VI.1.4 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 820488
In this essay, Puerto Rican-born scholar and curator Mari Carmen Ramírez, writing from the “double perspective” afforded by her position as a Latin American operating from within the United States, examines the contradictions implicit in the multicultural model and its unavoidable implications for the representation of Latino American art. Written at a time when the mainstream’s engagement with minority art was particularly pervasive, “Between Two Waters” warns against the “fusion of identities” and other reductive notions of U.S. Latin American/Latino “identity” resulting from this apparent openness. In Ramírez’s view, Multiculturalism homogenizes the marked differences among Latino Americans, imposing an “overarching identity” based on certain (but not all) common experiences. Paradoxically, even the more radical hybrid culture proposed by Guillermo Gómez-Peña through his Border Arts Workshop [SEE DOCUMENT VI.1.1] can potentially negate the heterogeneous character of Latino culture. The author first presented “Between Two Waters” at the symposium “Arte e identidade na América Latina,” held September 23–25, 1991, at São Paulo’s Memorial da América Latina which celebrated the opening of the 21st São Paulo Biennial. Gerardo Mosquera, Charles Merewether [SEE DOCUMENTS VI.2.1 AND VI.2.4, RESPECTIVELY] and Nelly Richard also took part in the symposium. This transcription of the essay is based on a 1994 version [Mari Carmen Ramírez, “Between Two Waters: Image and Identity in Latino-American Art,” American Visions/Visiones de las Américas: Artistic and Cultural identity in the Western Hemisphere, eds. Noreen Tomassi, et al. (New York: Arts International/Institute of International Education), 8–18].
ANY ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THE QUESTION “Which Latin America?” from the vantage point of a Puerto Rican (thereby Latin American) curator active in the United States implies approaching the problem of the identity/representation of a peripheral culture from the “inside” perspective of the political and economic center of power. The center has traditionally functioned as the space of co-optation of the marginal identities of the periphery. Yet, for those of us who continually debate ourselves inside its limits, the space of North American culture also offers a shifting perspective to test or question strategies of resistance and affirmation elaborated on each side of the border.
This “double perspective,” that we can also characterize as having “a foot between two waters,” has allowed me to appreciate with a critical eye the transformations that have taken place since the end of the 1980s with respect to the representation of Latin American art in the United States, with the intent of determining their implications for art and artists south of the border.
I refer specifically to the impact that the phenomenon of Multiculturalism has had on the representation of Latin American art in North American cultural circuits. The starting point for this topic is the surge of activity that has surrounded Latino-American art in the United States since the second half of the 1980s. Although Latino American artists have been present in the United States since the 1920s, not until now have we seen any serious appreciation of their art in mainstream circles. We can ascribe the increased visibility of this group of artists to two interrelated factors: first, the demographic trends that have been reconfiguring North American society since the 1960s, as a result of migrations from Central, South America and other Third World countries. It is predicted that the Hispanic population will swell to over 30 million by the year 2000. Second is the emergence of a new model of cultural interaction that has come to be known as Multiculturalism. The multicultural model is linked to the struggle of racial and ethnic minorities to defend a space for cultural and political equality within North American society.1 These minorities include the Latin-, Asian-, African-, and Native American communities. The intensity with which Multiculturalism has erupted in the North American art scene during the last five years has generated an intense debate over the conditions for the representation of the identity of these marginal groups.2 Yet, while the multicultural debate promises to redefine the parameters of the actual “canon,” it is not clear to what extent it will promote a true sense of cultural diversity. At the present time, it poses a series of problems regarding the identities of the group of artists that it purports to represent.
The implications of this phenomenon for Latin American artists transcend the traditional struggle for recognition or the function that the United States has performed over the last forty years as legitimizer of the artistic expressions of the periphery. With the second highest growth rate in the United States, the Latin community is destined to assume a protagonist role in the process of multicultural reconfiguration of U.S. society. This fact alone suggests the emergence of a new dynamic of cultural exchange that promises to redefine the image of Latin American art and culture from inside the dominant center. The effects of this dynamic should not pass unnoticed to the Latin American community in general. In what follows I will attempt to identify those problems as they affect both the U.S. Latino artistic community and its broader Latin American counterpart.
In respect to the position of Latino artists (Mexican-American, Puerto Rican and Cuban], and Latin Americans (South Americans, Central Americans and Caribbean ones),3 who have been the object of discrimination by mainstream cultural institutions, we can point out two significant changes resulting from the multicultural debate. On one hand, over the past ten years there has been considerable opening up of educational and cultural organizations to these marginal groups. As a result there has been an increase in exhibitions, acquisitions by museums and collectors, and other opportunities for personal and professional development. These developments have taken place notwithstanding the fact that the principal museums still resist acceptance of these groups of artists within their established “canon.”4
On the other hand, perhaps a more problematic issue has been a blurring of the distinctions that constitute the groups gathered under the Latino/Latin American art category. This fusion of identities between groups of U.S Latino artists—meaning Mexican-American, Puerto Rican and Cuban-and Latin-American artists—those proceeding from Central, South America and the Caribbean—has been promoted by both mainstream and marginal institutions and critics. For instance, four years ago the exhibition The Latin American Spirit5 (one of the first shows to document the presence of these various groups of artists in the United States) dealt with the problematic of Latin American and Latino artists as parallel phenomena. The critical discourse of the last few years, however, assumes a common identity for the various groups that make up the Latino community on the basis of the colonial Hispanic legacy that unites them all, as well as on their experience of displacement and marginalization by the center. This was the guiding premise of The Decade Show, organized by three “non mainstream” institutions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art. Under the sole category of “Latino/Latin-American,” this exhibition presented a broad spectrum of artists from Central and South America, comparing them as a bloc to that of the African-, Asian-, Native- and Anglo-American artists.6
The blurring of the distinctive traits that constitute both Latino and Latin American identity in the U.S. context should alert us to the danger of homogenization implicit in the construct “Latino/Latin American art,” invoked by both the art establishment and advocates of Multiculturalism. It thus suggests the need to rethink the question of the representation of these two groups. My contention is that this rethinking must go beyond the usual arguments surrounding Latin American art in the United States, such as the denunciation of cooptation by the mainstream, the authenticity or un-authenticity of the supposed Latin American art “boom,” or the impact of the colonial, imperialist strategies of the manifest destiny on artists from this region. The task at hand, then, is to unravel, both practically and theoretically, the problems posed by the category of “Latino/Latin American” art promoted by Multiculturalism.7
Many of the difficulties of taking on this task originate in the ambivalence and contradictions of the multicultural model itself. Especially when we consider the indiscriminate ways in which this model has been adopted in the cultural–artistic field. Although it is impossible to summarize the complex issues posed by Multiculturalism within the limitations of this paper, it is necessary to distinguish—if only schematically—the two versions of this model which are relevant to this discussion. The first conception of Multiculturalism is in opposition to the old assimilationist model of the “melting pot.” In this version of Multiculturalism the center allows the co-existence of different racial and ethnically constituted minority groups.8 It presents itself as capable of accepting “otherness” and legitimizing their “difference” with regard to white society, thereby positing a model of egalitarian coexistence.
The radical version of the multicultural model conceives of America as a single continent—extending from South America to the United States and Canada—composed of different racial minorities that are redesigning the space of the dominant culture.9 Such a model—exemplified in the writings of Gómez-Peña and the Border Arts Workshop—is based on the concept of a hybrid culture that exists along the Mexico–United States border providing a different mode of relations among ethnic groups. This hybrid “border” culture exemplifies the vision of the Latino groups of a new America of dialogue and collaboration. While in theory it is possible to distinguish the ideological subtleties of the two versions of Multiculturalism, in practice, the strategic alliance of minority groups among themselves and with entities of the dominant center makes it impossible to distinguish one version from the other. This suggests that deep down both participate of the same strategy of “crossing-over” to the center.
Notwithstanding the ideological attractiveness of this model, in practice it presents a series of problems. The first concerns the way in which it favors the racial category of the minority groups’ struggle over all the other determinants of social class, nationality, or ideology. In the case of Latinos, this type of racial classification is highly problematic, especially when we consider them with other ethnic groups. Unlike Asian or African Americans, Latinos do not constitute a “race” or “ethnia” by themselves; they are rather an amalgam of races, classes, and nationalities that resists easy classification or categorization.10 We have to keep in mind that what is considered the Latino or Latin-American community of the United States is the result of immigrations proceeding from Central and South America at different historic periods.
The groups who have sought refuge in the United States have fled from economic oppression, the violence of dictatorships, as well as the effects of the Manifest Destiny or other political and economic strategies of the United States in relation to its neighbors to the South. The resulting amalgam of races and ethnic groups includes at least three or four generations of U.S. citizens of Latin-American origin, such as Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans, as well as South and Central American immigrants, each comprising in turn a wide variety of races and nationalities amongst which can be included whites, blacks, Arabs and Asians.11 The Latino artistic community reflects this diversity in its multiplicity of approaches to art. In Gómez-Peña’s own words: “There is no such thing as ‘Latino art’ or ‘Hispanic art;’ there are hundreds of types of Latin-American art in the United States. And each one is aesthetically, socially, and politically specific.”12
All of the above suggests—contrary to what seems to be upheld by the multiculturalist doctrine—that the problematic of identity of U.S. minorities, with respect to the dominant U.S. culture, differs significantly from that of the peripheral groups that are inscribed in this same context. If both are a product of geographic and cultural displacements brought about by colonialism in its several historic phases, in practice they all exhibit differences in relation to their cultures of origin, as well as with the phenomenon of inequalities associated with the Third World. These disparities are more palpable when we attempt to group artists that come from Mexican-American or Nuyorican communities, whose experiences have developed at the margins of North American urban culture, with South Americans and Puerto Ricans, whose identities have evolved outside the parameters of this culture. How can we explain, for example, the phenomenon of the South American artists whose identities are grounded in the traditions of their countries of origin, but whose artistic development has benefited from the expanded opportunities provided by their life in metropolitan centers? In which latitude is this production situated? Or, within this scheme, how can we explain the position of Puerto Rican artists, physically and socially distanced from the center, whose artistic practice is grounded in the possibility of declaring their independence from that very center?
The point I am trying to make here is the following: for Mexican Americans, Nuyoricans, and other Latino minorities, the focus of identification is located in their experience on the margins of North American culture; for South, Central American and Puerto Rican artists, however, this focus is found in their identity as citizens of the periphery or the colony. What distinguishes this second group is the fact that their identity is articulated on the basis of cultural traditions that lie outside the scope of their U.S. experience. These traditions can encompass a broad range of sources from pre-Columbian art, syncretic myths, or the literature of Jorge Luis Borges. Therefore, in order to understand the level of assimilation or non-assimilation of each group, their relation with the dominant culture, and the impact of these processes in their artistic practices, we must first understand how the identity of these various groups of artists is constituted proceeding from two different cultural axes: that which has been provided by their grassroots experiences in the United States or by their countries of origin.
We can sketch out some examples to illustrate the principal points of this argument. First, we have the case of Mexican-American artists whose ethnicity has always been a political issue. The majority of artists from this group is of working class origins and identify with the tradition of political struggle established in the 1950s and 60s by the Chicano movement. As we know, the latter attempted to unite this community through a nationalist project to construct an identity based on the recovery of their Mexican roots and their experiences in North American cities. Up to the early part of the 1980s, the Mexican-American artistic community situated itself in direct confrontation with the mainstream. Such a stance implied developing activist tactics to call into question the institutional mechanisms of the North American artistic milieu. In harmony with their objectives of political and cultural affirmation, the Chicano artists reclaimed the public space as a sphere for their activities, emphasized the community roots of their artistic production (versus the exacerbation of individualism among North American artists), and in their visual discourse inaugurated the strategies of appropriation and recycling of images from Hispanic and North American culture. From this point of view, Chicano art presents an interesting dualism: on one hand, it is an art that depends on collective memory, just like the pre-Colombian and Mexican popular art traditions, as the basis for the construction of identity; on the other hand, it presents these traditions filtered through the artists’ experience in North American urban culture.
Another instance, less analyzed, is the one that presents the situation of Central and South American artists who are active in the United States. The majority of them come from the South American upper and middle classes. They arrived in this country as exiled adults for political or economic reasons. Many of them are double exiles in the sense that their families had already emigrated from Europe to Latin America. Disregarding the number of years that they have lived in the United States, the majority of them resist integration into North American culture, insisting not only on retaining the identity of their countries of origin, but frequently adopting a second identity through North American citizenship or permanent resident status. This double identity has allowed them to participate in national and international exhibitions as either representative of their countries of origin or of the United States. It has also led to their being reclaimed by their original countries for their art history, museum collections, and encyclopedias of national art. In the last few years, the final collapse of political dictatorships in Latin America has encouraged the constant traffic back and forth of these exiled artists between the two continents, contributing to the consolidation of this hybrid identity, an identity that is suspended between two waters.
The developments of the 1980s as they relate to Multiculturalism have raised a number of problems for this community of artists, forcing them to decide what elements of their heritage they wanted to retain and what elements of North American culture they wanted to assimilate or leave behind. Worth noting in this respect is the common complaint among the group who arrived in the 1960s who perceived the climate of that decade as more receptive to cultural difference than the present context of the late 1980s and 1990s.
Contrary to minority groups in the United States, the constant movement of Central and South American artists between the metropolis of the center and the periphery has produced artistic forms that defy easy classification by country or region. Despite attempts by curators and art historians to classify or explain these artists according to their original nationality, the artistic languages of this group reflect their double identity in the way in which they combine—in one work—references to both global and local traditions. These can range from allusions to the art and culture of the indigenous and popular sectors of Latin American countries, to elements of the urban environment of the European or North American metropolis. In addition, the art of this group juxtaposes the modernist concern with issues of cultural and political affirmation with such strategies as appropriation, pastiche, and irony associated with postmodern languages. In their art, however, the postmodern vocabulary assumes a different function. That is to say, its aim is to recycle the artistic modes generated by the artistic movements of the center. All of these elements make the production of U.S.-based Central and South American artists difficult to locate and classify in the context of U.S. “mainstream” culture.
An even more problematic case is that represented by Puerto Rican artists, divided between “Islanders” and “Nuyoricans” or “Continentals.”13 If, for “Nuyorican” artists, the fight against white racism constitutes a nucleus of daily struggle in the urban context of the metropolis, for “Island” artists the racial issue is only one ingredient within the insidious problem of Puerto Rico’s status as the last colony of this hemisphere. As a result, for this later group, immersed in the pessimism of a politically undefined status quo, Multiculturalism is not only a distant phenomenon, albeit one that does not address the realities of their immediate condition.
The disparity between the experiences of both groups also manifests itself in the differences that separate their artistic languages. Despite the exposure of “Islander” artists to mainstream tendencies, contemporary art in Puerto Rico exhibits a much more conservative profile than that of other Latin American countries or even that of “Nuyorican” artists, whose proximity to the “mainstream” has imprinted a different character to their production. Taken as a group, with counted exceptions, the “Islander’s” art is hardly ever understood in the North American art world, even after the latter has been shaken by the visual discourse of ethnic groups. The reasons for this phenomenon go further than a mere localism or provincialism, and therefore deserve to be considered with more attention.
The conservatism (and here must be clarified the relativity of the term, in other words, conservatism when it is compared to contemporary tendencies from the United States or Europe), and marginal status of present Puerto Rican art, finds its roots in the resistance toward avant-garde art in general that marked the tradition of nationalistic struggle of the Puerto Rican artistic class since the beginning of this century. In most Latin American countries, the introduction of modern art went hand in hand with the process of political consolidation and modernization initiated by national elites. In Puerto Rico, however, the transference of the Island from Spain to the United States in 1898 interrupted the process of national consolidation for the sake of a second colonial order.14 An opposite effect was produced: instead of experiencing the openness toward experimental forms of art that other countries experienced, the Puerto Rican visual arts “clammed-up” into an attitude of rejection of any “imported” style that could be potentially associated with dominating powers. This posture led to the rejection of avant-garde modes in favor of the exaltation of the nineteenth century, natural version of “jíbaro” [redneck] culture. Both came to represent ways of resisting the North American cultural influence. Thus, from Francisco Oller to the generation of the 1950s, Puerto Rican artists insisted on their own tradition of resistance, manifested in ideological postures and artistic practices “against the grain” of the international artistic world.15 The moral persistence of this legacy continues to imprint a sui generis character to contemporary Puerto Rican art, despite the new openness experienced by the Puerto Rican arts community during the last two decades. As a result, while the international art world is immersed in Post-modernism, Puerto Rican art continues to be engaged in the modernist project of consolidation and definition of a national identity, in communicating with the public, and in creating the structures that will facilitate and legitimize the art production in an environment that (even in 1991) lacks an operative cultural infrastructure. All of these factors have contributed to and accentuated the marginality of Puerto Rican artists with respect to the North American and international art world circuits.
One could conclude, on the basis of everything stated until now, that far from clarifying the specificity of the Latino-American groups, Multiculturalism tends in a paradoxical manner to homogenize the differences among them for the sake of an overarching identity based in the common experience of racism and oppression. On a practical level, this concept is inadequate to explain the identities of marginal groups of artists, their relations among themselves, as well as with the dominant culture. In making this critique, I am not trying to revert to an essentialist or Manichaean position. What I am trying to emphasize instead is the need for a type of analysis that can take into account both the ways in which the diverse groups of Latino American artists construct their identity and how the latter becomes manifest in their visual discourse and artistic practice.
The contradictions of the multicultural position become more evident when we analyze the central role that both versions of this model grant to the difference that characterizes the marginal groups. In general terms, Multiculturalism foregrounds the racial, ethnic and cultural difference of these groups as a value in itself, irrespective of whether in practice it is true or not. This premise has led these artists to express themselves exclusively in terms of difference that (in itself) legitimizes their inclusion and egalitarian acceptance in the new “center.” Such a dynamic was present in, for example, The Decade Show where instead of presenting the work of the African-American, Asian, and Latin artists in terms of their production—which can or cannot be differentiated from that of the North American or European artists—the emphasis was placed on the different manner in which they work. As a result, each ethnic group ended up represented on the basis of their cultural attributes, which served as significant points of differentiation to the dominant culture. Thus, the selection of works by Native American artists emphasized references to the land and nature; the selection of Puerto Ricans and Nuyoricans was characterized by references to the Island’s culture and symbols of the pro-independence struggle; finally, the work by Anglo-Europeans stressed the utilization of resources derived from advanced technology, such as videos, electronics, and laser screens.
The problems associated with the celebration of difference, are ultimately related to the mainstream’s function as interlocutor and/or legitimizer of the difference that marks the marginality. In other words, this dynamic can only function if there exists an “Other” who will authorize this difference, a situation that continues to perpetuate both the division between “us” and “them” and the inequality through which difference can function autonomously. For this reason, it should not surprise us that the mainstream’s answer to the demands of Multiculturalism has been one of penance, openness and celebration. To the claims of minority groups, the mainstream has responded with an apparent regret of its exclusionary practices, the “correction” of its institutional politics and its acceptance of multi-cultural production. Nonetheless, we have to ask ourselves whether the emphasis on difference of artistic modes and motives employed by the Latin artists, does not correspond—once again—to the space that the “mainstream” allows them to articulate their identity in terms of the parameters of the dominant culture.
In the case of the multicultural phenomenon, the absolute authority of the mainstream with respect to the celebration of marginality can be explained in terms of its transformation experienced during the 1980s. While these are too complex to be fully discussed here, it must be pointed out that Multiculturalism’s arrival surprised the mainstream in a moment in which its distinction not only between art and market was collapsing, but also the distinction between the institutional sphere and artistic practices. This has resulted, on one hand, in the indiscriminate openness of the mainstream to all that is produced in the artistic world, including the peripheral and marginal expressions, and on the other hand, in the cessation of the function of the alternative spaces that propagated during the 1960s, among which the marginal museums of ethnic orientation could be included.16
We should also not be surprised by the fact that the same openness generated by Multiculturalism has already promoted the emergence of one or several “multicultural” stereotypes in the production of Latin American artists. In the artistic production field, Chicano art, which as we have pointed out, has the most consolidated tradition, has provided an important model for the rest of the Latin groups. Resources such as the narratives extracted from memory, the exaltation of popular art to the level of “kitsch,” the ironic inversion of stereotypes, the rejection of technology in the name of craft techniques, as well as ritual-based themes like altars and fetishes, have come to replace the exotic and primitive stereotypes that predominated in exhibitions of Latino American arts organized by North American institutions during the 1980s.17
In a similar way, the narratives of marginality that characterize the existential experience of artists as members of oppressed groups have assumed the form of a parallel discourse accompanying their artistic production, thereby establishing the parameters for the interpretation of the work. In general terms, nonetheless, the implications for South American, Central American, and Puerto Rican artists that do not conform to the new rules are the same as twenty years ago. If, in the past, their work was rejected because it was not in line with international trends, today it is rejected because it does not reflect the new type of “multicultural” art. Despite the veneer of receptivity of the art world, mainstream representatives still exhibit the same level of ignorance with regard to Latin American cultures and traditions. That is to say, they are still unable to distinguish a Peruvian from a Honduran, a Chicano from a Puerto Rican. This suggests that the richness and complexity of Latino American art will continue to be undermined by the North American art world, and its contribution to the Western art tradition will continue to be slighted for the sake of the global celebration of Latinism promoted by Multiculturalism.
No matter from which angle we approach Latino-American art, the issue of representing the identity of the groups of artists is and will continue to be a fundamental problem. Hence there arises the urgent need for a critical framework that will take into account the construction of the identities of different Latino groups outside the parameters of the multicultural discourse. This type of framework has to go beyond theory, serving as the basis to elaborate a practice of exhibitions that will reflect the fluidity of identities and relations in Latin American contemporary artistic practices, taking into account their relation to both the margins of the center and to the periphery.
The first question we should ask ourselves is to whom are these exhibitions directed, and who benefits from their accomplishments? From this perspective, one would have to re-evaluate the format of independent exhibitions, freeing them from the demands and wants of the U.S. art world. The Decade Show established an important precedent in this when it initiated a questioning of traditional curatorial practices and introduced, instead, a comparative thematic format to analyze the artistic production of the three ethnic groups represented in the exhibition. From my point of view, this effort failed because of the importance that it placed on the mainstream as legitimizer of the difference among the represented groups. Still nowadays, the dominating mentality—even in non-mainstream, culturally specific museums—is one that appropriates the format of the mainstream to produce “equivalent” shows. The aim of this tactic is to “sanction” the production of minority artists within the parameters of the dominant culture. Curatorial practices continue to utilize traditional criteria for the determination of quality, even if it attempts to define quality in a more general way than the one utilized by the mainstream. The analysis of the different ways in which diverse groups produce their work would require an interdisciplinary collaboration as well as an understanding of the problems from the perspectives of various disciplines. This type of framework will allow us to explore more ample questions based on how different groups approach similar artistic propositions within extra-ethnic parameters.
Furthermore, and perhaps the more disturbing aspect of the current multicultural climate of the United States, are the implications of the defense of Multiculturalism by Latino radical intellectuals, whose marginal position had functioned in the not-so-distant past as a weapon against the system. This position reveals the deep-seated contradictions of this model. Those who less than five years ago constituted a significant opposition to the center today have reorganized themselves around the model of differential co-existence of groups in the “decentralized” center, governed by the rhetoric of equality and difference.18 At the heart of this switch, is the more problematic issue of how to structure an artistic practice outside the parameters dictated by the center. The model of national affirmation and consciousness that informed the Chicano and Nuyorican struggles of the 1960s and 70s has been redefined within the multicultural context in terms of acceptance and celebration of the cultural “hybridity.” Faced with the legacy of conflict originating in the confrontations of these groups with white Anglo culture, Multiculturalism presents itself as an, if not easy, at least tolerable exit.19 If, in politics, resistance has given way to strategic alliances that facilitate “entrance” and “access” to the center, in the artistic productions of these groups, resistance has given way to a literal representation of identity, expressed through cultural symbols and emblems such as the ones described earlier. From this point of view, the task at hand continues to be the elaboration of conditions for the acceptance of racial and cultural diversity, from the point of view of the affirmation of a culture whose priorities do not match the values of the dominant culture.20 This means that the way toward the acceptance of cultural diversity on the basis of intercultural dialogue cannot be found in the simple repositioning of the Latino American “Other” into the center of the “mainstream,” but in the reconfiguration of the latter to correspond to the need of these and other groups.
Finally, I wish to return to the original question, “Which Latin America?” This question is even more relevant at the present moment when a series of economic and political transformations are significantly altering center/ periphery relations. Among these transformations we can cite three factors: the “Third-World-ization” of the United States and, the shift among the important Latin American countries toward privatization and free market economies, and the alliances of financial groups from these countries with their counterparts in the United States. All of these factors have blurred the binary opposition between center and peripheries, bringing about a greater interdependence between both spheres.
Within this context, the multicultural position that defends the concept of a single continent of collaboration and dialogue between races and ethnic groups can turn into a double-edged instrument. In its most radical version, it can be viewed as a utopian attempt to redefine Latin America from “inside” the center that is, using as a model the experience of U.S. Latino groups with Multi-culturalism. Its principal attractiveness resides in the way in which it counter-poses a dynamic and fluent model, capable of absorbing and recycling influences from both sides of the border, to the essentialist and static model that dominates the discourse of Latin American identity. The latter still being characterized by polarities (national/universal, regional/international, etc). Nonetheless, it is not clear what type of subject the new hybrid proclaimed and exalted by this model will be. And, to what extent the acceptance of its complex cultural legacy will represent conformism. Ultimately, the vagueness and imprecision of this model are insufficient to counteract the complex legacy of colonialism of Latin American countries, resulting in wielding a highly effective but ultimately rhetorical utopia.
On the other hand, we have seen the other edge of this model appear very recently in the appropriation of the multicultural discourse by First World interests of the periphery. Such was the case with the exhibition Myth and Magic, organized in 1991 by MARCO, the new contemporary art museum of Monterrey, Mexico.21 Based on a model of de-territorialization and elimination of borders, this exhibition brought together for the first time artists from Canada, the United States and Latin America, thereby exploring the richness of visual arts expression in the 1980s in the whole continent. And yet, despite the broad interpretive framework laid out by its curators, the institutional politics that led to the organization of Myth and Magic ultimately used the multicultural model as an access flag to the “mainstream.” This took place precisely at a time when Mexico is reclaiming equal access to the North American economic circuits. In this case, the identities of the artists of an entire continent were homogenized for the sake of the self-centered, business interests of groups of private individuals. The long-term perspectives of this strategy, now originating in the periphery, should alert us to the problems implicit in the multicultural model, and the need to revise the definitions and tactics originating in the view “from the center.”
1
The words of the Mexican artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña illustrate a more optimistic vision of this process: “. . . the United States are no longer the heirs to Western European culture. In its place, they have become a bizarre laboratory in which all races and continents are experimenting with their identity, trying to find a new model for co-existence.” Guillermo Gómez-Peña, “On Nationality: Thirteen Artists,” Art in America [September 1991], 126.
2
The most lucid and exhaustive analysis of this problem can be found in Lucy R. Lippard’s Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990). See also the collection of texts edited by Russell Ferguson, Cornel West et. al., Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures (New York and Cambridge, MA: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1990).
3
Almost all the terms currently used to denominate these groups, such as “minorities,” “ethnic,” “marginal,” “Third-World-ists,” etc., are problematic due to their racial or discriminatory connotations. Because of the lack of other terminology I have made cautious use of them. On the other hand, since in this article I am dealing with so-called “Latino” artists [Mexican-American and Puerto Ricans], as well as their South American, Central American and Caribbean counterparts, I will be referring to them with the term “Latino-Americans.” For more on terminology, see Lippard, 15–17; 29–36.
4
The high visibility of Latino-American artists inside the North American art world is a recent phenomenon noticeable only since 1985. In the early 1980s, for instance, critics like Lucy R. Lippard lamented the art world’s complete lack of appreciation for the production of these groups. See Lippard, “Ethnocentrifugalism: Latin Art in Exile,” The Village Voice (July 12, 1983).
5
Luis R. Cancel, “Introduction,” The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920–1970, exh. cat. (New York: Harry N. Abrams and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1988). [SEE DOCUMENT V.1.8]
6
The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s, exh. cat. (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1990).
7
The aforementioned book by Lippard, as well as the work of Shifra M. Goldman and Susana Torruella Leval, represent significant points of departure for this type of analysis. See Goldman, “The Manifested Destinies of Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban Artists in the United States” (paper presented at the 19th Annual Conference Meeting, College Art Association, Washington, D.C., February 1991) and Susana Torruella Leval. “Identity and Freedom: A Challenge for the Nineties,” The Decade Show, 146–157.
8
In the words of the Asian artist Margo Machida: “‘Melting pot’ and ‘cultural diversity’ are sometimes equated, but in fact, they are opposing notions. The melting pot is a concept from a previous era, which many people now reject because it implies that people of color will melt into one big, mega American stew. Cultural diversity, on the other hand, is something entirely different: it is about pluralism, whereby many types—different types—of groups can exist on an equal basis in this society. It’s a more respectful and more accurate description of what’s going on.” Cited in The Decade Show, 143.
9
Cf. Guillermo Gómez-Peña, “The Multicultural Paradigm. An Open Letter to the National Arts Community,” High Performance (Fall 1989): 22; reproduced in The Decade Show, 92–103. [SEE DOCUMENT VI.1.1]
10
The same point could be argued with reference to the African-American and the Asian communities that constitute the largest spectrum of North American minorities. The African-American community has highly diverse and complex origins extending to the many countries and communities of the African continent. This is not counting the fact that this community has continued to evolve through recent migrations from Africa and the Caribbean. In a similar manner, the “Asian” category blends in one common denominator Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, Thais and many other groups. See Lippard, 29–36.
11
Juan Flores and George Yudice, “Living Borders/Buscando America (Searching for America): Languages of Latino Self-Formation,” Social Text 24: 57. [SEE DOCUMENT VI.1.3]
12
Gómez-Peña, “The Multicultural Paradigm,” (1989): 22.
13
Here I use the terms “Puerto Ricans” and “Nuyoricans” as geographical referents in order to distinguish the physical location of each group with respect to the center. It must be understood, nonetheless, that both are Puerto Ricans.
14
Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain to the United States in 1898 as a result of the Hispanic-American War. Not until 1952 did the Island experience a change of political status with the creation of a commonwealth government under the tutelage of the United States: The E.L.A. [Free-Associated State]. Under the present status, Puerto Ricans have United States citizenship [per the Jones Act of 1917]; they enjoy the privileges of a “welfare state,” but do not have the right to the presidential vote or to parliamentary representation in Congress. Almost 1.5 million Puerto Ricans reside in the United States. The political status of the Island is currently being debated once again.
15
For a more detailed analysis of this subject see Mari Carmen Ramírez et. al., De Oller a los Cuarenta. La Pintura en Puerto Rico, 1900–1948, exh . cat. (Rio Piedras, PR: Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1988); and Ramirez, Puerto Rican Painting: Between Past and Present, exh. cat. (Trenton, NJ: Squibb Corp., 1987).
16
Laura Trippi and Gary Sangster, two contributors to the catalogue of The Decade Show analyze this process without acknowledging the negative implications of this process for the development of multiculturalism. See Laura Trippi and Gary Sangster, “From Trivial Pursuit to the Art of the Deal: Art Making in the Eighties,” The Decade Show, 70–73.
17
The type of show that perpetrated this stereotype of Latino art as exotic and primitive was exemplified by Hispanic Art in the United States, Thirty Contemporary Artists, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, 1987. [SEE DOCUMENTS
V.1.4,
V.1.5,
V.1.6,
V.1.7]
18
Nelly Richard has formulated a similar critique of this model in her article, “The Postmodern Centro-Marginal Condition,” American Visions/Visiones de las Américas: Artistic and Cultural identity in the Western hemisphere/Noreen Tomassi et al. eds. (New York: Arts International/ Institute of International Education, 1994).
19
Cf. Néstor García Canclini, “Salida,” Culturas híbridas/Estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad (Mexico City: Conaculta/Grijalbo, 1989), 329–48.—Ed.
20
The following citation by Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer is appropriate: “. . . the focus must not be on our access to the ‘mainstream,’ but on the access of the ‘mainstream’ to us. Only in this way can it function as a sound box for our activities without eviscerating us . . . . The fundamental point is that we remain in the task of building a culture, and that we know as precisely as possible which culture we are building and to whom it belongs. . . . [Such] is a position emphasizing that what has commercial value is not necessarily useful to our interests, while the abolishment of colonialism is.” Luis Camnitzer, “Access to the Mainstream,” New Art Examiner (June 1987): 23.
21
Mito y Magia en América: Los Ochenta, exh. cat. (Monterrey: MARCO, 1991).