Access to the mainstream
Luis Camnitzer

  

Text published in "Beyond the fantastic", edited by Gerardo Mosquera, INIVA, Londres, 1995.
Published by Trama with the author’s permission.


To address 'access to the mainstream' in the arts is to address the topic of success in the market. For this reason the subject has always elicited contradictory emotions primarily desire and resentment - and these emotions have been particularly strong among those artists who do not belong to the social group that produces and supports what is considered 'mainstream' art. Although the term 'mainstream' carries democratic reverberations, suggesting an open and majority-supported institution, it is in fact rather elitist, reflecting a specific social and economic class. In reality, 'mainstream' presumes a reduced group of cultural gatekeepers and represents a select nucleus of nations. It is a name for a power structure that promotes a self-appointed hegemonic culture. For this reason the wish to belong to the 'mainstream' and the wish to destroy it often arise simultaneously in the individuals who are, or feel, marginal to it. Depending on origin and background, individual access is more difficult for some than for others.
Discussion of the plights of different ethnic or national groups, or anecdotes illustrating their failures and successes in their attempts to gain access, do not illuminate the topic: they distract from it. What do deserve attention are the elements common to the experience of all: for example, colonialism as a force affecting both internal and external colonies; values instilled by educational institutions that separate peoples from their identities; the market's fetishization of the success of the individual over the building of culture. These are the substantive issues. It is through these elements that the market becomes a tool for homogeneity, and 'mainstream' turns out to be a euphemism for its actions.
This century has seen the introduction of some productive new methods for analysing art processes and art problems. Some of the previous irrationality and obscurantism has been moved aside, and we can now see art more as a mode of cognition and a way of formulating and solving problems within that mode. This has brought some welcome clarity to the art field. It has also had less positive consequences when these analytical premises were taken to their extreme: the conclusion was drawn that art should be perceived in formalistic terms, and that these terms - not unlike those of mathematics - should be homogenized into an 'international' style. In fact, the concept of an 'international' style is one that can be seen as useful for political hegemony and cultural expansionism.

The modernist movements developed in Western cultural centres during this century - particularly the myth of abstractionism - were always associated with the promotion of an international style, and this style was eventually used as a cultural answer to 'totalitarianism', itself a Cold War term created to denigrate Soviet autocracy by classifying it with the Nazi regime. Concurrent with those developments, nationalism became a word symbolizing cultural regression, thus minimizing the concept's use as an anti-colonial instrument. Since this cultural expansionism included a growth of the market, it was easy for these conditions to be accepted as guidelines by the market. As a consequence, ethnic and national artists belonging to subordinate cultures could only be successful in this market if they worked within an acceptable formal repertoire, while the expression of ethnicity and or nationality had to remain confined to content. This residual ethnicity allowed their projects to be perceived as slightly exotic, enough to maintain a satisfying self-image of openness and pluralism on the part of the market. The same residual ethnicity would signal the 'roots' of the artist in his or her community of origin. Yet the community's pride would turn on the fact that their artist had 'made it in the art world' rather than on the artist's cultural contribution to his or her community. Artists like Romare Bearden or Fernando Botero, for example, are more respected in their communities for the prices they command in the market than for any possible changes in vision they may have introduced to their national or ethnic constitutents. A clear symptom of colonization is the tendency to see the shift from subordinate to hegemonic culture as a sign of progress and success.
In recent years the eclecticism in vogue in the market - the postmodernist 'pastiche' - has allowed for the introduction of some short-lived cracks into this picture. German and Italian national identities, as projected by the neo-expressionists and the trans-avant-gardists, have been allowed a place, in spite of the fact that they do not totally conform to the notion of international homogeneity. Through feminist and graffiti art, the affirmation of distinctive group identity has achieved exhibition status, and kitsch has been allowed to challenge formalist purism. While the parties involved in this diversification of the mainstream have not fully assumed responsibility for the implied political ideologies of their work, clearly their contributions have tended to fit into two categories of postmodernism, right-wing and left-wing. In right-wing postmodernism - David Salle could be an example - we find past market products reintroduced, even regurgitated, with revitalized selling power. In left-wing postmodernism - Kenny Scharf as an example for expression of identity, Hans Haacke for politics - some hitherto unacceptable elements have been introduced to the market, and, as a result of their success, encouraged the hope that the very definition of 'mainstream' might be changed.
That hope has been followed by disappointment. A multinational gallery structure has re-internationalized these offerings. Until multinational galleries and prices caught up, Germany and Italy were the artistic counterparts of what Taiwan and Korea are for industry. The edge of left-wing postmodernism was dulled by chicness, the better to fit the galleries. Diversity was fused into the market's expanded repertoire, and what could have been a cultural breakthrough was blunted into no more than an increase of merchandise supply.
To malign the market as an evil is very easy. Its distorting incentive, its self-congratulatory righteousness, its bulldozing cultural flattening and its deep-seated racism all make it a target. But most of this maligning assumes that under certain conditions the market can be corrected. If only there were minority curators or critics. If only there were easier access for minority artists. If only there were more galleries for minorities, or more room for minority artists in the mainstream galleries.
When criticism of the market follows this tack, we lose sight of the fact that the market primarily serves itself and a specific socio-economic system and will continue to do so regardless of any change in the race, gender or nationality of those who play roles in it. Broadening the grip of active players will certainly help individuals to survive while they work. But this achievement should not be confused with a revolution against the market. Subordinate and peripheral cultures will continue to maintain their underprivileged status as long as their own and specific markets remain underprivileged. They will continue to suffer erosion as long as obsequious internationalization is perceived as a status symbol.
Access to the mainstream really means a mainstreaming of the artist. In the late 1960s there was a push for something called 'Black Capitalism', which was clearly more a promotion of capitalism than of blackness. The unexamined assumption was that capitalism is the best - if not the only - way of life, and that by granting an invitation and some aid to participate in it, critical problems would disappear. It was not, as was claimed, a matter of 'integration', with the problems of two parties to be analysed in the hope of creating a third alternative. It was a matter of tolerating the access of one of the parties to a mainstream controlled by the other party Capitalism was not meant to change, it was to be expanded.
The time may now has arrived to focus our critical efforts on the colonial artist rather than on the market. Colonial artists are a schizoid and insecure group. On the one hand, we are dying to exhibit in a museum or in the best gallery. If we don't make it, we see ourselves as failures. On the other hand, if somebody else makes it we smell co-optation. If a white Anglo commentator makes comments about 'minority issues', we perceive those comments as ignorant or patronizing, no matter how well-informed or well-intended. If the comments are made by a minority member within the context of the market, we discount it as the calculated latitude permitted someone who is fulfilling a quota; we don't completely accept the statement as evidence that the mainstream has been truly redefined.
The cause of this ambivalent reaction is not the content of the remarks but the context in which they are made, signalling a distrust that could be healthy if used well. It is our obsessive focusing on the market, coloured by the frustration of accessibility in theory and actual inaccessibility in practice, which hinders us in the correct use of our instinct. Only when resigned to failure do we look away and criticize. While there is a chance for success we may criticize some, but our actions will contradict our words. While criticism gives us a feeling of connectedness with our original community, our goal remains access to the mainstream in any way possible.
Art is whatever fits into the market, and what does not is treated as foreign to the field. This simplistic division overlooks the processes we have to undergo in our attempt to enter the market and the powerful distortions to which we are subjected. Coming from subordinate or peripheral cultures, the minority artists' drive to become participants in the market place, to find a niche in the centre of the hegemonic culture, is the product of colonization. In order successfully to acquire membership, we have to undergo a thorough process of assimilation. When we don't fully succeed in our mimesis, we are left in a very visible and pathetic state of affectation.
In all cases of the mainstreamed minority - the foreign artist, the black capitalist who applies to the mainstream - the colonizing process leads to the internalization of the wish to assimilate. When colonization is successful, assimilation becomes something 'natural' and unavoidable. We are then allowed to enter the field of competition and free enterprise so that everyone becomes the happy and credulous owner of an equal opportunity But on the way to this plateau, certain changes occur in the expression of the individual. Some of these changes become believable, others less so. If believable, assimilation has been completed successfully. If not, the only thing achieved is affectation. What is expressed is perceived as a sign of kitsch, nouveau-richness or 'arrivism'. A culture to be forgotten is partially covered up with a culture incompletely acquired, or a culture badly remembered is falsely reinterpreted for the eyes of a culture badly understood.
A recent review of a concert by the Peruvian singer Yma Sumac stated: 'Her stage show was a campy, sexy "south of the border" stylization of grand opera, in which she portrayed a primitive diva mystically in tune with the forces of nature.' And further on: 'Positioned on either side of the stage were Styrofoam replicas of Incan deities, and the singer, costumed in a filmy purple gown, comported herself with theatrical hauteur. 'While it is unlikely that the reviewer expected Ms Sumac to borrow original Incan statues from the Metropolitan Museum, nevertheless the account is a good inventor of the many ways she transgressed the good manners of hegemonic high culture. Even the possible originality of her transgressions is second-rated by a later comparison with 'the showmanship of Liberace'. Totally absent from the review is an account of Ms Sumac's transgressions against her own culture, the violations performed to fit Liberace's market and the feedback of this market into Peru.
Colonization, assimilation and affectation are all steps belonging to the same staircase, only at different distances from what is considered the top. Most of us who have come from different cultures have stepped on all three, partly because of personal decisions, but mostly because of unperceived social and cultural pressures. All three steps signify a substitution of cultural values, a loss of what we had. More important, we impair our ability to sift through our own reality and find the building blocks for our independence. We who are artists who have come from other countries were subject to art schools belatedly and incompletely patterned after those in the cultural centres. We who lived in the cultural centres were directly processed towards melting into the pot. In both cases a set of artificial needs was created in us, leading us to the belief that the cultural centres and their values do indeed define the top of the staircase and that our original cultures, the subaltern cultures, are invalid. Yet, somewhere, a link remains alive, pulling us back to those cultures and defining an anti-mainstream seed.
We have been taught to view art as an apolitical act, devoid of political consequences, operating in a non-political space. When politics does seep into our work, it is confined to a level of residual content, somewhat placating our conscience, but not forcing us to review our strategies. We fail to see that politics is not just reduced to content, in a simplistic fashion. We live the alienation myth of primarily being artists. We are not. We are primarily ethical beings sifting right from wrong and just from unjust, not only in the realm of the individual but in communal and regional contexts. In order to survive ethically we need a political awareness that helps us to understand our environment and develop strategies for our actions. Art becomes the instrument of our choice to implement these strategies. Our choice to become artists is a political decision, independent of the content of our work. Our definition of art, of what culture we are serving, of what audience we are addressing, of what our work is to achieve, are all political decisions.
Thus the issue is not our access to the mainstream, but the mainstream's access to us. Only put this way can the mainstream act as a resonance box for our activities without eviscerating us. Whether the mainstream comes to us or bypasses us is of secondary importance. Of primary concern is that we remain in the trade of building a culture and know as precisely as possible what and whose culture we are building. Equally important is that we reduce our ego. The idea of us building a culture may leave the impression that we may do so single-handedly In fact, our role is equivalent to that of one more brick during the construction of a building. Under certain circumstances this attitude may sound like a separatist stance, but it is not. It does not imply a reversion to provincial nationalism or to parochialism. It is a position that stresses that what has selling power is not necessarily in our best interest, but stopping colonialism is. There is an important difference between cultural autonomy and chauvinism. Cultural autonomy is conducive to generating independent individuals. Chauvinism is only conducive to racism and, given the power, to imperialism. Imperialism is no more than provincialism with bullying power. What the position stated here implies is in fact no more than a reordering of priorities at a moment when a much-needed radical change of society still seems out of reach.		 Artist. Uruguayan citizen, born in Germany, lives in U.S.A. since 1964. Professor of Art at State University of New York, since 1969 to present. His art work can be found at the permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum, and Whitney Museum, New York. Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile, Museo Universitario, México, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas and Museu de Arte Contemporánea, Sao Paulo, amongst others.
His articles and essays on art were published in Marcha, Montevideo; Arte en Colombia, Bogotá; Third Text, England; Art in America, New York; New Art Examiner, Chicago; Art Nexus, Bogotá; Brecha, Montevideo; Spiral, New York; Nacla, New York; etc.