M5 Reading Response Paper

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University of Phoenix *

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2051

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Arts Humanities

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Jan 9, 2024

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docx

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Uploaded by DeaconSkunk3590

Imani Yearby ARH 2051 9/24/23 M5 Reading Response Paper Over the years, art curators and viewers have struggled with what responsibilities each has when viewing/ displaying culturally sensitive artworks. Throughout history, art has served as a medium for expressing religious ideals, societal beliefs, and personal viewpoints. Due to the personal interpretation of each work, it can lead to misinterpretation of the work due to relation to said culturally sensitive ideas and beliefs. Three articles that play a part in addressing this situation are Carolyn Dean's “The Trouble with (The Term) Art” (2006), Joan R. Branham's “Sacrality and Aura in the Museum: Mute Objects and Articulate Space” (1994/1995), and Anita Singh's "V&A Museum to 'shine a light' on looting of Ethiopian treasures" (2018). In the first article, “The Trouble with (The Term) Art,” Dean discusses the meaning of the term art. Though art “is an ambiguous term with multifarious and inconsistent meanings” can be defined by its time period of creation rather than its personal interpretation (Dean, pg. 25). Due to the European imperialism of art in the 18 th century, there was the need to classify foreign artifacts as art. For instance, during the beginning of the twentieth century “Objects like African masks were often stripped of natural materials. Cleaned, placed on podiums, and spot-lit, they were reconstituted as ‘sculptures”. These artifacts were counted as art simply because their historians at the time deemed them as so, disregarding their cultural significance and history. Though I am not directly African (I am African American) I can see how the conquest for foreign artifacts and altering the historical meaning and significance for them can be offensive to see. This example also plays into the curator’s responsibility to respect and properly care for art.

Similarly, Branham's “Sacrality and Aura in the Museum: Mute Objects and Articulate Space” discusses the implications of displaying ritual objects out of context. By doing this, museums are “…Stripping them of circumstance and purging them of original function and significance. This tendency, on the part of the museum, to decontextualize works of art deprives liturgical objects of the reciprocal power to define and give meaning to the space that surrounds them” (Branham, pg. 33). An attempt to recontextualize and resacralize objects could be seen at The Walters Art Gallery mounted a show in 1988 entitled Holy Space: Icons and Frescoes from Greece. The exhibit curators transported a Byzantine chapel for the exhibit and displayed it with an audiovisual presentation that featured Byzantine music and Pantocrator, Byzantine icon of Christ, was dramatically highlighted with light at the end of a dark gallery (Branham, pg. 37). The issue with this is that it reconstructs the contexts of the artifacts in the museum and also doesn’t allow for the personal connection of resonance between the observer and the exhibited object that should occur naturally. In the last article, "V&A to ‘Shine a Light’ on British Looting of Ethiopian Treasures," Singh discusses how the British looted treasures from Ethiopia during the Battle of Mandala in 1868 and Ethiopia has repeatedly asked for them to be returned but have been ignored despite their efforts. The artifacts were acquired by the V&A, British Museum and other institutions. Though the items have not been given back to Ethiopia, The director of the V&A devised a exhibit for the looted treasures that tell explicitly the history of how they can to be in British possession and has theorized a long-term loan of the works back to Ethiopia. Though I believe they should return the stolen treasures, having an exhibit that expresses the correct historical context is a step in the right direction. In conclusion, all three of the articles mentioned discussed different works of art but were all tied to the responsibility of curators/viewers when displaying/viewing culturally sensitive art

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