Of Property and Propriety
Notes on the touchy subject of cultural appropriation
Duchamp, Warhol, Prince, Levine, Sherman, Peyton—the canon of art history is riddled with the names of those who relied on appropriation and with their statements about the ultimate futility of the exhausted (and exhausting) quest for originality. Appropriation, it seems, has become just one more strategy in today’s creative toolbox: no longer risqué unless troubled by copyright laws, appropriation is perfectly in tune with the ur-capitalist quest for the profitably appealing new. In the visual arts, appropriation has turned into a habitual practice, taught in art school alongside line weight, perspective, and color.
But given the spread of appropriation, isn’t it time these curious acts of taking someone else’s “stuff” and using it as if it was our very own were given just a little more attention? If appropriation, as an artistic strategy, can do no more than elicit a yawned “been there, done that” sort of reaction, shouldn’t we, as critical viewers, demand a little more illumination of the exact point and purpose of all this borrowing and taking, which some—perhaps unkindly—call stealing?
Appropriation is a vast subject. So, in light of that uncompromising vastness, I will focus on one kind of appropriation that seems to be particularly well suited to get people riled up: cultural appropriation. When it comes to culture, the difficulty of determining what’s yours and what’s mine increases the explosive potential of the subject. Who, after all, owns culture—the practices, ideas, artifacts, and, last but in no way least, histories that make up the messy multiplicity of contemporary life? Cultures are not static, not pure, and certainly not tied to some mysterious essential qualities or ancestral bloodlines; cultures are lived. While they may offer a sense of belonging, a working definition of common sense to a group of people, cultures merge and move, collide and overlap, dominate, subjugate, and coexist in a constant state of bewildering flux that tends to cause anxiety to those who’d like them to stay put.
And yet, in the midst of all this postmodern fluidity, cultural appropriation highlights the uneasy etymological slippage between property and propriety: what is properly mine—and what is not. While the issue of intellectual and creative ownership may be covered by a whole body of legal code, the propriety issue is not: when does appropriation become an issue of what is and is not proper—as in ethical, as in good. When does my taking and using something from another culture—an idea, an artifact, a practice—inflict harm? On whom? And why should I care? These are the sorts of questions that render cultural appropriation a touchy subject.
When Allen Brewer, in a recent show at gallery 360, combines Buddhist prayer flags and shrines with Midwestern imagery and entitles the resulting mish-mash “Family Farm Nirvana,” does anyone get hurt? Does it matter that Buddhism—even in my admittedly limited understanding of its philosophy and practice—is about selflessness, detachment, compassion, and mindfulness rather than deifying individuals with their portraits on prayer flags? Who could take offense at Andy Messerschmidt’s colorful altars/shrines at Fox Tax gallery last December, entitled “Merry Krishnas?” Well, some people do. It is worth noting that the critics of cultural appropriation tend to hail from less than privileged groups: for instance, consider Native American poet Chrystos, who, in “Shame On,” offers a scathing indictment of spiritually bankrupt North Americans who eagerly turn to indigenous spiritual practice to fill the void left by materialism. Or consider Joanna Kadi’s impassioned argument for ethical cultural connections rather than a take-take-take attitude when it comes to Arabic drumming.
Let me sketch—and, for the sake of clarity, exaggerate—the two sides of the debate: first, there are those who protest the stealing of ideas, practices, icons and artifacts, and who basically see cultural appropriation as colonialism continued into fantasies of multicultural entitlement, where the world lies at “our” feet and is there to take, use, and abuse, as “we” see fit. Not surprisingly, a large number of artists and cultural workers who fall onto this side of the debate come from historically oppressed, discriminated, and marginalized cultures. As Richard Fung points out in “Working Through Cultural Appropriation,” their protective stance is immediately tied to an urgent sense of “preservation and autonomy of aboriginal cultural resources” (20).
On the other hand, there are those who, with equal conviction, protest their right to artistic freedom, their license as artists to go out into the world and, with the best possible intentions, use (and maybe abuse, through blissful ignorance) whatever they find for the sake of their art. Appropriation, after all, promises innovation, which, in the mind of (and 2008 book by) philosopher James O. Young, outweighs the possibility of some hypothetical harm inflicted on some cultural purists. Appropriation also tempts with the lure of sophisticated (albeit superficial) cosmopolitanism: look where I’ve been, look what I’ve found, and see how cleverly I am now incorporating it here, in this very lovely piece of mine. If the piece catches a collector’s eye and pays the bills, chances are the original producers of whatever has been taken and used will not get any credit. After all, the act of appropriation changed “the thing” from its raw beginnings into an enlightened piece of art.
Does my sarcasm strike you as ungenerous? Shouldn’t we all come together for a group hug and celebrate diversity and share our various cultural backgrounds, freely and generously, despite all the discrimination and ridicule and hostility some of us may have experienced earlier on? Shouldn’t we collectively focus on sharing, mutual learning, collaboration, and the possibility of true innovation rather than—and I borrow Fung’s terms here—on exploitation, silencing, and unfair gain? Or should we start by considering who is asked, however hypothetically, to re-focus and be generous here—and why?
In case you are starting to wonder: yes, I have more questions about cultural appropriation than I have answers. Frankly, I’d rather listen than hear myself talk. But I know that the hostility surrounding this subject disturbs me—enough to keep asking questions: Why is it that the mere suggestion, to a group of properly mild-mannered Midwestern people, that maybe, just maybe, other cultures’ productions are not theirs for the taking has the potential to turn usually thoughtful and creative individuals into an angry red-faced mob? (And yes, I speak from experience and am, still, exaggerating. A little bit.) Why do people react with such antics? As if this suggestion presented an acute threat to their very artistic and cultural identity and integrity?
Allow me to speculate: in a way, it does. Suggesting that their actions do not only signify on an individual plane holds them accountable—not as individuals but as part of a group, a culture. Thus this conversation about cultural appropriation addresses each one of us as part of groups, of cultural communities—and we may not want to be lumped in with “white people,“ “Midwesterners,” “Americans,” or, in my case, “Austrians.” In fact, getting hailed in such a way may offend us because it appears to reduce our very complex humanity to one identifying feature that we may or may not, well, like. In fact, it may seem profoundly silly to reduce our complicated identities to the accidental place where we were born, the language we grew up speaking, and/or the worldview that used to appear “normal” to us (and maybe still does).
In other words, the knee-jerk reaction against a serious consideration of the pitfalls, risks, and potential harm associated with cultural appropriation boils down to a quasi- instinctive response to a perceived threat to the deeply held belief in individuality that, in so many ways, is foundational to this country’s history.
Yet, honestly, who can still afford to live in the bubble of individuality? Who can still get away with claiming an unmarked, universal individuality uncomplicated by race, ethnicity, class, gender, ability, nationality, size, age…? (This list could go on.) Here is a reality check for all those sincere individualists: people are addressed as groups all the time. Sometimes, even after they have defined their identity in one way—I am still taken with Obama’s “a mutt like me”—others have insisted on defining their identity for them: in Obama’s case, despite his mixed heritage, this country does not seem to want to see him as anything other than African American. As many others have pointed out, it is as if the one-drop rule still applied. But I digress. My point is: cultural appropriation is scary because it interprets our actions not as well-meaning, sincere acts by individuals, but by members of groups that, at times, have horrific histories of imperial and colonial conquest, racism, xenophobia, warfare, genocide—and sadly, this is another list that could go on and on.
Are we tired of being tied to histories that happened long before we were born? Yes. As an Austrian born in 1971, I have been asked, in no particular order, to explain the origin of the dirndl, the demise of the Habsburg Empire, and Hitler’s policies. I can relate when white Americans, confronted with their own closeted skeletons, ask, plaintively, when is enough and enough? Can’t we all just be people? But are we ever “just people”? And is it up to us to decide when “enough is enough”?
You can probably tell where this line of thought is going: back into the quagmire of identity politicking, which—at least in academic circles—fell out of fashion years ago. But identity politics provide another reason for why cultural appropriation is so suspect: it forces us to think about who we are and how we are in the world. It forces us to consider to whom we choose to listen—and why. To those who tell us that we are entitled to appropriate whatever we choose to? Or to those who ask for care, restraint, and consideration? It is in this way that cultural appropriation ties into deeply held beliefs about cultural authority, trust, and power.
Who are the experts in this contested arena—the art historian, the philosopher, the critic, the artist, the person belonging to a marginalized culture whose imagery and ideas are being appropriated? Who can tell us, reliably, if what we do is right, good, proper? Whose opinion do we trust? How do we begin to measure possible harm against the benefits of innovation? And where does the thrill of learning about another culture fit into this debate?
In my mind, there is a considerable difference between wanting to learn from and about another culture and appropriating another culture. Learning is hard. It takes time, practice, and perseverance. Cultures, Uma Narayan emphasizes, cannot be absorbed as if by osmosis, neither by those born into them nor those eager to study them. Identity, Richard Fung observes, does not automatically grant insight. And sometimes, even though this may be hard to accept, even the best intentions and the utmost sincerity won’t be enough. Learning to accept someone else’s boundaries, someone else’s definition of harm, forces us to de-center our personal, individual, much-valued perspective on the world—and listen up. Philosopher Maria Lugones describes what I call de-centering here as “world traveling:” to truly enter into someone else’s world, you have to learn to see yourself through that someone’s eyes, which may well take more than a grain of humility and a willingness to hear and learn from criticism instead of lashing out. It also requires a spirit of playful curiosity, creative imagination, and trust.
Trust is not built on acts of thievery and ridiculing of others’ protests. Since cultural appropriation does not seem to be going away anytime soon, it is all the more necessary to ask all the messy questions, to depart from generalizing and reductive stereotypes (which are hard to avoid in 2000 words), and to investigate each individual case of cross-cultural borrowing carefully. What we need is a vocabulary to talk about cultural intersections respectfully, with as much awareness of the stakes involved for all sides as possible. And yes, that takes time. And effort. And sincerity. But, given all the inspiring, humbling, disorienting experiences the encounter with other cultures may grant us, it seems well worth the effort.
Works Referenced
Binder, Jan. Journeys of Understanding: the epistemic value of movement. Dissertation. University of Minnesota, 2000.
Chrystos. “Shame On!” Dream On. Vancouver: Press Gang, 1991. 100-101.
Fung, Richard. “Working Through Cultural Appropriation.” Fuse (Summer 1993) 16—24.
Fusco, Coco. English is Broken Here. Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas. NewYork: The New Press, 1995.
Hart, Lynn M. “Three Walls: Regional Aesthetics and the International Art World.” The Traffic in Culture. Eds. George E.Marcus and Fred Myers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 127—150.
Kadi, Joe (Joanna). “Moving From Cultural Appropriation to Ethical Cultural Connections.” Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker. Boston: South End Press, 1996. 115—128.
Lugones, Maria. “ Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception.” Free Spirits. Eds. Kate Mehuron and Gary Percesepe. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995. 121—128.
Narayan, Uma. Dislocating Cultures. New York and London: Routlegde, 1997.
Scheman, Naomi. “Queering the Center by Centering the Queer.” Feminist Rethink the Self. Ed. Diana Tietjens Meyers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. 124—162.
Young, James O. Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
This essay was previously published in ARP!, Art Review and Preview.
Post a Comment