Many critiques have been written concerning the promotion of ideas of "Abstract Expressionism" as the first "American" art to succeed in raising American art to an international level. What was interesting to me, however, was the identity politics implicit in this promotion of "Americanism", in rela...
Many critiques have been written concerning the promotion of ideas of "Abstract Expressionism" as the first "American" art to succeed in raising American art to an international level. What was interesting to me, however, was the identity politics implicit in this promotion of "Americanism", in relation to which Third World cultures came to be marginalized. The discourse of Abstract Expressionism that emphasized the "radical" and "universal" characteristics of American art was premised under the condition that it must derive from European art. This idea seems to have formed as a part of cultural "Americanism" that reflected the influx of new immigrants and the program of assimilation under the notion of the "Melting Pot". "Assimilation" has meant "assimilation" into the dominant and superior American culture through three elements-the English language, national identification and pride, and the Protestant ethic. While the definition of the "melting pot" required the absorption of new immigrants into Western culture, critics and institutions of Abstract Expressionism struggled to perpetuate the myth of the "melting pot" by denying the nature of diverse cultures in the United States. Although the 1980s witnessed a new critical promotion of women artists and a theoretical focus on questions of "difference" and "otherness", it was not until the late 1980s that the question of the marginalized racial and ethnic Other entered the mainstream art world, spurring critical challenges to the notion of the "melting pot", and demanding a more inclusive engagement with the Other"s voice. From MoMA"s "Primitivism" show in 1984, to the spectacular mounting of several Latin American and Latino art exhibitions in the late 1980, and to the 1989 exhibition "Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment" that triggered the so-called Culture Wars in the art realm, exhibitions began to engage with questions of difference on a new level. While these exhibitions signified an increasing interest in the Other in American art museums, the art of the Other continued to be considered not as equal partner to Euro-American cultures, but as exotic, primitive, or even degenerate. It was "The Decade Show" of 1990, however, that ushered in a new era of large exhibitions that officially espoused the notion of "multiculturalism" which substituted the notion of the "melting pot". This show, mounted at the New Museum in New York, purposely embraced a cross-section of cultures, rather than a focus on one cultural group. It set the pattern for a new agenda for exhibitions in major establishments and art institutions. By far the largest and most debated of these was the 1993 Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York. Like "The Decade Show", it focused attention on what it meant to be "American". Questions of who is American and of what is American in American art became more compelling than ever before, partly because the exhibition pressed its core themes of race, ethnicity, gender, and sex at the height of the public political debate over "multiculturalism" and "political correctness". At the same time, the 1993 Biennial represented the first large-scale representation of Other artists in a renowned art museum that was dedicated to "American art". Focusing on these two exhibitions, "The Decade Show" and the 1993 Whitney Biennial, this paper examines how American museums in the early 1990s constituted, institutionalized, and disseminated a new narrative of cultural identity under the rubric of "multiculturalism".
Many critiques have been written concerning the promotion of ideas of "Abstract Expressionism" as the first "American" art to succeed in raising American art to an international level. What was interesting to me, however, was the identity politics implicit in this promotion of "Americanism", in relation to which Third World cultures came to be marginalized. The discourse of Abstract Expressionism that emphasized the "radical" and "universal" characteristics of American art was premised under the condition that it must derive from European art. This idea seems to have formed as a part of cultural "Americanism" that reflected the influx of new immigrants and the program of assimilation under the notion of the "Melting Pot". "Assimilation" has meant "assimilation" into the dominant and superior American culture through three elements-the English language, national identification and pride, and the Protestant ethic. While the definition of the "melting pot" required the absorption of new immigrants into Western culture, critics and institutions of Abstract Expressionism struggled to perpetuate the myth of the "melting pot" by denying the nature of diverse cultures in the United States. Although the 1980s witnessed a new critical promotion of women artists and a theoretical focus on questions of "difference" and "otherness", it was not until the late 1980s that the question of the marginalized racial and ethnic Other entered the mainstream art world, spurring critical challenges to the notion of the "melting pot", and demanding a more inclusive engagement with the Other"s voice. From MoMA"s "Primitivism" show in 1984, to the spectacular mounting of several Latin American and Latino art exhibitions in the late 1980, and to the 1989 exhibition "Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment" that triggered the so-called Culture Wars in the art realm, exhibitions began to engage with questions of difference on a new level. While these exhibitions signified an increasing interest in the Other in American art museums, the art of the Other continued to be considered not as equal partner to Euro-American cultures, but as exotic, primitive, or even degenerate. It was "The Decade Show" of 1990, however, that ushered in a new era of large exhibitions that officially espoused the notion of "multiculturalism" which substituted the notion of the "melting pot". This show, mounted at the New Museum in New York, purposely embraced a cross-section of cultures, rather than a focus on one cultural group. It set the pattern for a new agenda for exhibitions in major establishments and art institutions. By far the largest and most debated of these was the 1993 Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York. Like "The Decade Show", it focused attention on what it meant to be "American". Questions of who is American and of what is American in American art became more compelling than ever before, partly because the exhibition pressed its core themes of race, ethnicity, gender, and sex at the height of the public political debate over "multiculturalism" and "political correctness". At the same time, the 1993 Biennial represented the first large-scale representation of Other artists in a renowned art museum that was dedicated to "American art". Focusing on these two exhibitions, "The Decade Show" and the 1993 Whitney Biennial, this paper examines how American museums in the early 1990s constituted, institutionalized, and disseminated a new narrative of cultural identity under the rubric of "multiculturalism".
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