White Male & The Others
Monday, November 24th, 2008I can’t take credit for this entry title, it was a band name that Colombian artist Esteban Garcia came up with. I thought it was a good example of an artist responding actively to the reality of his time.
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According to Mosquera:
The Other needs to stop adapting their art to Western expectations, and embrace how colonialization has affected their culture. They need to “respond actively to the reality of their time”. The reliance/acceptance of on traditional methods/expectations is a product of colonialism only perpetuates Eurocentralization.
Responding to Mosquera:
What was postmodernity thinking when it placed otherness in the foreground?!
We live in “a great time of hybrids”, as Mexican rock star Rockdrigo sang.
In general, outside of just otherness, I feel the solutions offered up with art are almost exclusively self-referential. Contemporary art is less about the individual and more about its own place in the art world. Its relationship to the art world takes first consideration. Not to say that’s a bad thing. Isn’t that what the MFA program emphasizes? It seemed Mosquera was suggesting that artists representing the Other should purposely work as contemporary non-traditionalists. If it is that deliberate, is it more or less authentic?
I enjoyed how he described the “contemporary artistic scene” as more Manhattan-centric than Eurocentric. Isn’t that just what New York wants to hear? It might be true on some level, but it really depends on the perspective of the artist - or art critic. I think so much of contemporary art operates outside of galleries and museums now that the whole notion of “making it in New York” is irrelevant.
Mosquera is an Adjunct Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.