Cultural Imperialism: Latin America and Mexico by Shifra M. Goldman*

It would be naïve, in the light of revelations about the role of the United States Information Service (USIA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and United states multinational corporations in Latin America, to assume that the changes in direction taken by contemporary Mexican art occurred on a purely internal level or for purely aesthetic reasons.  Since the 1967  exposures of CIA involvement in the covert funding of cultural organizations in both the United States and abroad as a key part of United States foreign policy during the Cold War, we must consider the implications  of cultural penetration on Latin American art.  While there is no intent here to attempt an extensive itemization of this vast topic, some indiation can be given of the possible effects this penetration had in the years 1955-1965, culminating in the 1965 Esso Salon in the Museo de Arte Moderno, and of the degree of involvement of some of the personae of Nueva Presencia. 

         This period was marked by increasing friction between the Mexican School and a wave of younger artists disinterested in socially responsive art.  It was inevitable that social realism would become, as it had earlier in the United States, the target of those United states forces engaged in the Cold War.  In the battle for cultural hegemony in Mexico, there was need for a major young talent who could be put forth as a symbol and spokesman against social realism, and this symbol was found in the person of José Luis Cuevas, who achieved his first international prominence with a 1954 show mounted by the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C., and through the personal support of José Gómez-Sicre, head of the Division of Visual Arts of the Pan American Union.  Cuevas thereafter engaged in polemics against the Mexican School and social realism throughout Mexico, Latin America, and the United States.  It would be extreme to suggest that Cuevas was consciously involved in a political (rather than artistic) conspiracy to attack social realism; cultural formulations function much more subtly and are not always conceived of in political terms by artists themselves – through, as will be shown, they may be by cultural institutions.  Rather, it might be said that Cuevas’ precocious talent and personal egotism played a role in making him the figurehead for latent discontent and rebellion against the Mexican School.  In addition, he was witty and articulate, and given to making pronouncements and writing extensively for the press.  His personal vacillations and his belief adherence to numerous groups rebelling against the “status quo” during these years emphasize the fact that this role can be seen as one of simple negation and his “rebellion” as of a wholly personal character.  It can safely be said that Cuevas, concerned with the eternal “I” sought self –publication or gratification through his activities rather than an ideological stance.  In any case, with the support of Gómez-Sicre (and later Marta Traba), Cuevas’ reputation as Mexico’s most talented young artist and contemporary answer to social realism was established.  It can be persuasively argued that Gomez-Sicre, as a very astute artistic critic, was simply following his aesthetic judgment in supporting Cuevas.  Nevertheless, the 1964 Traba-Cuevas attack on Mexican muralism and later conjunction in attacking Nueva Presencia when it became to consciously and outspokenly political, clarify the fact that the target was political art. 

         United States Cold War cultural politics has been incisively dealt with in two seminal articles written in the United States:  Max Kozloff’s “Amercan Painting during the Cold War” and Eva Cockcroft’s “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War.”  Kozloff pointed tout that the most concerted accomplishments of American (i.e., United States) art occurred during precisely the same period s the burgeoning claims of American world hegemony after World War II.  Though American art never became a conscious mouthpiece for any agency, there was a parallel between the belief that America was the “sole trustee of the avant-guard ‘spirit’ and the U.S. government’s notion  of itself as the sole grantor of capitalist liberty.”  A new sophistication in bureaucratic circles brought the realization that the work of the American intelligentsia (and artists) could be used as a commodity in the struggle for American world dominance.  It was revealed during the sixties that the CIA had covertly supported such domestic organizations as the Congress for Cultural Freedom (and its organ, Encounter magazine); whole abroad, exhibitions of the United States avant-guarde painting were made accessible under the sponsorship of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York,  a Rockefeller-dominated institution.  (If we can agree with the suggestion that cultural “warfare” aims indirectly to disrupt the symbol systems of living cultures and to infect them with the “conqueror’s” values, that is to attack the other’s collective unconscious, then we can see that cultural imperialism as a weapon of cold war could be a tool of neocolonialism in Latin America as easily as economic penetration.)

         Kozloff felt that the similarity between the aims of American cold War rhetoric and the heroicizing posture of the abstract expressionists (and their credo of personal liberty) was a coincidence.  Cockcroft disagreed with this point of view and documented the “links between cultural Cold War politics and the success of abstract expressionism” which, she said were carried out through the Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Specifically, she pointed out the relationship between the activities during World War II of Nelson Rockefeller’s Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and the Museum o f Modern Art in providing exhibitions of contemporary American paintings to be shipped around Latin America, an area in which subsidiaries of Standard Oil of New Jersey had particularly lucrative investments.  After the war (1952) the Museum of Modern Art launched its International council, which promoted exhibits of avant-gard United States paintings – especially those of the abstract expressionists – for international exhibitions in such places as London, Paris, Tokyo, Venice, and (for Latin America) the prestigious Sao Paulo Biennials.  Since the climate of the United States during the Cold War was virulently anticommunist and government agencies were prevented by red-baiting from carrying out such activities (especially since many of the artists involved had formerly been left-wing), the Museum of Modern Art served in a supranational capacity to influence foreign intellectuals and artists and to resent a strong propaganda image of the United States as a “free” society opposed to the “regimented” communist bloc.  In the 1960’s the Rockefeller interests launched the Council of the Americas and its cultural component, the Center for Inter-American Relations, specifically aimed at recovering respect for the United States in Latin America in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs debacle, and the 1962 missile crisis. 

         In short, it can be that since World War II, the artistic evolution of Latin America as a whole has been marked by internationalist trends, nearly all of European or North American origins.  Abstract expressionism and informalism began to attain their position of prominence toward the end of the fifties and were more widely embraced by Latin American artists that any other style since the beginning of the nineteenth century.  The spread of internationalism caused a reaction “against the schools of social revolutionary, social scene, and social commentary painting which, emanating from Mexico, prevailed during the 1930’s and 1940s…abstract art (had) to great extent replaced the social reformist or revolutionary interpretation of themes from Indian life as well as proletarian social motifs in general.”  My purpose here is to indicate briefly some of the machinery of the change. 

         Over the years a number of subsidiaries of major North American corporations have assumed the role of cultural patronage in Latin America, primarily because international events sponsored directly by the United States governement tended to be regarded as official propaganda, but secondarily for the purpose of creating favorable publicity for the companies concerned.  Under this category, for example, in 1959 the International Petroleum Company of Colombia (Intercol), an affiliate of Standard Oil of New Jersey, exhibited Colombian art objects in a Bogotá gallery as a “goodwill gesture.”  Public relations and press coverage snowballed, and the exhibit was brought to the Pan American Union, Washington, D.C., in 1960.  Intercol, which had $ 100 million invested in Colombia, insisted that the art show as not tied in any way to its investment, a statement that appears less than candid.  In 1963, Intercol was a major supporter, along with other business interests like Colomotores, Panauto, Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, Braniff Arilines, and Shell and Phillips oil companies, in the foundation of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogotá under the direction of Marta Traba, and in 1965 it was involved with the Esso Salon, which sponsored competitive shows for Colombian artists under thirty-five years of age.   In Mexico, we have the examples of the major collection of drawings and prints of General Motors of Mexico and exhibits sponsored in its factories by the Ford Motor company in Mexico.  In Argentina, the Cordoba Biennial is sponsored by Kaiser Industries; in Montevideo, General Electric also has entered the field of art patronage.  In some cases art patronage by these transnational corporations has rivaled or even surpassed that of the national and provincial governments.

         Concerning the effects of cultural penetration on Latin American artists, United States critic and historian Sam Hunter had this to say about the 1967 Cordoba Biennial:  “Rarely, I think, has an exhibition so dramatically illustrated the erosion of local and provincial traditions and their suppression by international styles,”  a fact he considered to be the result of the “somewhat uncritical embrace of the ideology of ‘advanced’ art as a cultural ‘cause’ and form of individual liberation.”  Hunter, however, viewed this erosion as essentially a passive process; he did not mention the active promotional role of United States cultural or business agencies.  The homogenization and subversion of local artistic directions was also noted by the astute  Mexican art dealer Inés Amor, who stated in 1964 that the “image of Mexico”, always to be found in the work of painters doing “truly creative and lasting work” was not to be found in the work of beginning painters, the majority of whom were following foreign influences. 

         Some of the mechanics of the shift in artistic interests indicated above might be found in the role of international art competitions, which became important after World War II.  The earliest and most important in Latin America was the Sao Paulo Biennial (first held in 1951) , an American replica of the Venice Biennial.  Winning a top prize at an international competition was important not only for the artist whose work it helped to launch or upgrade on the international art market, but for the country represented as well.  In most cases the selection of artists for international competitions and the costs of shipping and handling were under the supervision of government agencies; however, in the case of the United States, these exhibits were managed and financed by the Museum opf Modern Art. 

         Inter-American competitions and exhibitions flourished with special vigor between 1956 and 1966.  The Gulf-Caribbean Art Exhibition took place in 1956 at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the same year the Corcoran Gallery of Washington, D.C., presented Latin American Art; 1958 saw the First Interamerican Biennial of Painting of Prints of Mexico and the triennial Pittsburg International (Carnegie Prize).  In 1959 the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts presented “South American Art Today” and the Art Institute of Chicago showed “The United States Collects Pan American Art”.  In 1962 the First International Prize Competition was held by the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella of Buenos Aires, and the First American Biennial of Art was held in Cordoba, Argentina, sponsored by the Kaiser Industries of Argentina.  In 1963 the First American Graphics Biennial took place in Chile.  In 1964 Cornell University and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum sponsored a Latin American exhibit which was first shown in Caracas and then traveled to the United States, and in 19667 Yale University mounted the exhibit “Art of Latin America since Independence.”  Other biennials and exhibits were held in the sixties in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Ecuador. 

         During two “vulnerable decades,” 1950-1970,  Latin American artists were offered inducements to change their styles and content in response to the large prizes and prestige of international competitions.  The erosion of local development during these years is attestedto by the 1961 Sao Paulo Biennial, where at lesast 80 percent of the art “belonged to some species of abstraction, and more than half to its latest modes,” causing the viewer to wonder if this was the kind of painting and sculpture that now appealed to governments, and if the concept of “locality” and “roots” no longer played a role.  In 1960, for example, a traveling exhibition cosponsored by the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (then directed by Thomas M. Messer) and Time, Inc.  (the Luce interests), and assisted by Gomez-Sicre of the Pan American Union, featured eleven artists all of whom, with the exceptin of Ricardo Martinez (the only Mexican shown) were abstractionists.  Almost half the participants were from Argentina, where Jorge Romero Brest had made Buenos Aires a bastion of avant-guard art.  

         The culmunation of United States corporate influence on Latin American art was the 1965 Esso Salons for Young Artists held in eighteen Latin American countries (with the obvious exception of Cuba).  Organized at the suggestion of Humble Oil and Refining Company, a Rockefeller-dominated affiliate of Standard Oil, it was underwritten by the respective nationally based Esso Companies (Latin American affiliates of Humble Oil) and organized by José Gómez-Sicre of the Pan American Union in conjunction with public and private fine arts institutions in the constituent countries.  Each Salon was conceived as a national competition for artists under forty, with first and second prizes in both painting and sculpture.  Winners participated in the Esso Salon of Young Latin American Artists held at the gallery of the Pan American Union (April 1965) at which they competed for an additional inter-American prize.  The jury for this competition was composed of United States exerts, two of whom, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Thomas M. Messer of the Guggenheim, were connected with museums whose major sponsors (Rockefeller and Guggenheim) had made considerable in Latin American investments. 

         Historically Mexico has been one of the most outspoken of all Latin American nations against imperialism and neocolonialism, and it therefore comes as no surprise that Mexico’s Esso Salon was surrounded by political as well as artistic controversy.  Amid charges of irregularities in the selection of jurors (painters Tamayo and Orozco Romero, writers Rafael Anzures and Juan García Ponce, and art historian Justino Fernandez), the two top painting prizes were awarded to abstractionists Fernando García Ponse and Lilia Carrillo, and the sculpture prizes to Guillermo Castano, Jr., and abstractionist Olivier Seguin.  As a result, a letter of protest signed by fifteen artists (including former Nueva Presencia members Icaza, Munoz, Belkin, and Gonzalez) was sent to the director of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes sharply questioning the personnel of the selections committee and jury and the criteria used in awarding the prizes.  It was felt that the selections committee and jury were proformalists it was alleged that Tamayo had opposed awarding the printing prize to Benito Messenguer (also formerly of Nueva Presencia) because he (Tamayo) was opposed to the Nueva Presencia tendency; and finally that it was highly unethical for Juan García Ponce to sit on a jury that awarded his brother first prize.  (There is no doubt that some of these criticisms were in order; however, such eruptions were symptomatic of the heated debate and confrontation between realist and abstract art that raged for more than a decade and were given official recognition a year after the Esso Salon in a large exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes called “¡Confrontation ’66!”)

          On the political side, the abuses of the Esso Saloon underlined the larger sense of indignation that a foreign company like Standard Oil (Esso) should undertake the invasion of national Mexican culture by establishing the competition and promoting distinct types of art.  The role of the Pan American Union (Organization of American States) came under particular attack:

         For a number of years the Organization of American States has maintained a silent struggle against the Mexican School of painting throught the activities of the special organization which is directed by the critic Gómez- Sicre…(though) Mr. Gómez -sicre has all the righ tin the world to the freedom of his aesthetic judgments.  What is bad is that Mr Gómez-Sicre is a functionary of a supposedly impartial organization which has no right to protect a particular type of art…It is not an accident that a person with Gómez-Sicre’s ideas should be chosen by the OAS to “protect” painting on the Continent.  Whether or not he is conscious of it, it is certain that his ideas about art result in favoring the political line of North American imperialism in Latin America.  Since the Mexican School of painting is a nationalist and progressive manifestation it is in the interest of imperialism to combat it with all methods possible, because the abolition of nationalism is favorable to the penetration of Latin America …And this is the reason why “Standard Oil” is so interested in protecting the fine  arts of Mexico. 

          It can be inferred that the Instituto Nacional de Bellas ARtes’ sponsorship of an artistic competition underwritten by Esso Mexicana indicated the tacit approval of the Mexican government.  Thus not only were Standard Oil and the Organization of American States apparently in collusion to influence the direction of Mexican art, as the magazine Politica  claimed, but the Mexican government itself was also involved, reflecting its increasingly capitalist orientation and partnership with United States finance.  At the same time, the growth of a support system of art galleries, critics, and museums to accommodate and increasingly speculative collectors’ art market is evidenced in the in-fighting surrounding the Esso Salon.  Galleries such as Antonio Souza, Proteo, and Juan Martin (whose artists were supported for the 1960 Mexican Interamerican Biennial and the 1961 Sao Paulo Biennial) were benefited in 1965 by the alliance between, for example, Tamayo and Juan Garcia Ponce, the jurors whose choices determined the winners of the 1965 Esso Salon.  It is reasonable to suppose that the aura surrounding the artists who became top prize winners in a national competition and whose works were thereby guaranteed the most extensive and prestigious exposure in the United States and Europe would have profitable consequences for the galleries that represented them.  Thus the galleries and Esso can be considered to have a “joint investment in a Mexican “commodity”:  Marketable art objects.  The “profit” for the United States, of course was not in dollars, but in the more subtle coin of consciousness-changing, of cultural infiltration, of deflection from a socially oriented, nationalistic, objective art (represented by social realism) to subjective or formalistically oriented art or to abstract art, which was liked only by a limited number of intellectuals.  Since painting in Mexico was by far the most powerful of the revolutionary art forms, it was of major concern.   The benefits of opposing the Mexican School, of cultivatin “freedom of expression” without the restrictions of social responsibility, of furthering individualistic competition in the best traditions of “free enterprise” where demonstrated to younger artists seeking direction for their artistic development.  To the impetus of abandon Mexico’s traditional humanistic realism in favor of formalistic experimentation were added the rich inducements of international fame and financial compensation.  In the insecure world of the contemporary artist, trying to achieve mastery of a discipline and make an aesthetic statement of some moment while simultaneously juggling these strivings with an eye to the market and the latest trends so as to be able, finally, to enter the cherished preserves of the middle class by achieving economic stability, the rewards of the Esso Salon were a signpost.  Temperamentally and philosophically the artist had been prepared for this striving by the flow of words over the previous ten years about the artist as rebel, romantic, and loner; about the need, above all for absolute freedom of expression (a theme constantly reiterated by Tamayo); about the aesthetic achievements of, particularly, the abstract expressionists; and about the exhaustion, thematic and aesthetic, of the Mexican School.  Tamayo’s ascendancy, Cuevas’s rapid rise to fame, the clear preference for abstraction evidenced by the prize awards of the Esso Salon – a series of overt and covert pressures and enticements – all had their effect on that level of consciousness that produces artistic choices.  

Looking at Objects by Claude Lévi-Srauss*

The men of the Indian tribes of the North American Plains painted figurative scenes of abstract decorative patterns on buffalo hides and other skins; but the art of embroidery using porcupine quills was the exclusive preserve of women.  They would flatten, soften and dye quills of different lengths and stiffness, then bend, knot, plait and weave them.  It was a difficult skill which required years of apprenticeship, and the sharp quills might sometimes wound the embroidress; if they sprang back into the face, they could even take out an eye.  Whilst apparently nothing but decoration, these geometric embroideries were rich in significance.   The embroidress had mediated for a long time over their shape and content; or she could have received thee pattern directly from the double-faced Mother of the Arts in a dream.  A pattern thus inspired by the goddess could then be copied by other women and eventually became part of the common repertoire of the tribe.  But the woman who first created it retained her special status. 

            Almost a century ago, an old Indian revealed that ‘ when a woman has dreamt the Double  Lady, then she is without rivals in whatever she does afterwards.  But this woman behaves like a complete madwoman.  She laughs compulsively, is unpredictable in her behavior.  The men who go near her can become possessed.  This is why such woman are called double ladies.  They will sleep with anyone.  But their work surpasses everyone else’s.  They are great embroiderers of porcupine quills --- an art in which they are very skilful.   They can also do man’s work’. 

            This astonishing portrait not only outstrips the usual Romantic image of the artist of genius but also surpasses the image of the poet maudit  which was to develop out of it a century later (complete with pseudo-philosophical meditations on the relationship between genius and madness).  Whilst we were being metaphorical, those peoples that had o written culture expressed themselves literally.  We have only to transpose what they say for it to be clear that they are not so distant from us, or that we are much closer to them that we thought. 

            Amongst the Tsimshian Indians, who lived on the Pacific coast of Canada, painters and sculptors formed a distinct, separate group.  The very name used to refer to them evokes the mystery that surrounded them.  The man, woman or child, who came upon them while they were at work was instantly put to death.  There are recorded cases of this happening.  In very hierarchical societies the status of artists was generally the preserve of nobles, passed on from father to son, but those whose special gifts had been recognized could also be admitted to the caste.  But noble or not, the novice had to undergo long and severe trials as part of his initiation.  The old artist had to pass on his magic into the body of his successor, who was then carried off to heaven by the protecting spirit of the artist. 

             In fact, the novice spent a certain length of time hidden in the forest before reappearing in public, invested with all his new powers. 

             The solid or articulated masks that the artist created had a fearful power.  A literate Indian of the beginning of this century has left an account of a supernatural spirit called Boiling-Words who ‘had a body like that of a dog.  The chief of the tribe never wore his mask over his face or on his head because the mask had its own body and was considered to be an object with terrifying powers. 

             The solid or articulated masks that the artist created had a fearful power.  A literate Indian of the beginning of this century has left an account of a supernatural spirit called Boiling-Words who ‘had a body like that of a dog.  The chief of the tribe never wore his mask over his face or on his head because the mask had its own body and was considered to be an object with terrifying powers.  It was very difficult to gets its whistle to work; now no one knows how to.  You did not blow with your mouth; you had to place your finger on a certain spot.  The only thing that was known about this being was that he lived on a certain rock in the mountains.  The mask had a special song; but the mask itself was kept hidden.  Only the children of the chief of the tribe – and the chief of a neighboring tribe – knew the song.  But even they were frightened of the force of Boiling-Works; common people were absolutely terrified of it.  Princes and princesses were proud of the fact that they were allowed to touch the mask.  The right to exhibit it cost one dearly’. 

             Artists were responsible for decorating the facades of the houses and the moving partitions inside, as well as for carving totem poles and creating ritual and ceremonial objects.  Most importantly of all they were responsible for designing, making and operating those machines which, among the tribes of this part of America, made important social or religious events into large-scale spectacles. 

             These ‘performances’ were held either in the open-air or inside the large single halls which housed several families (and could accommodate a large crowd of guests for the event).  A native account dating from last century tells us that during one of these occasions the fire in the centre of the room was suddenly flooded by water surging up from the depths. (like something out of Götterdämmerung).  A life-size whale then appeared, compete with thrashing tail and jets of water.  After it had dived beneath the surface again, the water disappeared and when the earth had dried, the fire was relit. 

            However, the designers and operators of these machines were not forgiven for mishaps.  In 1895 Boas published an account of a ceremony, the ‘key moment’ of which was the return to his people of a man who was supposed to have been living at the bottom of the sea.  The spectators gathered on the seashore saw a large rock appear out of the water and then split open for the man to step forth.  The ‘stagehands’ were hidden in a wood nearby, and operated the whole thing by means of ropes.  Everything went well the first two times (the crowd had demanded an encore), but the third time the ropes got tangled and the artificial rock sank back into the sea, taking the man with it.  His family appeared unperturbed, saying that the man had decided to stay on the bottom of the ocean, and so the feast continued as planned,  But after the guests had left, the dead man’s family and those responsible for the mishap tied themselves together and jumped into the sea from the top of a cliff. 

            It is also recounted that, for the ceremony marking the return of an initiated novice, artists had created a seal-skin model of a whale (again operated by ropes).  For the sake of realism, they had red-hot stones inside the model which they plunged into buckets of water to create a convincing water-spout of steam.  However, one if the stones fell onto the seal-skins, burnt a hole in them and the whale began to leak.   The organizers of the ceremony and the artists who had created the machine all committed suicide, knowing full well that they would have been put to death by the guardians of the mysteries. 

            These accounts come from the Tsimshian Indians, who lived along the north coast of British Colombia.  The Queen Charlotte Islands directly opposite them were inhabited by the Haida Indians, who had myths of villages of artists situated on the seabed or in the impenetrable heart of forests.  The Indians learnt to paint and sculpt as a result of an encounter with one of these artists.  So these myths were another way of attributing a supernatural origin to skill in the arts.

            However in those ceremonies of which I have quoted some examples, everything was artifice.  There was artifice in the solemn moment when the initiator pretended (and just how far did he himself believe in all this?)  to be filled with a supernatural spirit which he then drew forth from his body to project it with violence into the novice who was crouched in front of him under a mat (the whole thing being performed to the sound of the whistle, which was taken to be the acoustic ‘sign’ of his spirit).  And the same artifice can be seen in the manufacture of the masks and other automata used to manifest the active presence of the spirit, as well as in the actual ‘performances’ of which we have a few extant eyewitness accounts. 

            It was the aesthetic satisfaction provided by a successful ‘performance’ which, retroactively, justified considering it to be of supernatural origin.  This holds true even for those actually involved in creating or performing the spectacle, who – given that they were obviously aware of the tricks they were using – had at best a hypothetical idea of the link between the performance and the spirit world: ‘It must all be true if, in spite of all the difficulties we introduced into the spectacle, everything  went off smoothly’.  On the contrary, if the gamble on difficulties did not come off and the spectacle went wrong, then there was the risk of shattering the belief that there was no break between the human and the supernatural worlds, - a conviction that was of paramount importance in a hierarchical society where the power of the nobles, the subordination of common people and the subjection of slaves were all sanctified by the supernatural order on which social order depended.  We do not inflict physical death upon those artists who do not have the talent to lift us out of ourselves (financial or social ‘death’ is another matter, however).  Yet, even so, don’t we still maintain a link between art and the supernatural?  Look, for example, at the etymology of the word ‘enthusiasm’ which we use to describe our feelings for the work of certain artists.  Raphael used to be known as the ‘divine’ Raphael; and English still has the expression ‘out of this world’, which can be used to express aesthetic enthusiasm.  Here again, we only have to switch from a literal to a figurative key when considering beliefs and practices which seem so disconcertingly alien for us to recognize that they are, in fact, quite familiar. 

There is something disturbing, even sinister, about the position of the artist amongst the tribes of this region of North America:  enjoying undoubted social status, he was also obliged to fool people (and to commit suicide if he failed to do so).  Nevertheless, the myths of this region give a very poetic and fascinating portrait of the artist.  The Tlingit Indians of Alaska, who occupy territory immediately bordering upon that of the Tsimshian, have a legend about a young chief from the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida territory) who was deeply in love with his wife.  She fell ill and, in spite of all the care he lavished on her, died.  Inconsolable, the young husband sought everywhere for a sculptor who could produce a likeness of his dead wife, but to no avail.  Now, in his own village there was a sculptor of some repute who on meeting the chief one day, said to him:  ‘You are going from village to village without finding anyone who can make an effigy of your wife, isn’t that so?  I used to see her often, when the two of you were out walking.  But I never studied her fact with an eye to one day making an effigy of her for you.  Yet if you will allow me, I will try’ . 

            The sculptor took a block of thuja-wood and set to work.  When his statue was  finished he dressed it in the dead woman’s cloths and then called her husband.  Overjoyed, the widower seized the statue and asked the sculptor how much he wooed him.  ‘what ever you want’, the artist answers, ‘but I acted out of compassion for you, so do not five me too much’.  However, the chief pays the sculptor handsomely, in both slaves and the other goods. 

            An artist so famous that even a nobleman does not dare disturb him.  An artist who thinks that before undertaking a portrait one should study the physiognomy of the sitter, and who does not allow people to watch him at work.  An artist whose works fetch a high price but who, on occasion , can show himself to be sensitive and generous.  Aren’t they all features of our ideal portrait of a great painter or sculptor (even a contemporary one)?  How happy we’d be if all our artists lived up to the same standards.  Returning to the myth:  the young chieftain treats the statue as a living creature; one day he even has the impression that it moves.  His visitors are enthusiastic about the likeness, and in the time the statue seems to become identical to a living woman (one can guess what happens then).  In fact, shortly after, the statue makes a noise, like that of wood cracking.  The chief lifts it up and there beneath it is the shoot of a young tree.  They leave the shoot to grow – and that is why the thuja trees of the Queen Charlotte Islands are so beautiful.  When one finds a fine tree, one says ‘it is as beautiful as the baby of the chief’s wife’.  AS for the statue, it hardly ever moved and it was never heard to speak.  But the chief knew through his dreams that his wife was speaking t him, and he understood what she was saying.  A different version of the story was told among the Tsimshian (whose skill as artists the Tlingit appreciated so much that they often commissioned work from them).  In their version it was the widower himself who carved the statue.  He then treated it as if it were alive, conversing with it and asking it questions.  Tow sisters sneak into his hut and see the man embrace and then lie down with the statue.  Their laughter betrays them to the chief, who then invites them to eat.  The younger sister eats moderately, the elder stuffs her face.  Later while she is asleep, she has  an attack of colic and ‘dirties’ herself.  The chief and the younger sister decide to get married and make an agreement with each other:  they will burn the statue and keep quiet about the elder sister’s shame, whilst she herself will not tell anyone ‘shat de did with the wooden statue’. 

            The parallel between the (quantitative) abuse of food and the (qualitative) abuse of sexuality is striking because in both cases what we have is an abuse of communication:  eating to excess, copulating with a statue as if it were a human being are two distinct registers of behavior which are all the more comparable when one considers that numerous languages often use the same word ‘to eat’ and ‘to copulate’ (as does French, at a metaphorical level).

            However, the Tlingit and Tsimshian myths treat their common theme in different ways.  In the latter there is clear disapproval of treating a wooden statue as if it were a human being.  It is true that the statue was the work of an amateur – and I have already mentioned the mystery with which those great professionals, Tsimshian painters and sculptors, surrounded their work.  Creating the illusion that art was life was their prerogative and duty; and given that those illusions were intended to emphasize the link between the social and supernatural order, then anyone who used them for his won personal emotional needs would necessarily have been regarded with disapproval.  In the eyes of the general public – represented by the two sisters – the widower’s behavior would have seemed scandalous or, at the very least, ridiculous. 

            The Tlingit myth takes a different view of the work of art.  The widower’s conduct is in no way shocking; people flock to his house to see the effigy.  But the statue is the work of a great sculptor and therefore (or perhaps, nonetheless) occupies a position halfway between life and art.  The plant world can only give birth to the plant world, and a woman of wood is brought to bed of a tree.  The Tlingit myth views art as an autonomous realm:  the work of art lies beyond its creator’s intentions.  The artist loses his control over it as soon as he finished a work, which then develops in accordance with its own nature.  In other words:  the only way a work of art can live is by giving birth to other works of art which, to their contemporaries, will seem more ‘alive’ than those which have immediately preceded them. 

             Viewed over thousands of years, humanity seems always to have been moved by the same passions.  Time neither adds to nor subtracts from the loves and hates felt by mankind.  Man’s commitments, struggles and hopes remain unchanged.  Yesterday and today.  We could omit then or twenty centuries and the history of mankind would still be substantially the same.  The one loss would be the works of art produced during those ten or twenty centuries.  Man only distinguishes himself – indeed, he only exists – through his works.  Just like the statue of wood which gives birth to a tree, mankind’s works are the only evidence we have that over the centuries of human history something has actually happened.