The Trouble with (The Term) Art Author(s): Carolyn Dean Source: Art Journal, Vol. 65, No.

2 (Summer, 2006), pp. 24-32 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20068464 . Accessed: 11/01/2011 10:26
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Inca,"Funerary Machu Picchu, author)

stone, Rock," c. 1400-1530, Peru (photograph by the

Much with objects

of what regard made to

is today early

called

art was artifacts in

not made

as art. This but

is the case also with of art

not

only to has

European the West

and monuments, where the concept

regard

outside

places

traditionally

not been recognized. Not

many together and of the objects and called from

infrequently
outside art." This others, have since was "the

(although
that were is so been the middle one of despite

less frequently
not made the fact about the that the

than in the past),

as art are grouped art historians term "primitive ' In discus

the West

"primitive among

anthropologists, art" and

fussing of the first of

its synonyms Gerbrands he called

twentieth a Yet

century. thorough his by

Carolyn

Dean

19^7, Adrian sion of what

to offer

problem

the name."2 also

proposed those in the -

The Trouble with (the Term) Art

nous tiqued.3 This essay was originally formulated as a paper delivered at the 2005 Annual Conference of the in a session entitled "Art College Art Association, History, Theory, and Ancient American Visual Culture" and organized by Dana Leibsohn and Bryan R. Just. Iam grateful for the comments and suggestions offered by many of those who attend ed the session. My thanks also to Shelly Errington, Catherine M. Soussloff, Dana Leibsohn, Elisabeth L. Cameron, Steve Chiappari, and an anonymous reviewer who commented on early versions of the paper. Funds for manuscript preparation were generously provided by the Arts Research Insti tute at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 1. As early as 1942, Leonhard Adam, inPrimitive Art (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1942), 14, noted that only a certain foreignness in form and content linked the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the in the minds of Europeans. He argued Americas that, because the linkage is extraneous to the works themselves, the alleged association of African, Oceanic, and indigenous American arts depends solely on the attitudes of Europeans toward said works. Still, despite his own reserva tions, Adam entitled his book Primitive Art. 2. Adrian Gerbrands, Art as an Element of Culture, Especially inNegro-Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1957), 9-24. only has to peruse the pages of Current which, over the past five decades, Anthropology in some forty anthropologists and art historians have published their opinions, to see that plenty of very smart people have attempted to reckon with terms and labels of this ilk. In 1965, for example, in response to a letter from Adriaan G. H. Claerhout, the editors of Current Anthropology published the comments of twelve internationally recognized authorities on the term "primitive art," which was widely used at that time, but 3. One widely disliked as well. See Claerhout, "The Concept of Primitive Applied to Art," Current 1965): 432-38. Several Anthropology 6 (October years earlier Herta Haselberger offered readers of fashion."7 modernist or and no tion the bition array and

substitute field.

term?non-European alternatives?exotic folk or popular

art?was art; art;

criticized art;

Suggested people;

traditional

the art of pre or ethno-art; art; pre the indige and seen cri in exhi fact

industrial ethnographical urban arts of Africa, Despite of art;

tribal

art; ethnic art; indigenous

art; ethnological the art of precivilized and

art; native people;

non-Western all been been resolved, Rubin's me in all of focuses

art; proposed as was

Oceania, decades

the Americas?have little in has

of discussion, provoked catalogue.4 the i9?OS have

commentary its companion from

1984 by William interests

"Primitivism" this on is the the

What

that discussion, primitive, even when proper cally varied on exotic, the

to the present, you?rather that usage.5 used by

invariably than the noun,

adjective? case

or what author and "art"

"art." This

is the

acknowledges agreed-upon as currently cultures to those the

"art" Thus,

is also it may

a difficult be time

term without to focus specifi and Such it

definition the term

scholars

writing and or is seems

about

the many

autochthonous matters all the those issue. all can

visual not who only employ

of Africa, studying

Oceania, long-ago art

the Americas. faraway to be places;

a discussion concerns heart of While and

term,

for what

at the very

concur

that a

"art"

is an

ambiguous small number

term with of

multifarious in the

inconsistent

meanings,

surprisingly

art historians

so-called AOA fields (Africa, Oceania, Americas),

most commonly labeled "primitive," face

those fields focused on cultures

head on.6 Some recent art

this problem

historians working
what art is; they displayed her catalogue in the West Painting art Outside conceptions

in the diversre AOA fields skirt the issue by declining

instead on what those objects that have is one that the of been a few as art do. Dorie theMaya Universe, Reents-Budet she notes events, Preziosi sense his

to say
and in of

focus

collected exceptions; recognition sociocultural our own

"Western and

non-Western

is vulnerable the AOA of

to historical area, art make he Donald much

education, has beyond asked our query

"whether own largely

spatiotemporal in the negative boundaries, has

socio-cultural points clearly that out defined, art

horizons"; that

answers of art of and

rhetorical with Despite should

the discipline coherent domain that can

history, study8 perhaps

its indistinct his be

reservations, found in every

the assump society

is a universal

in every historical period pervades

sometimes above other make things aesthetic owing distinctions precisely

the discipline. Although

between to these objects aesthetic and

people everywhere
value certain "art" things as a special

distinctions,

category of things and practices composed

medium, function, geographic provenance,

of subcategories
value, and so on,

defined variously by
is not recognized

25

art

journal

Current Anthropology a critique of various terms used to describe what she called Ethnological Art; twenty-four scholars, including George Kubier and Douglas Fraser, responded to her essay. See Haselberger, "Method of Studying Ethnological Art," Current Anthropology 2 (October 1964): 341-84. For additional discussion of the term "primitive" as applied to societies and their cul tures (including "art"), see Lois Mednick, "Mem orandum on the Use of Primitive," Current Anthropology I (I960): 441-45, and Francis L. K. Hsu, "Rethinking the Concept 'Primitive,'" Current Anthropology 5 (June 1964): 169-78. 4.William Rubin, ed., "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and theModern (New York: Museum 1984). 5. See, for example, essays by Emma Lou Davis and Tatiana Proskouriakoff (both inClaerhout, 433 and 436). Discussions about the (impossi bility of defining art have filled the pages of The of Modern Art,

worldwide.

If it were,

defining

the

term

"art" would

not

be

such

persistent

and

vexing problem. The fact that there is no globally acceptable definition

elephant The in our disciplinary Elisabeth living room. writes about the Lega people art historian L. Cameron

of art is the

of what

is today the Democratic

rate from the things," with realm

Republic of the Congo

culture the objects apart their that exist by virtue of

(formerly Zaire).9 The Lega sepa

they from describe as masenao activities the Bwami which or and society, are an of mundane

of material objects powers with Had

"heavy endowed institution Lega well are be

meaning special

use within through out Of

concerned acculturated. self-described

wisdom our

and morality grown Things.

the majority we might

discipline of Heavy

of Lega course,

precepts, a history

Historians

of heavy

things would
privileged. The

look quite different from a history of art; different

canon would be comprised differently, and our

things would
definition of a

be

British Journal of Aesthetics and The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. See, for example, Morris Weitz, "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15, no. I (1956): 27-35; James Carney, "Defining Art," British Journal of Aesthetics 15(1975): 191-206; Robert Matthews, "Traditional Aesthetics Defended," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 38, no. I (1979): 39-50; Thomas inDefining Art," Journal Leddy, "Rigid Designation of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 45, no. 3 (Spring Jerrold Levinson, "Refining Art Historically," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47, no. I (Winter 1989): 21-33; and David Novitz, "Disputes about An," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 153-63. See alsoW. B. Gallie, "Art as an Essentially 1987): 263-72; Contested Concept," Philosophical Quarterly 6, no. 23 (April 1956): 97-1 14,who argues that art is a concept that should always, necessarily be contested. 6. See, for example, Lynn Mackenzie, Non-Western Art: A Brief Guide, second ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001). Like Mackenzie, Arnold Rubin, inArt as Technology: The Arts of Africa, Oceania, Native America, Southern California, ed. Zena Pearlstone (Beverly Hills: Hillcrest, 1989), 16, also elects not to define "art," but sug gests that itdoes three things: I) establishes para meters of identity; 2) teaches and enculturates; and 3) enables societies and individuals to relate to their environment and secure their survival. He also suggests that these three things are what art does everywhere and, to demonstrate this, includes some cultural practices of Southern California in his introductory AOA text. 7. Done Reents-Budet, Painting theMaya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994), 29. 8. Donald Preziosi, "Art History: Making the Visible Legible," inThe Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, ed. Donald Preziosi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 14-15; see also Preziosi, Rethinking Art History: Meditations on a Coy Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 146-55. 9. Elisabeth L. Cameron, Art of the Lega (Seattle: Press and Regents of University of Washington the University of California, 2001), 53. 10. Paul Oskar Kristeller, inRenaissance Thought

masterpiece (if we used the term at all) would be altered, perhaps drastically Whether we find this proposition enticing or humorous or simply ridiculous,
curious fields that we where art don't (that that, recognize is, the notion even in Europe sense at least too few the capriciousness of art) didn't the of exist taking prior a to history European the word valued many of both to consider a concept naming in the or not having did it, we image have dehis some of art contact.

it is
into

It is a fact was not used

where of the

concept visual

originated, independently

"art" for

in the modern qualities until

something eighteenth

its aesthetic noted toricizing the not this

century.IO While the then, where prior West, implications Iwant such to our or them

circumstance, and universalizing of locating societies West but We

have discussed " art. In this essay, art it was of in societies not found

of

consequences exist. In

identifying art where in the image

or does risk of

re-creating the modern or more concept introduced

the modern enough

rather, lesser

just different also to have risk and

to render that cultures

insufficient, possess the

primitive. of art to

suggesting that they essay,

that did benefit in

ought (and

somehow then,

the concept

for)

them.

In this

I seek

to open

a conversation

about how
European perspectives, The Primitive

the discipline
epistemological judgments,

of art history all too often has, through many of its

technologies, and Shelly that what rationales. Errington, was in her recognized driven by art was to which and iconic article "What Became Authentic outside of the still At reinforced what are in fact colonialist

anthropologist Art?", argues tradition

in the West the needs what art had had

as art from and desires and

the European modern be the highly masks spot-lit, by Western

was,

in essence, What

art market.I2 displayed twentieth as were

became

been

could

collected turn of

and the

in the manner century, ritual portability and

become

accustomed. were

the durability content. Objects placed calls

of materials

valued, were they

functions of natural as

like African on podiums, things as other at certain his and "art

often were

stripped

materials. "sculptures." such

Cleaned, Errington as these claimed

reconstituted recognizing

such

appropriation," and are

that objects 'art' because they

originated as such with

things torical that

"counted She

as

were

moments."'3 is, things In a video made I often

juxtaposes

"art by as art.

appropriation"

"art by

intention,"

purposefully show

students

in my

pre-Hispanic "This In is art!"

Maya referring this

visual-culture to an eccentric the archaeolo

class, flint

a well-known recently excavated

archaeologist at the

exclaims site of Copan.

making

claim,

26

SUMMER 2006

and the Arts: Collected Essays ( 1965; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 163, dates modern notions of art to the eighteenth century, as does Larry Shiner, inThe Invention of Art: A Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Douglas F. Fraser, inHaselberger, 368, however, writes "This term [art] was not used in the modern sense of something valued independently for its aesthetic qualities until the second half of the 19thcentury." The origins of the word "art" as used today are further explored by Victor B?rgin, The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1986), 144; Preziosi, Rethinking Art History and The Art of Art History; and David Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism (London: Phaidon, 2003), 3 I and 67. I I. Elisabeth L. Cameron, in "In Search of Children: Dolls and Agency in Africa," African Arts 30, no. 2 ( 1997): 19, finds the following: "At the core of the problem [regarding whether certain small African figurai sculptures are dolls or art or both or neither] is the question of whether a uni versal understanding of art exists." The question is not pursued in this article, however. Preziosi, in Rethinking Art History, 1989, also observes and comments on this problem as does Cecelia F. .",Art Bulletin, 76, Klein, "Objects are nice, but.. no. 3 (September 1994): 401-04. 12. Shelly Errington, "What Became Authentic Primitive Art?" Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 2 (1994): 201-26. 13. Ibid., 203; as Errington herself notes, Andr? Museum without Walls, trans. Stuart Malraux, in Gilbert, Bollingen Series 24 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1949), called these kinds of objects "art as did Jacques Maquet, in by metamorphosis," Introduction to Aesthetic Anthropology, second ed. (1971; Malibu, CA: Undena Publications, 1979). 14. Frank Willet (in Haselberger, 379) observed that "If the form of an object is pleasing, it can be treated as an object of art in European terms, but not necessarily in the terms of the society which produced it.This is comparable to a European artist's admiring a work of primitive art for the (ethnologically) wrong reasons. It is a permissible form of aesthetic appreciation, though not of the most profitable kind." 15.Homi K. Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse," October 28 ( 1984): 126, argues that mimicry is inherent in cultures subjected to colonization. "Colonial mim icry," he states, "is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other," an Other who is the same (thereby affirming the beliefs and practices of the colonizer), but not quite (thereby affirming the inferiority of the colonized). in The 16. Esther Pasztory, "Andean Aesthetics" Spirit of Ancient Peru: Treasures from theMuseo Arqueol?gico Rafael Larco Herrera, ed. Kathleen Berrin (New York and London: Thames and Hudson; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1997), 60-69. 17.Meyer Shapiro, "Style," inPreziosi, The Art of Art History, 147. 18. J.Alden Mason, The Ancient Civilizations of Peru (Baltimore and Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1957), 231.

gist

draws

attention

to the

extraordinary

craftsmanship

and

aesthetic

merits

of

the finely carved offering he holds in his hand. His intention of the unfamiliar object in the eyes of the viewer who he justifiably fears might
not recognize art something rather, instance by its exquisite tends quality. the nothing much foregrounds carved he flint values His choice of words held for is effective, that something. to which for calling However, the term to elevate art reveals it reveals reveals how and the estimation inherent the viewer his own

is to raise the value

something calling applied; in this words, Maya; things.14 imposes when similar we

in the object values it. Thus

is

the archaeologist In other the ancient

aesthetic

sensibilities. about

identifying he

as art, he the flint

tells us nothing in relation

rather,

tells us how of

to other

excavated

In this moment and prioritizes and of study,

self-revelation, reading "art" not supplant matters

the archaeologist of the eccentric that do about terms not

simultaneously flint. In other words, this or than about

a Western name we

recognize categories we

in societies only say more indigenous more place. we Too were

recognize

things, we also

ourselves and values, system term other "art"

the objects perhaps, the and creation defended

suggesting, gave rise to

that our of

value

system

than whatever often, granting the

the object as though, (to us)

in the first in so doing,

is bestowed a favor, find art we will indis do always Thus, visual render

cultures that we

recognizing pensable not and the just

their

uncanny of culture.

objects What's

as akin more,

to a notion because

to the concept translate, but recenter of "art" of

in naming of art, we

rather

re-create

artifacts

in the and

image

inevitably recognition in the somehow "This

the West, can be

its aesthetics, seen as an West,

its cultural to reconstruct only

categories. other that

attempt

cultures them

image

the colonizing

different

in ways

insufficient.ls I tell them the students silver, in my pre-Hispanic Andean figurine made visual-culture and used by

is art!"

course

as I show

a small,

llama-shaped

the Incas (Inkas) in the late fifteenth

fact, I'm pretty sure I don't), but and making students

century. Imay not utter those words

an art historian Inca figurines who by is means showing, of

(in

by being remember

discussing,

slide

quizzes,
Inca

I am telling them implicitly

about from which Machu I do not wax Rock Picchu

that this object is to be valued over other

eloquent. tell them I also that we show them the the so-called val and suspect Incas

artifacts

Funerary

ued this kind ofthing

received small not offerings figurines. recognized aesthetics, Europe However,

even more highly

only unlike recently. out alcoholic

than they did figurai sculptures, for it

beverages this and textiles, and but others possibly like essay even it were on rock in her

of not

Inca figurines, Esther that the

as art until has

Pasztory,

insightful turn

Andean inWestern tion

pointed

twentieth-century a mid-twentieth-century recognition in of

to abstraction r??valua

and America culture, in she that approach it can

encouraged particular echoes values to exotic certainly be

of Andean

visual

the

abstract

Inca

forms.'6 Shapiro, pathetic dred years

In this observation, who and concluded objective

an essay written of modern arts

1953 by Meyer led to a more fifty objects or sym a hun

"the

art have possible some

than was that

ago."17 While

argued

of African

and Pacific Island origin propelled

abstraction, move. ture no one would in 19^7 ever In fact, "was the historian from

European artists toward certain kinds of

that J. Alden Inca visual carved Mason Inca rocks played that a part stone in this sculp concluded

assert

entirely

missing"

culture.18

27

art journal

Factors Inca, llama figurine, c. 1400-1530, crimped silver sheet metal, 9% x 8% in. (23.8 x Museum of Natural 20.6 cm), American in #B/1619 (artwork History, photograph the public domain; photograph by provided Museum of Natural the Library, American History) include methods part of the of the

long militating fact that it is not and of behind point mimetically rocks have

against

identifying

the therefore

"Funerary not

Rock"

as art to traditional

portable?and display except

subject

collection significance

through is the fact be

photography.I9 that it echoes for its ability Indeed, recently, Van

What's the sacred

more, moun looked

this outcrop it. It cannot of view?without a specific

tain on at from

the horizon a different

relocated?or affecting

that matter to represent

mountain scant attention

peak. until

Inca-manipulated when C?sar dis

received book on on carved the clear such of of terraces is the Inca

Paternosto's sertation attention ture.20

Piedra abstracta Inca outcrops

and Maarten

de Guchte's region focused cul quali on the

in the Cuzco these rocks of focus

importance recent rock

had

in Inca

Despite

considerations carving, carving, most such monolith. Rock

the abstract remains

ties of much few steps, imagistic unsculpted Errington, tion" is what examples and

imagistic of

as the pumas, Sometimes Grande.21

frogs, cited as

the Saywite Puma by of

so-called

at K'enko

It is an to

outcrop, one of she

framed the aspects calls

a masonry things made

border.

According appropria the ability

"art by she means

iconicity,

by which to

of observers most notably

to find a person

resemblance or and

something "Iconicity," criterion observation

recognizable? she writes, for the iden the at In

an animal. even

"remains tification question: K'enko other

an unstated of what Do we in order

repressed

counts find to meet a

as art."22 Her crouching our needs for art's puma and

prompts rock for there art?

in the natural expectations Certainly, for

words, that

is this the

a puma valued

sake?

is no like

evidence ness

Incas

this outcrop

its putative

to a puma.

Similarly, we might well wonder

that stems with Monica tions 19. Itcould be argued that the twentieth-century conversion of Machu Picchu from remote, over grown ruins into an accessible tourist destina tion?a museum al fresco?has accomplished both acts of collection and display. Today, many of the site's carved outcrops, including the "Funerary Rock," are roped off and specially protected. 20. C?sar Paternosto, Piedra abstracta: La escul tura Inca;Una visi?n contempor?nea (Lima: Fondo de cultura Econ?mica, 1989), available in English as The Stone and the Thread: Andean Roots of Abstract Art, trans. Esther Allen (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Maarten Van de Guchte, IncaMonumental Sculpture "'Carving theWorld': and Landscape," PhD dissertation (Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana is a practicing artist 1990). Paternosto Champaign, and Van de Guchte is an anthropologist. to this hypothesis, Perhaps by sites inspired a recent today the Incas' our capital desire of Cuzco for Despite was from Inca iconicity the J. Slive Inca Cuzco of a

if the appeal of the claim

built rather in the than shape any of a puma congruence and

practices.23

fact have was

that R.Tom offered

Zuidema serious

Barnes the notion by

and Daniel that idea by

reserva remains and cer tour

puma-shaped settlement, Elorrieta at Pisaq, the in the

popular.24 tainly guides bird" and

the

puma-shaped and Edgar

prompted at Inca of Machu environs tourists built of

book out

Fernando the "flying

Salazar, "cosmic

point and a

condor" "images" it is not "hidden" to find

Picchu, Inca

variety

of other more, for

found

structures these days of

settlements.2?

What's search

uncommon imagery in the

to find the likely in the leging of study Inca

participating environment.

in the That still we

ruins Incas

continue

images similar (discussed

where to those above).

the

didn't removal the

suggests

that we

engage from by

in processes masks

that resulted By privi

of natural or the by

fibers imagistic, reason we have

African

iconic

separating own

certain

artifacts

as more expectations,

worthy or fibers.

than

others categories, looking how

of our

aesthetic Inca visual

standards, culture into of

disciplinary Iconocentric already knows

stripped

its natural the West

has

transformed This kind

Inca of

culture looking,

something to panoptic

to value.

the heir

looking?

28

SUMMER 2006

which 21. Paternosto, The Stone and the Thread, 66; Rebecca Stone-Miller, Art of the Andes: From Chavin to Inca, rev. ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 200, fig. 158. Fernando E. Elorrieta Salazar and Edgar Elorrieta Salazar, in Cusco and the Sacred Valley of the Incas, trans. Beverly Nelson Elder (Cusco: Tanpu, 2001), 59, find a toad in this same rock instead of a puma. 22. Errington, 208. 23. The claim that Cuzco was laidout in the form of a puma was originally suggested by Manuel Chavez Ballon and first argued inprint by John Howland Rowe, "What Kind of a Settlement Was IncaCuzco?" ?awpa Pacha 5 (1967): 59-77. 24. R. Tom Zuidema, "The Lion in the City: Royal Symbols of Transition inCusco," Journal of Latin American Lore 9, no. I (1983): 39-100; Monica Barnes and Daniel J. Slive, "El Puma de Cuzco: ?Plano de la ciudad Ynga o noci?n Europea?" I (1993): 79-102. Revista Andina ll.no. 25. The Elorrietas have found the following in the layouts of pre-Hispanic settlements: a guanaco a condor, at Tiwanaku; a deity named Wiracocha, a sacred tree, two llamas, and a corn cob at a condor at Pisaq; and a lizard, a Ollantaytambo; crouching puma, a standing puma, and a cosmic bird at Machu Picchu. 26. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, trans. Alan Sheridan ( 1966; New York: Random House, 1973); Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan ( 1975; New York: Random House, 1977). 27. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 218. 28. Ibid., 184. 29. David Summers has recently questioned the ability of many traditional art-historical categories to adequately describe the full range of both non Western andWestern objects. Unfortunately he retains what must surely be one of the most problematic categories of all?art. Although Summers recognizes that the word "art" has had its problems historically when applied to visual cultures outside theWest, he continues to use it without definition. He does suggest that what has been called "visual arts" ought to become "spatial arts" so as to acknowledge that, for many cultures, much more than sight and vision are involved. Summers, I I. 30. Art is not the only term imposed from outside that creates a homogenizing category for cultures that did not use it. For example, "shamanism" is a term introduced to (imposed on?) almost all cul tures that are said to practice it. Some scholars fear that the term "shamanism" homogenizes as it normalizes; see, for example, Cecelia F. Klein et al., "The Role of Shamanism inMesoamerican Art: A Reassessment," Current Anthropology 43, no. 3 (2002): 383^20. "Race" and "writing" are but two more examples of terms with problem atic, unreflective global application. 31. Hayden White, "The Politics of Historical Interpretation," inThe Politics of Interpretation, ed. W. J.T Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 129. 32. For a study of Inca stories about saykuska, see Maarten Van de Guchte, "El ciclo m?tico de la piedra cansada," Revista Andina 4, no. 2 ( 1984): 539-56. reminds

takes us

the world to consider

of

things

and

segregates,

orders, who,

and

ranks in both

them? The Order

the work

of Michel

Foucault,

ofThings and Discipline andPunish, explores

cipline practice in the West.26 academic Many disciplines, of his who are,

the development
are useful as Foucault in fact,

of various kinds of dis

to those observes, of us who both the

observations

agents of discipline
as "techniques for

and its subjects. He identifies disciplines, which

assuring and and and the ordering related isolate; exclude; practitioners participated in or things: they and of of human they multiplicities," categorize,

he describes
as doing the sepa rank, I'm can

following rate,

overlapping identify, normalize, as well-disciplined we have

organize,

divide, distribute,

segregate,

compare, they a

differentiate, punish

homogenize, sure think that

the undisciplined.27 all art historians such acts.

discipline,

of ways

experienced

From the long list of things that disciplines,

do, nize Foucault as well emphasized as to make Art, with distinctions.29 practices "sculpture" of Mok'o, have been normalization, arbitrary its assorted Traditional found now which altered only by which distinctions subcategories, Western

including academic disciplines,

he meant the power logical, of these to homoge above but natural, one of world. skin carving, While have, and,

appear

all, useful.28 normalized to normalize category practice gories imposed Here people that carved my Imean rocks

is but categories

arbitrary expanded example,

art have For as

in the non-Western to incorporate with

the

stretches combines by encounters on

in the Maori Western cate

tattoo with

scarification. they

others,

simultaneously,

disciplinary it is useful current

schemata to return book project rocks. from But,

non-Western

cultures.30 of rocks, know, ones; visual some nearly the they Incas nested to Inca rocks. When assumes value kinds the with impor I tell

to a consideration concerns Inca

everyone did not both signify Hay

carved Inca differently frames certain not

as far as we uncarved

many a

in masonry tance warning from Inca their visible Western how rocks representing Inca certain owners. ered rocks of

or utilized whether to "put we hand, in

variety

of other or not.

cues in mind

rocks to attempt

carved oneself

Keeping

den White's seeing things

in the place that we take cues legends, how from

of past cannot the

agents, see Incas rocks

their eyes.31 own

point On words of

of view," the other recorded their

acknowledge we myths, about of can

through (from still

themselves as well as the

and

chronicles, rocks

traces ways.

practices) Inca way

to understand rocks that which or resemblant seems they

in other depended Rather many For

than on than revered example,

One

categorizing prototypes, mimetic through the valleys embody like that of embody warriors

to have index. forms, relation. they are

render

present

their

a prototype embody called rocks, Rocks they their huanca called called

through prototypes embody

m?tonymie of which the rulers

rocks Some

the petrified they are consid of the petri to the

hirauqui, sayhua,

of whom embody of which came

brothers. where

Saywite, fields who

boundaries they to life are

territories fied owners.

stand. embody

Chacrayoq petrified

Puruauca

in order

defend specific territories before repetrifying. Rocks called saykuska embody

quarries of these from which masons rocks field, may removed rocks for Inca building of a projects.32 specific person and flat on instances, embody quarry, locations of the animate or king. or

the

In each

"spirit" The carving or

place?whether into stone the may stone

valley,

of niches imagistic does

places the to

provide aspects

for offerings, but

carving not

represent

the prototype,

carving

appear

29

art journal

have tially they c. 1400-1530, stone, Inca, carved monolith, approx. 8 x 10 x 9 ft. (244 x 305 x 274 cm), Peru (photograph Saywite, by the author)

been or are

essential entirely identified.

to the function through metonymy.

and That

significance is, they

of embody

the

rocks the

that things

signify with such

par which as above, con implic a

Stretching

conventional all manner rocks Inca and of serves made

art-historical Inca rocks, such

categories, as those

sculpture, reveals cept,

so as to embrace nothing about doing, Inca sacred

named a non-Inca are

to further "art by itly compared move that

normalize appropriation,"

art.

In so

rocks,

to "art by invites aesthetic judgment

intention," according by fail not in mind.

toWestern which measure made with Foucault nary he methods called they up,

standards invariably, were

can

only,

to

since such

they

standards

observes intend

that discipli to reveal time" by Since, what charting histor

"evolutive

the notion

of progress.33

ically, European art has been held (by

those schooled in the Western tradi

tion) to represent the highest degree

of evolution, help naming but art elsewhere European we find cannot aesthetic that all reinforce Indeed,

supremacy.

too often Western

aesthetic

standards have been

wielded standards 33. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 160. 34. Preziosi, Rethinking Art History, 25 35. As early as 1842, Franz Kugler's Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte included descriptions of what was called "art" from Oceania and North America. Not long after, indigenous artifacts from sub Saharan Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific were irrevocably linked. 36. Preziosi, Rethinking Art History, 29; Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978), 66. 37. Both Klein, in "Objects are nice, but. . .", and in "In Search of Children," Cameron, 18-33, have provided models for this kind of reflectivity when, independently and with regard to different cul tures, they both discussed the implications of the labels "doll" and "art"when applied to certain objects. 38. James Elkins, review of Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism by David Summers, Art Bulletin 86, no. 2 (June 2004): 377-78. 39. Felipe Sol?sOlguin, "Art at the Time of the Aztecs," inAztecs, ed. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Sol?s (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2002), 56. 40. Beatriz de la Fuente, "Traces of an Identity," in The Aztec Empire, ed. Felipe Sol?s Olguin (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2004), 41,52. 41. A Dominican friar, Domingo the author of a Quechua-Spanish de Santo Tom?s, dictionary pub dent of as instruments are conventional classes, art, used of cultural and or hegemony. and As not Preziosi neutral, In short, of low the wheel, on the observes, absolute, they

(and are still)

"Aesthetic or indepen of

arbitrary social

institutions, Historically, has been

ideologies. the use high or

are

instruments

power."34 religion, culture in

like writing, how

and monotheistic evolutionary that art ladder history, Itwas and of

to gauge

its producers

perched. reached by

It is important maturity same

to remember in the nineteenth who were

born both colo of

early modern and much

Europe, authorized of the the into

century. exploring that

authored nizing art

the

Europeans It can

rest of linkage being

the world. of the

be no

accident

the discipline European might

history

and came

so-called same about time

arts of European and in the same

or former place.35 We of much Europe's colonized certain art

colonies reasonably inextricably ten about agenda, have

at the

recognize intertwined

that notions with of practice little the ways

art and

the discipline While with once

history been

are writ

European anthropology art

colonization. in concert in regions

has

the development those of us who very while we choose

colonizing by Europe of and are it is book to in

history our

questioned

discipline about respond how

enables

avenues we ask and

investigation the things by

discouraging to examine disciplinary an observation that "what "when then

others, often

the questions

to colonial Perhaps, by Nelson

discourses

shaped time Ways be

European seriously

apparatuses. offered

as Preziosi Goodman and not the

suggests, in his so ought just those

to take

ofWbrldmaking: replaced by

is art?"

is the wrong

question

the query fields?would

is art?"36 Art be always important,

historians?and of

non-Western objects were

cognizant the

contexts

in which naming.37

named

art and, more

consequences ofthat

30

SUMMER 2006

We has

would either

ask ourselves linguistic we ought

whether

the

term

"art" or

as we

are

using utility.

it in our If it has if not

studies neither, actually

parity

in the vernacular it as an

theoretical

then maybe stone, lnca,"Puma Rock," c. 1400-1530, Peru (photograph K'enko Grande, Cuzco, by the author) at

to discard term that might where tends

intellectually what we of

unproductive study indigenous the

counterproductive In and place of

to render

as insufficient. terms, categories, recently

"art," we

consider thev can

the use be

even

epistemologies

recovered,

reservations

discussed by James Elkins notwith

standing. Bulletin history objects and tures In his of David text review for The Art global art Summers's

entitled of

Real Spaces, Elkins critical concepts to the "too many text may no cul

to the use

vocabulary studied,

indigenous saying that the

unfamiliar

terms

and

longer feel like art history"38 With regard to cultures that have (or had)
no not bad use for the notion like Those societies might concept art of history art, perhaps isn't such a feeling thing.

interested of central usefully of

in the pre Mexico, further a

Hispanic for example,

explore

the

toltecayotl,

N?huatl
translates Beatriz ation lished in 1560, translates quillcani (to make quillca) as pintar (to paint), labrar alguna obra con colores generalmente (to color something generally), or debuxar (to draw) and arte de debuxar (the art of drawing); quillcacamayoc (creator of quillca) as pintor generalmente (painter, generally) and debux ador (one who draws); and quillcasca (a thing with quillca) as debuxada cosa (something drawn) or esculpida cosa (something sculpted); see Santo Tom?s, Gramm?tica o Arte de la Lengua General de los Indios de los Reynos del Peru (Lima: Universidad 1951 ), 98, 188, Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 357. The Jesuit Diego Gonz?lez de Holgu?n, author of a Quechua-Spanish dictionary published in 1608, defines quellka as labor (needlework or ornamental work), matiz (tint), and adorno (adornment), and quellkani as dibujar (to draw) and pintar (to paint); see Gonz?lez de Holgu?n, Arte y diccionario Qquechua-Espa?ol correjido y aumentado por los RR. PP. Redentoristas (Lima: Imprenta del Estado, 1901), 293. 42. Santo Tom?s, 131, 357, translates quillca as letra o carta mensagera (letter or messenger's note) and libro o papel generalmente (book or paper generally). Gonz?lez de Holgu?n, 293, defines quellka as carta (letter) and escritura (writing). For a discussion of quillca in the colonial period and indigenous Andean responses to alphabetic script, see Joanne Rappaport and Tom Cummins, "Between Images andWriting: The Ritual of the King's Quillca," Colonial Latin American Review 7, no. I (1998): 7-32. ments "the with of de la Fuente that be equates "reach found head heart was a the Aztec perfect (Mexica) equilibrium ideal

term that Felipe Sol?s Olguin

as "artistic of sensitivity."39 the opposed explains, a dialogue How cre ele is toltecayotl with the dual, toltecayotl, who called reception she had an

things that could

between

throughout and heart,"

the universe"; and "the person today

dialogue his or her was

between own

known and society,

as a toltecatl, how where and it affected the

'artist.'"40

toltecayotl in

visually Central of ancient that rendering has

articulated Mexican monuments could of usefully

the

of monuments to are

postclassic

root word

tolteca referred cities in the region,

the builders open whether forward. Fuente she questions the What

long-abandoned We might

be

discussed. (both

wonder, female) the

however, is so straight Is de la

toltecatl as "artist" lost?or added, or ideas,

male

and

been

confused?in masking more

translation? the Aztecs we render

transforming What

ancient nuances

Mexican of Aztec

about when

than tolte or

is revealing?

thought between

are elided terms

catl as artist? What about us? Employing translation. "visual being ing,

might

the disparity

say about

the Aztecs

indigenous blush, to of the the

terms Incas

in the way appear

I suggest had Quechua

is not a term

simple that

act of

At first

to have

approximates Quechua to paint

arts." According the language

early Incas,

colonial-period the word engraving, how

dictionaries, refer even

quilico and and translation named surfaces The

its cognates Yet to be in the writing recognition

drawing,

ornamental of for, the term

work, exposes

sculpting.41 proves above, with ready

a cursory

consideration enterprise, period thing

an awkward Spanish on colonial them, some

in addition used

to the practices to common Andes.42

quillca unknown

was

to refer

in the pre-Hispanic

of mundane

3 I art journal

alphabetic faces whether marking the visual, cial one

writing

as

quillca

suggests of color)

that

the word

refers of medium or

to the marking or technique; all

of

sur

(including painting, was but at that. that we

the addition drawing,

regardless embroidery, does of not

engraving, quillca

writing,

superficial order of spe quillca, elimi embod and part, conven as usual. vocabularies of and art his accepting than today con ideas, history

quillca.43 Thus, rather If we were describes were truer

in itself

refer and

to the highest not that a

a subset to restrict to an our

the visual, studies of

particularly qualify as

to works the visual of that the

thinking nate iments concepts the solution

Inca notion

arts, we revered

would rock terms

a whole discussed are

range

of monuments?including above. Thus, while Iwould and discuss, of native us to

many argue

indigenous that, for

important is not a

to consider simple substitution and then

it is clear words proceed where with more

the most

that approximate with business

tional

art-historical researchers, accessible, conventional traditions. of

terms

allow those

Many are not tory's

especially the concept

in fields

indigenous

find

of visual value

culture, judgments, there

its rejection flexible profound the ways historically history's future places of

boundaries To my our mind,

and

of nonart

however, I am of

are more with and art

issues scholars bound notions, of art

the particulars are cept terms, itself implicated of art and

terminology.

concerned the culturally of modern

in the naturalization through tropes. the unreflective Perhaps even more to

usage

consequential all times

is the and

as the discipline Are some those level, and

expands

incorporate at the

of human the discipline, for we the art effec culture is

occupation.44 at least market, tively on

of us working scholarly explorers of

so-called new

margins resources might

locating art history?

museums, intervene into for

the discipline

How

most

in the processes art, craft, and is the often through

through other Western "global" provide Western tradition,

which

non-Western of

material things? A

converted concern, European

categories text

particular of non from focusing the loss that history's this I

example, cultures climb

art-survey little more history.45 those

in which exotic

chapters digressions of us with

visual

than As all

the progressivist 43. The indigenous chronicler IngaDiego de Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui, a descendant of Inca in 1570, describes rulers who wrote his memoirs the bible or breviary, shown to the ruler Atahualpa by the Spaniards under the command of conquis tador Francisco Pizarro just before they took Atahualpa prisoner, as the quillca de Dios y del rrey (quillca of God and king). Atahualpa, not seeing anything of interest in the book, tossed iton the ground. While alphabetic writing may have been was not deemed remark identified as quillca, it able. Thus scribes and notaries created quillca just as did painters, carvers, and embroiderers. See Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Relaci?n de la conquista del Per? (Lima: Ediciones de laBiblioteca Universitaria, 1973), 16. 44. See Preziosi, Rethinking Art History, 10, 33, where he offers relevant discussion of art histo ry's "disciplinary machinery" and its need to expand, to extend its "disciplinary horizons to all places and times" as if to prove its universal applicability. 45. For a cogent critique of what she calls the Hegelian narrative of the history of art, see Shelly Errington, The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 51-54. on of areas outside

I see too

it, those familiar

the Western systems of much and promote

of us

autochthonous

signification?the to contribute

natural

fibers

of meaning about art

referred frequent essay to

to earlier?have Eurocentrism provoke and

to conversations imperialism.

concomitant such

intellectual conversation.

I offer

Carolyn Dean, professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz, researches aspects of Inkavisual culture both before and after the Spanish conquest. She is currently working on a book entitled A Culture of Stone: Inka Perspectives on/in Rock.

32

SUMMER 2006