Cross-Cultural Interactions: Trend, Deception, or Reality?
By Pouria Jahanshad
There seem to be several important issues that need to be addressed if we are to provide an analysis of cultural relations. Thus, we need to examine possible questions concerning cross-cultural relations:
First, does the coexistence/correlation align with Western trends in cultural acceptance and tolerance? This is what happened in the academic arena after the objections of post-colonialist critics, starting to appear as European beneficence towards other minority cultures rather than the “obvious rights” of oriental people. Second, does this coexistence/cooperation result from the interest of an individual or a group of artists in oriental cultures and their exotic, outlandish image? Third, do these relations have anything to do with the Western counselors and orientalists of the past decades who intended to strategically influence and conquer the market? Fourth, are these relations the continuation of the pretense of tolerance in the sphere of art and on the part of artists towards politics and politicians, and are they supposed to be presented as a blueprint to the world of politics and warmongering? In other words, is it possible to have an amicable relationship with the Muslims and inhabitants of the Middle-East, and through that draw a distinctive line between art and politics? Fifth, are these corporations the result of the demands of art institutions, exhibitions, and biennales that take advantage of human rights and use them as a means to make money? An instance would be the situation of immigrants, where human rights serve only the flourishing of charities.
Listening to European critics and scholars talking about Iran, we realize that all of the above prove true about how an artistic exchange with Iran works. Many of these critics and scholars even assume a compassionate position for themselves, in the sense that it is as if they are doing a favor to these poor victims. However, this is less evident when European artists come to Iran than when we interact with the same people in a European context.
The functions and benefits of these relations for Western artists and institutions are somewhat clear: we need to see how they benefit us. These interactions may have financial benefits for our artists, but it seems that they are sometimes harmful as well, especially with regard to their social and cultural functions, or they are not very profitable at least, unless we deal with the current issues in our relations as a matter of urgency. If we look a little closer, we realize that the heart of the matter in these unbalanced relations is the question of agency: historically, others have had the upper hand. The question of agency often leads oriental people to take either of the two positions: remaining passive vis-à-vis the active role of others. In other words, giving in to the demands of Westerners and/or their institutions to reproduce their image of the “exotic east.” Or, assuming the role of an opposition in the face of the Middle-Eastern totalitarian regimes, but within the framework defined by the West: taking an active role with some forms of nationalism, emphasizing an otherness that may be different from what the West has in mind.
This is limiting for Middle-Eastern artists and thinkers, nonetheless, resulting only in the prolongation of the restrictive East/West dichotomy. It is what Theodor Adorno refers to as “negative dialectics” and what Edward Said addresses in Culture and Imperialism, considering this type of nationalism in Eastern countries as the continuation of the thought that has justified imperialism in the West. According to Said, negatively emphasizing nativism inevitably leads to accepting the consequences of imperialism, i.e., the ethnic, religious, and political divisions imposed by imperialism, giving the historical world up to metaphysical, spiritual systems such as negrorism, Islamism, Catholicism, etc., which leaves history in the hands of ideologies that can turn some human beings against others.
One of the ideas around which authoritarian and hegemonic discourses are developed is contemporaneousness, which means the contemporary situation and is not necessarily related to “now,” “the present state of affairs,” or the time in physics. Nonetheless, the current definition of the present situation is related to the time in physics and the actual “present” moment. The contemporary situation, as propagated by the media and often approved by public knowledge, is evaluated by the criteria of “modernity,” “civility,” “democracy,” and “human rights.” In this sense, contemporaneousness means being located within a particular geographical boundary that features all these attributes. In other words, the benchmark of contemporaneousness is the West, which relativizes all other countries as either developing or underdeveloped. In this regard, words such as “synchronicity” and “anachronism” signify the relation between a geographical location and the West.
This definition of condition pertains to the Hegelian notion of progress: all the roads of progress lead to the West and are measured against Western criteria. Thus, it is assumed that only that which is happening in the West can be a manifestation of contemporaneousness, and other geographical locations do not have the merit of being in the present: some things are more “at present” than others. According to this view, the West is in the business of spreading democracy, propagating cultural integration, multiculturalism, and cultural exchange. Thus, contemporary art is taken to be the art of the present time, and is manifested in what is made in or advised by the West. This kind of art is defined by gallery owners, official and government-dependent institutions, biennials, and the like, who draw the line between artists and non-artists. It is often said that non-Western artists should reflect their own cultures and remain native, but they should satisfy the demands of Western institutions. Contemporary art, then, even when it does not intend to oppose, does try to satisfy those demands in a framework that benefits art institutions, authorities, and custodians. These types of contemporary art are reproduced in the multicultural context of those ethnic and racial stereotypes, which is exactly the mainstream contemporary art.
In addition to the current definition of contemporaneousness, the contemporary condition can be considered from another angle: a condition in which a material, physical work is turned into a non-physical one, and in which we are all nuts and bolts in a gigantic capitalistic machine, helping it grow even bigger. Contemporaneousness is a condition in which there is no class or caste, and we are facing something called “the multitude”: the mass of people. It is where public opinion has replaced the state, there is no concentration of power, and people are turned into agents by which the accumulation of wealth by the authorities is legitimized.
Contemporaneousness is the economic universalism and the striving of powerful countries to create identities that make the distinction between “us” and “them.” Contemporaneousness is a condition that is made (and at the same time denied) through cultural exchange, the Internet, and the immigration of multiple, creolized identities. Contemporaneousness has made technocrats an ideological tool to exploit people, while deriving their legitimacy from them. A critical examination of the contemporary condition helps us recognize other aspects of civilization and democracy.
It is obvious that if we take contemporary art to mean the art of the present time, then we will have the kind of art that confirms the status quo. But contemporary art can be something more, going beyond the mere confirmation of the status quo and the art of the present time. As a matter of fact, if contemporary art is really going to be something similar to contemporary thought and philosophy, it has to be the art of critical reinterpretation of the contemporary condition: the kind of art that is concerned with its everyday life and context, and its role is to document everyday things, trying to link art to the affairs of everyday life. It is a kind of art that is intentionally political, at a distance from the romanticism of modern art and the romantic approach to artists and their sensibilities.
It is a critical, challenging kind of art. Contemporary art and architecture must reflect the complicated present situation, not merely as a work of art that happens to be made at present. It is also obvious that issues such as human rights, which are trying to universalize values, are wielded by the West as a means to prove the backwardness of others. I think we should start our criticism from this very notion of contemporaneousness and the distinctive expectations of nativism, and consider how being native in a way that others expect from us is serving the interests of Western institutions. To move towards that goal, the following routes can be suggested: addressing the ways to actively fight native stereotypes; considering the issue of vernacular cosmopolitanism as well as creolized, diasporic identities.
Artist residencies generally deal with the status quo or the current interpretations of contemporaneousness and contemporary art. If artist residencies are to play a real cultural, sociological role, i.e., not only preparing the way for the market, they are to propagate critical thinking, finding ways to establish independent/alternative art markets. The problem with some artist residencies is that they think they can solve problems by merely “interacting,” which never actually happens. Residencies can only accomplish something culturally and sociologically if they represent the interests of artists who are familiar with these critical issues and have opinions with regard to the contemporary situation, not those who blindly follow the interests of the market.
Badiyeh Editor’s Note
This essay was originally published in the Kooshk Artist Residency Annual Catalogue (2016) and is republished by Badiyeh Arts with the author’s permission. As part of our ongoing effort to preserve and revisit writings connected to artist residencies, cultural exchange, and Global South perspectives, we are pleased to make this text accessible to a new generation of readers.
