialisation and mass production, and a romantic desire for a simpler, more natural, more holistic life. |
However, the collectors and lovers of rare things often underestimated the true impact of cross-cultural exchange and trade, a process that began in earnest in the eighteenth century and had gathered momentum by the nineteenth century. Danny Miller provides the example of chintz textiles in the "Oriental style" that were very popular in Europe during that period. These textiles are now known to have come from India, but their origins lie in a process of interaction. Indian cloth was superior in technique and design to European cloth, but, instead of designs popular in India, the British market preferred something that fitted British ideas of what Indians should have been making for themselves: designs that were exotic and flowery but born of a recognisably English aesthetic tradition. The outcome was a style that the British learned to recognise as Oriental. It was the product not just of an authentic style but of one society's image of another, of their interactions and social relations. Such interactions were, of course, mediated by the market and by processes of commodification. |
Miller's point is that what are seen as authentic productions of "other" cultures are often the result of cross-cultural interaction and exchange. Trade and other forms of contact had already resulted in many indigenous artistic traditions responding to the demands of the market by introducing new styles and aesthetic perspectives. But the idea of "primitive" art being a response to the world rather than simply the product of a traditional culture was not one that found much favour. The "authentic" and "natural" aspects of other cultures were a counterpoint to the increasingly fragmented and mass produced nature of the contemporary industrial societies in the West. Certain cultures had to be "authentic" and "primitive" because they were what the West was not. |
Anthropologists and collectors were concerned with "real" art, and this did not include items made for the market or for tourists; it did not include motifs that had recognisably "modern" or "non-indigenous" origins; and it did not include the use of imported materials. The irony of this is that many of the objects and works of art collected in this period and deposited in museums were actually made for the market: some were replicas, while others were products of a physical and imaginative engagement with the West. The idea then that "primitive" art was the untouched, authentic and singular product of another culture was just another example of the West's fantasies of "otherness." |
Art transcendent?
Part of this fantasy was sustained by the notion of "art for art's sake"--the idea not just that art is somehow transcendent, but its corollary, that art is the product of an unfettered imagination, a singular creative genius. But the very fact that so few of the artists who produced the beautiful objects collected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are known by name--not that there was generally any attempt to find out their names or know them individually--merely serves to underpin the notion that their work was the product not of themselves but of their cultures. So, on the one hand, the objects of "primitive" art that were admired were seen as examples of a universal aesthetic--objects beautiful in themselves, quite independent of their social contexts. On the other hand, these objects were the products of authentic cultures rather than of talented individuals. |
Since the early decades of the twentieth century, the debate about "primitive" art has undergone a number of transformations in line with scholarship on anthropology, colonialism, history, sociology and material culture, and in response to art-philosophy writing on aesthetics and to art criticism. These disciplines have seen a move toward the historical and a tendency to insert an understanding of art and aesthetics into some form of social context although often the very notion of the social has been differently conceived. |
In what has come to be known as the "anthropology of art," aesthetics are held to be culturally situated. Art philosophy and art criticism hold to a version of the social that is historical and contextual. The basic proposition is that an object is an artwork if it can be interpreted as such within a tradition of art history. A further, more sociological, understanding posits that an object is a work of art if those who are in a position to say it is a work of art do so. In other words, the institutions and associated individuals of the art world determine our understanding of art at each historical moment. The arbiters of taste are reinforced not just by their position within power relations within the system (gallery owners, museum curators, art critics) but by their connection to resources. |
Art, History and Politics: Tshibumba Kanda Matulu explored
Tshibumba Kanda Matulu's work clearly provides insights into the relationship between art and the social, dealing as it does with his account of the history of Zaire. The production of generic paintings was a rule-bound affair, in that they portrayed a limited number of scenes, topics and symbols that were popular with local consumers and would find a ready market. Such paintings were sometimes customised for the purchasers, containing references to personal or preferred memories or names of birthplaces and other significant locations. Johannes Fabian's interviews with painters and purchasers of genre paintings reveal that certain representations were popular because they served as reminders--referred to by the Swahili word ukumbusho, to trigger memories--of past events and recent problems. In this sense, genre painting had an established relationship to a form of popular history and politics. |
However, while Tshibumba's work emerged from his own background as a genre painter, his historical series could never have been produced or contained within that school. For one thing, it would never have found a local market. As Fabian makes clear, Tshibumba uses many of the conventions of genre painting, but takes the opportunity provided by his commission to move well beyond them, finding a distinctive voice not just as a painter but as a historian. Tshibumba states in his conversations with Fabian that he considered himself both an artist and a historian. Before his encounter with Fabian he had already begun to break out of the straitjacket of genre painting and to begin his work as a historiographer. The history project was one that Tshibumba had nurtured for some time, but his meeting with Fabian provided him with the stimulus and the resources to realise it. |
While Tshibumba acknowledged the importance of popular culture and popular memory, the tension between those imperatives and a more formalised historical account prevailed. In 1974, the national university in Lubumbashi sent out a number of researchers to record oral histories from local people, and Tshibumba explicitly likened his work to that project: "I tell things through painting. That is to say, through painting I show how events happened, right? I don't write but I bring ideas, I show how a certain event happened. In a way I am producing a monument." Fabian shows that Tshibumba saw no absolute boundary between writing or texts and images or paintings as vehicles for the representation of history. |
So Tshibumba's understanding of the visual arts should not necessarily be rigidly distinguished from other forms of representation. Tshibumba frequently draws attention to the links in his work between painting as a form of ukumbusho and other forms of ukumbusho such as oral history, popular song and performance art. Tshibumba's paintings play with these boundaries, including text as commentary and symbol and lines of popular songs. But such text is also intended to give formal historical authenticity. Books themselves appear in nine of his pictures and represent record making, historical facts and the imposition of political authority. These are interwoven with other media: of the series of 100 paintings, 13 actually contain quotations--from Mobutu Sese Seko, Patrice Lumumba and Belgian royalty from an article about a play written by Simon Kimbangu and from popular song. One is the words of a prayer pronounced by a person in the painting. The writing in many of Tshibumba's historical paintings is addressed to the viewer, whether it is commentary, direct quotation or inscriptions. In this sense, the text is performative, as Fabian argues, acting like speech. |
These popular depictions were part of a local repertoire current in the late 1960s and early '70s that found favour with its market because it was linked to an emergent urban popular culture that included popular songs, performance art and a popular politics based on local memories. These mechanisms or means of social commentary certainly owe something to older African traditions of storytelling, political commentary and performance. The "vehicles" for delivery had been fashioned out of new media and new experiences in an urban context, but as ways of responding to the world they had clear links with older traditions that producers and consumers alike could appreciate.
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So Tshibumba's paintings tell a story much in the tradition of an oral history. And the performative nature of his narrative is further sustained through his use of genre conventions. These are not simply fixed scenes, symbols, emblems and text, but recognisable features that orient the viewer/audience and open up the performance to interpretation rather than simply provide a fixed and known interpretation. One classic example of this is provided by Tshibumba's picture entitled La Colonie Belge. This was a popular depiction in Zaire in the 1960s and '70s and versions of it were painted by many other artists. The popularity of this image on the local market was not just that it portrayed oppression under the colonial regime but that it also implied things about contemporary politics, about suffering under all oppressive regimes and about the fate of ordinary people within political systems. Thus, what appears to be about the past is also about the present; and what seems straightforwardly conventional allows for reflection on and interpretation of other contexts and circumstances. Tshibumba's art is thus not simply about the representation of history or knowledge but, rather, about its production through engagement with his audience. |
Where the market meets the aesthetic
As a genre painter, Tshibumba produced for an informed audience who were prepared to purchase his work. As a historian, he was producing primarily for the anthropologist Johannes Fabian, although other scholars and expatriates also have collections of his historical paintings, and there are written examples of Tshibumba's history of Zaire. The production of the historical series was stimulated by the existence of a market for it. The formation of this market was quite different from the generic market, in that it consisted of anthropologists and historians who had scholarly interests in the history of Zaire and/or the nature of Zairean popular culture, but they and others also found aesthetic pleasure in Tshibumba's work and wanted to own it for its own sake. Many other Zairean artists from the same period developed international reputations initially because they had expatriate patrons--missionaries, volunteers, aid workers, diplomats--who bought work and developed a further market through promotion. Tshibumba's work thus found two markets, each of which had roots in a quite different aesthetic tradition. |
The production of the historical series, as Fabian makes clear in his book Remembering the Past: Painting and Popular History in Zaire, was also performative, in that the historical sequences and the interpretations given to events came not just from Tshibumba's paintings but from the long interactive conversations in which the artist and the anthropologist discussed each work and its position within the narrative of the history of Zaire. Tshibumba here was producing both for himself and for his market, but, what is more important, the work was the result of a particular kind of social engagement--an engagement rooted in the historical peculiarities of colonialism, postcolonialism, international scholarship, art appreciation and anthropology. This strange mixture was only one of the contexts in which Tshibumba had to operate, but it was a powerful one. |
It is not just that the artist makes what the market demands but that aesthetic traditions intersect with social concerns, political contexts and economic circumstances to develop new forms of aesthetic response to changing situations. Aesthetic value is thus social, and, as Pierre Bourdieu says, "the eye is the product of history." The paradox here is that art can become transcendent only within a social context. Material objects, such as Tshibumba's paintings, objectify social relations and give them form; they are, in a sense, a congealed form of social relations. This remains true even when those objects are removed from their original contexts of production and acquire new audiences, new consumers. |
The image of La Colonie Belge takes on quite a different meaning when viewed in an art gallery in New York, where its commentary is not only about colonial domination but also about contemporary race politics. Thus, what looks like conventional subject matter once again opens up the possibilities for interpretation rather than closing them down. In Zaire, La Colonie Belge is a comment on the violent and intrusive nature of both the colonial and the postcolonial state, and becomes simultaneously a commentary on relations with outsiders and on relations within Zairean society. The same is true in New York, in that the painting allows for a commentary both on relations with Africa and on relations between whites and people of colour in contemporary American society. The point is that in both Zaire and New York Tshibumba's paintings have the ability to allow for reflection on a society's view of itself and on each society's view of the other. |
Tshibumba's paintings are the result, in part, of an engagement with a project of modernity, a response to a changing world. They draw on African and Western art-historical aesthetic traditions. They are art in the sense that Arthur Danto describes, in that they make sense within aesthetic traditions and a particular account of art history. They are also art in the way that Bourdieu and others discuss, in that they have been deemed art by those in a position to know, by an informed market that is prepared to pay for them, and by those with "cultivated taste" who are prepared to collect and display them. And they are art because that is what Tshibumba set out to produce. |
Conclusion: collapsing boundaries
What these paintings do reveal is the bankruptcy of the old distinction between the ethnographic and the aesthetic, the boundary between art and anthropology. Tshibumba's paintings do not make sense outside of the aesthetic traditions that produced them or outside of the social relations within which those aesthetic traditions themselves became powerful and persuasive. The aesthetic is set squarely within the social. There is nothing outside the social to which it could refer. The result is that the aesthetic is part of the ethnographic, part of the social and symbolic context in which these works make sense. It is not that we require the ethnographic to make sense of African art. It is that we cannot make sense of any art without the context of its social production and reception, and in the broadest sense that context will always be ethnographic, whether we are speaking of Lubumbashi or Peking or New York or London. |
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