Viewing a Culture Through Art

Curtis Cross

Communication 3451

Jackie Arcy

Minneapolis Art Museum- Prestige and Identity in Latin America

 

For my intercultural experience I went to the Minneapolis Art Museum and looked at the gallery “Prestige and Identity in Latin America”.  The very first thing that I noticed when I walked into this exhibit was just the multitude of colors all around the room. Colors were especially dominant with the blankets and clothing on display. The art work was very bright, colorful, and uplifting. I am not very familiar with art but I am fairly certain that most of the art work in this exhibit would be pleasant to most people.  I think many would call it joyful art work, focused on the positive aspects in the Latin America life.  These pieces emoted an overall content feeling.

One of the main ideas that stood out with the art work on exhibit was how the museum wanted the culture to be represented through their art work. The clothing that was represented at the art museum was mostly celebratory pieces of garments. These were the garments that were worn during weddings and ceremonies.  Although I do not know who put this display together or why they chose to show these certain pieces of clothing, I did develop some opinions by just looking at it. I think that these cultures in Latin America placed a lot of pride, acknowledgement, and thoughtful ness into their ceremonies. The clothing that was worn during their weddings and ceremonies would have taken countless hours to prepare which tells me that their ceremonies and rituals are very important in Latin America.  Not only were the rituals very important but who was represented during these rituals and how were they represented seemed an imperative piece of the display. I think that bright colors were used on purpose so that the guest of honor would stand out. It is just like we do today in our culture during weddings, the bride gets to wear a big beautiful white gown to stand out and it would be really rude and against cultural norms for another person to wear a similar outfit during the wedding. I have included some of the garments below with a little description of what they were reportedly used for.

This beautiful piece of clothing is a bride’s blouse. This would have been made in the Zinacantan village due to the bright red and pink bands that are contrasted with white fabric. The Zinacantan tribe is unique because they still practice feather weaving, as you can see in the bottom of this blouse. This blouse is started by the bride as soon as she is engaged and is closely supervised by her future mother in law.

Traditional weavings of blouses or huipiles were usually of finely patterned geometric zigzags and bands like the ones that are shown on the bottom half. In the 1930’s, however, European style was incorporated into the huipiles which included designs like the ones that are shown at the top here.  This huipile would be a symbol of status and only those who were wealthy would be able to afford it.

This is a hat that would have been worn by the village leader at a community celebration. Although many plain black and brown western style hats have replaced the straw sombrero.

 

The next thing that stood out to me was how the high ranking officials were only being represented through this Latin American art work; the only pieces of clothing that were being shown were ones worn by high ranking official’s or the upper class. Really the only way a person would be able to tell that pieces of art work were only representing high ranking officials was by reading the descriptions by the art work.  I have many of thoughts about why this might be.  One reason might be that art work the public would want to see would be work done for powerful people, due to the beautiful colors and detailed statues. The second reason might be that Americans like powerful things, which would lead us to view a culture from a lens of political power. I think that my cultural views, experiences and values played a role in how I interpreted this art work.  One other reason I considered, after my initial interpretations, was that this art work was being presented because high officials were a big part of Latin American culture.  It would make sense to display this exhibit in such a way if Latin Americans had great respect and admiration for their high ranking officials. Here in America a lot of times high ranking officials are often questioned and criticized for things they do. Below I have included a couple of ceramic textiles.

This is a textile of a village leader in a community celebration outfit.

 

This is a snuff tablet where Hallucinogenic plants were crushed and taken to help with fatigue and illness during ceremonies. On top is a high status member of the Tiwanaku society.

Latin America means the countries where Spanish, Portuguese, and French are spoken. Latin America was invaded by the European people just a little bit after Christopher Columbus invaded what is now called the United States. Just like here in the United States many native tribes in Latin America were decimated by disease, murder and slavery. It was soon after this that slaves from Africa were also brought over to Latin America and forced to work in mines and plantations. Despite these severe and heinous violations of humanity, these groups of individuals were still able to hold onto many of their traditions and beliefs.  This helped to form a very mixed culture, which can be seen today through much of the art work.
                There are numerous aspects of intercultural communication displayed within this exhibit. One of the strongest ways that the art work shows intercultural communication and integration is through the blankets and clothing. There were many pieces of clothing and blankets that had a mixing of the native tribe’s styles in Latin America mixed with influence from European and Spanish styles. Also intercultural communication or mixing is taking place because of the choices that people are starting to make. An example would be of the straw sombrero that is worn by leaders during a festival is now being replaced, in a large part, by western style plain brown and black hats. The art work was an excellent example of intercultural communication and integration.

There were many things that I learned from going and seeing the exhibit “Prestige and Identity Latin America”. I think one of the biggest things that I learned from going and seeing this exhibit was how I used my own cultural values, norms, and society to interpret other people’s cultures. This was an eye opener for me and hopefully after becoming aware of how I was using my own cultural values to interpret another person’s culture this will increase my awareness in future situations. Another interesting piece about the art work is how it demonstrates that the mixing of cultures can work in harmony with each other. An example of this would be the blue huipile which integrates both native weaving with European weaving styles to create a beautiful piece of clothing. It is for these two reasons that I think you should go to the museum and check out this exhibit along with many other cultural exhibits presented there. Try and come up with some different perspectives on why they made a piece of art work and see how your cultural values play a role with your interpretation.

References

All pictures were recovered from the Minneapolis Arts Institutes website:

http://www.artsmia.org/directories/art-finder/index.cfm?directory=0