I found the most interesting parts of James Clifford’s “On Collecting Art and Culture” to be the ideas concerning how culture and art becomes, in one way or another, something to be collected, possessed, and even obsessed over by groups or individuals. Western cultures are singled out most for having a seemingly infinite amount of collections from every culture on the globe. Possessions from a culture, be it the mask belonging to a tribal chief or a bowl that villagers used to wash their faces, are taken out of their original context and given value and meaning as they become cherished and preserved pieces of property in a collection. The motivations behind these collections are given much thought and consideration. An entire country or tribe cannot become an exhibit, so what is preserved, valued, and exchanged becomes the central issue in deciding what is most worthy of being shown. A few small artifacts often must represent an entire culture’s legacy, and these objects have been chosen because someone has deemed them valuable, beautiful, or based on any number of adjectives that makes their display worth the time of the observing public.
One way of culture collecting is referred to as “ethnography,” which highlights the ways diverse elements of a culture are chosen and taken from their original location and given an increased value by being placed in another, such as a museum or gallery. Clifford views these chosen objects as what the collectors deem as deserving to be remembered and treasured. Where Geertz sees “Art" as being tied to the artist’s social class, aesthetics, and ideas about taste, and “art” as a skilled work, craft, or technology, Clifford has his own system for the way culture was seen in the eighteenth century. “Culture” refers to a tendency to the natural growth of living things, while “culture” came to mean what was most valued in a society.
Going into an exhibit or gallery, it is easy to allow a few objects to sum up the heritage of a culture that one knows little about. Ideas about a society’s culture, practices, and beliefs can be summed up without the details, so looking at one’s own private collection might provide better insight into the motivations behind why we collect what we collect. What is it about certain objects that attract us more than others? All kinds of reasoning can be brought to our collections, whether the objects entertain us (music, movies, books), aesthetically please us (art, photographs), help us make a political or moral statement (t-shirts, bumper stickers), or whose value could bring the owner untold riches some day (old comic books and action figures). Personally, I have to an extent collected items for each of these reasons. A collection seen in a museum or gallery is meant to represent an entire people, but our personal collections show who we are as individuals. Walking into someone else’s room is like walking into a small museum where a person’s identity is preserved in its original context.
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I definitely agree with you, its interesting to look objectively on the fact that people collect cultural art like bottlecaps (well...like really really expensive and aesthetically pleasing bottlecaps) taking them out of their "original context" and throwing a pricey tag and high sense of value on them, most easily seen in "museum art," where eating spoons from far away cultures adopt a 'do not touch' price tag policy.
Like you said, It seems almost impossible to try to represent an entire culture by showcasing such items as ritual mask or washing bowl, and its very easy to make a judgment on the entirity of the culture through such a small amount of objects.
But its not only cultural artifacts that can be collected, we witness and participate in different types of collections daily. You name it, theres someone that collects it; Cars, toys, shot glasses, books, artifacts, art, turn on a news channel and your bound to hear about some crazy collecting dead cats. Vintage and 'fad' collections are two of the most popular fashions of collecting, and things as comic books, very commonplace, are a very popular and potentially expensive collection. Collections of any type provide a great insight into your personality and personal interests.
I think it is interesting to note that the implications of art and how that relates to how our society defines our culture. What we collect and retain for keepsake is not only a representation of ourselves, but often says something about our cultural indentity.
I really enjoyed the comparison you made relating an individual's room to their own personal musuem. A room can be viewed as a representation of one's indentity. This is because we keep and display objects, posters, other decorations to remind us of what we love, and inform others of the same. And when someone observes our room, our own personal space, they learn about who we are as people. This is also true for that of a museum, ;certain pieces or artifacts are chosen for display because they hold meaning to a certain culture.
I suppose we should all pay particular attention to the things we collect and the statements they make to others. And when we are on a quest for knowledge about another person, or their culture, we must remember to look around them, for it speaks louder than any words or explaination could.
Unfortunately, I would have to disagree with you. I would have to disagree with the idea of culture behind art or whichever for the sake that our distanced views and misconceptions of certain creations, skew the intent of the art. I think that art should be viewed as a lesuire item; to either enjoy creating it, or observing art should not have a whole mess of people chasing after it labelling it this or that. Reading the article for me just broke down the method to collecting art and culture a bit too much....
I found this reading very interesting myself, and I agree with what you stated in your blog, concerning how culture and art
are collected by groups of individuals. Culture is a very
important factor that contributes to the creation of art. It is
very interesting that people use a value system to distinguish
what is art and what it is not. If it is part of the culture it should be viewed as valueable. Since we perceive things
differently when we become facinated by an object of art, we tend to collect it. Reasons for this include exposing other people to art and culture, as well as for ecomic reasons. Art is whatever we
make it to be, this is why it is so important to us; it is part of
who we are.
I have to agree with you about culture and art. Clifford talks about the difference between collections, and what makes people collect what they do. Collections as a whole tell alot about whom they were collected from, or by. If you walk into a museum and view a collection of "precious" items from an ancient african tribe, you are viewing what someone else collected and hung in a museum as what they deemed to be important in expressing the values of that culture. There could be masks, utensils, pottery, tools, and all of these represent some of the culture of that tribe. It gives the viewer a small insight into their lives, and what was most likely valued in their everyday lives. However, these are not personal collections of anyone in the tribe. The collection would have been very different if someone in that tribe had collected a group of items that they believed well represented who they were and what their values were. Culture plays a huge role in how everyone views the world, whether they realize it or not. How you grow up, and how you were raised (all part of culture) form how you think, your ideals, and your values when you grow up. Even if you think you are different, or question things, or just don't "go with the flow" that is all still because of culture. You may be questioning what you know, but it is because of culture that you know what you know. Someone looking into a different culture uses their own ideas of culture to try to understand that group of people. While they may begin to understand about the studied group, what they are studying and learning will never hold the same value that it does for the observed group. Going back to what I said about the museum, a group of items collected by an outsider, would never hold the same value as they would collected by a member of that culture.
What people hold high as important all reflect on their culture. Clifford talks about the collections of young kids, where boys collect things such as cars, planes, cards, while girls collect dolls and such things. This is all a reflection of culture, and how they were raised to value those items. While one girl may collect all dolls wearing pink dresses, or only dolls that have a bow in their hair, that is a personal preference, but the collection as a whole reflects on the culture.
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