As a quick example, I'm having a hard time finding a personal experience, or cultural heritage, or even any vividness in the work of the forementioned Guillermo Kuitca (soon coming to the Hirshhorn Museum in DC – October 21, 2010 to January 16, 2011).
I realize that I am being pedantic, but such wide statements as this one do tend to bug me more than they should. It is driven by my firm belief that museums should collect artwork based on the merit of the artist and the art, and not based mostly on the artist's ethnic, sex or racial background.
And I really think that statements such as the unfortunate one from Ms. Broun do have the unintended consequence of revealing a rather galvanized and incorrect view of how one culture sometimes tends to view another culture.
I'm not sure if I have made my point clear, as it is a confusing issue, even to me. Perhaps the best way to showcase this issue is to pretend that SAAM was hiring a new curator for Nordic art. Nordic is another ethnic label which often misses the mark about the people whom it is intended to label. As a result, this would immediately cause some confusion in defining Nordic (as there is confusion in defining Latino). Are Germans Nordic or Teutons? How about Finns? Certainly not Finland's Laplanders, but they are also Finnish. And Ms. Broun's statement would read:
“I am thrilled that E. Karmen Ramosdottir is bringing her expertise and insights here to help us feature Nordic artists who transform personal experiences and cultural heritage into brooding artworks. These stories are culturally specific, but also American and universal.”
In any event, F. Lennox Campello welcomes E. Carmen Ramos to Washington, DC.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
A fascinating question. How much of this is legitimate cultural inquiry, and how much is false American racial conceptualizations? What do you think of El Museo del Barrio in New York?
2 - Lenny
Good questions. I have less of a problem (but I still have them) with focused "neighborhood" museums and cultural entities which seek to address their immediate surroundings. Thus El Museo del Barrio in the Bronx, or the Nordic Museum in Seattle fit under that category. I have even more issues with the National Museum of Women in the Arts segregating artists by sex.
The goal should be to fight to include in our major museums all of the artists who deserve to be there, regardless of race, sex or ethnic background. Clearly there are some clear holes which need to be filled, but segregating by ethnic, racial or sexual identity is not the answer.
As one travels in Latin America and Europe, the "made up" American labels for some ethnicities often confused as races by some, falls apart. No one in Spain, or Argentina, or Brazil, etc. considers themselves "Hispanic" and in some Native Central American cultures it is even an offensive term: someone with Native American bloodlines who is trying to "pass" for white.
I'm still a little confused as to what "Latino" means, to be honest. Most Argentineans are of Italian ancestry, so an Argentinean is a Latino, but his Italian parents are not? Weren't the Italians the original Latins?
Makes my head hurt.
3 - andreatks
Thank you for your refreshing perspective!
We -- individuals, organizations, the media -- have been using the term "Latino" for years, without any clear idea of what it means.
It's great to take a step back and ask, what DOES it mean?