Collecting Cultures
Introduction
Kimberly Masteller, Co-Curator
Col.lect vt 1a: to bring together into one body or place b: to gather or exact from a number of persons or other sources 2: INFER, DEDUCE 3: to gain or regain control of 4:to claim as due or receive payment for, vi 1: ASSEMBLE also ACCUMULATE 2a: to collect objects b: to receive payment 1
In this bustling era of the global community and economy it is hard to fathom how different the world looked just one or two centuries earlier. The West's colonial domination of Asia, Africa and the Americas created highways of exchange for precious materials: tin and teak, spices and souls. The colonial encounter and its aftermath created a living forum in which Europeans and Americans could experience, influence, and collect another's cultural heritage. Objects once isolated by distance and difference have since become prized commodities, taken from their homelands and distributed into far-flung collections across the globe.
One of these repositories of non-Western culture is the Burke Gallery of Denison University. Its holdings include a large number of objects from Burma (Myanmar) and the Cuna peoples of the San Blas Islands in Panama. This exhibition, Collecting Cultures: the Missionary and Non-Western Collections of Denison University intends to focus on these particular objects as well as on their exchange. The title "Collecting Cultures" was selected to address two questions raised by the artworks and their acquisition. The foremost intention is to illustrate the act of collection, through the presentation of objects from various non-western cultures. A secondary intention is to allow the lives and intentions of various donors to present the West as a "collecting culture;" paticularly drawn to amassing and owning the fragmented legacy of another's civilization. It is the curators' belief that all objects have a story to tell, and that their story doesn't end with their creation or intended function. Wherever possible, information on the acquisition of objects and on the lives of collectors will be provided. The exhibition will also highlight objects that were created in the cultural dialogue forged by the western, particularly missionary, presence in Asia and Panama, and by the new international patronage of non-Western art.
The exhibition is divided into four sections which highlight different issues raised by the objects in the Burke collection. The first section "Moment of Contact" displays objects that are more or less traditional to their respective cultures. These objects exemplify what missionaries, soldiers, and other foreign visitors would have seen being produced and used in their respective cultures. This section will highlight traditional religious objects, such as Buddhist shrine images and offering trays taken from Burmese temples, or bronze drums that would have been used by the hill tribes of Burma (although these drums also have been manufactured for sale to western collectors in the twentieth century.) Objects from Panama in this section include traditional five-pronged fishing spears and wooden kitchen implements used by the San Blas Native Americans. "Moment of Contact" catches a kind of pristine glimpse of an Asia and Panama before the influence and destruction of western contact. It is not accidental, that this is the most 'traditional' display in appearance, as this pre-contact period is the most commonly addressed in western museums.
The section "Cultural Loss/Cultural Exchange" focuses on the impact of the West upon the cultures of Burma and Panama as represented by their evolving artistic imagery. Although this section reveals the damage rendered by the colonial machine upon traditional artistic subjects, it also illustrates the creativity of non-Western artists when confronted with new audiences, new patrons, and new visual and cultural influences to draw from. The numerous mola textiles from Panama provide a vivid example of the changes in cultural values that have occurred in the San Blas population by the mid-twentieth century. The imagery depicted in these intricately-designed textiles evolved from traditional geometric patterns and mythological scenes to depictions of colonial buildings and Christian iconography. Perhaps even more striking is the towering Cuna figurine of General Douglas MacArthur carved down from one large timber. This sculpture was created to serve as a traditional protective figure, a spirit that guards the land and people from enemies and disease, creating a new mythology based on modern American history.
"Tourist Art" focuses on artwork that participates in the dynamic marketplace in which non-western dealers and producers provide objects for hungry collectors and curious tourists. This section displays objects from Burma, China, and Cambodia that serve as commodities in the colonial and post-colonial art market. Some of the most-familiar artworks in this section are porcelain and enameled copper export wares from China. The European patronage of Chinese ceramics is well documented, and evidence of their influence can be seen in the decoration of the enameled canton tray displayed in this section. This small tray depicts two men in European dress strolling in a Chinese garden. This would not have been an uncommon sight in the major port cities of southeast China, where foreign traders lived and worked on Chinese soil. Other local artists found a market for depictions of their own peoples and lifestyles. Numerous paintings illustrating the different types of Burmese people were executed in European styles and media in Burma for Western buyers. These images range in style from the naïvely- painted book of couples, men and women, from different tribal origins to the highly-modeled oil painting by My Thein, a western-trained Burmese artist, of a Padaung tribal woman. Also found in this section are postcards and photos that document exotic archaeological and human features of colonial Burma.
There are two traditional types of Asian objects found in this section as well. Because of their portability and relative affordability, clay stamp seals are popularly collected by Asian as well as Western patrons. In India these objects often served as an early form of 'tourist art', as seals from famous Buddhist sites were taken by pilgrims and travelers to be used in home and portable shrines. For the same reason, the head of a figure from Ankor in Cambodia has been included in the category of "tourist art." Although this head belonged originally to a sculpture from one of the world's great archaeological centers, it was broken off and taken from the site. The popularity among collectors for sculptures, or rather, pieces from Khmer sites such as Ankor Wat and Ankor Thom has recently fueled an industry of locally-produced forgeries that imitate the Ankor style. Thus the encounter with a Khmer sculpture in a museum, like this head fragment, tells the viewer as much about taste, the art market, and the desecration of cultural monuments as it does about the art and culture of Ankor.
The final section of this exhibition is devoted to the lives of missionaries and collectors who assembled the objects that now make up the Burke Gallery collection at Denison University. The lives of several key figures are highlighted, illustrating the diversity of interests and vocation which drew them to collect non-western art. One of the best-known historical figures represented here is Noel Bixby, a Baptist missionary to Burma in the late nineteenth century. His Christian worldview certainly shaped his interactions with Burmese culture, and hints of his activities and beliefs can be seen in the objects he collected, such as a Baptist Hymnal in Burmese language and the Three-Elephant Throned Buddha image which he pulled from the base of a Buddhist temple. Ex-patriots Susan Upfill and Zelma Graham appear to have relished in the interaction of both cultures. These women were collectors of traditional Asian art as well as patrons of contemporary artists who crafted westernized objects such as silver tea sets and oil paintings. Much of Upfill's collection was purchased and then donated to Denison by her dear friend, California art collector William Hensley. Another curious donor to the Denison collection is David T. Hla. Hla was an Indian Christian who attended Denison University and later lived and worked in Burma. His possessions, golf trophies and a cigarette case, reveal that in both his work and leisure he attained a level of status that rivaled his contemporaries in Europe and the Americas. Finally, we find the source of the Denison's collection of Cuna artifacts in the form of one of its most-accomplished alumni, Dr. Clyde Keeler. Keeler went on from Denison to graduate as Harvard University's first geneticist. His research took him to the San Blas Islands of Panama, where he studied the developments of genetically-determined conditions upon the Cuna population. Keeler had a strong interest in Cuna culture as well and became both a collector and researcher of their art. From servants of the church and state, to emissaries of business and science, this final section of the exhibition focuses on the diverse lives and interests of collectors, and add chapters to the continuing life-stories of the objects they brought from around the world to Denison University.
The Collecting Cultures exhibition is accompanied by a web-based catalogue. The catalogue consists of an essays written by former Denison faculty Eliza Kent. In her essay "Collectors' Lives: American Colonizers in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Burma," Kent selects two objects from the show and uses their histories to illustrate the changing western presence in Burma in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The heart of this publication is a catalogue of entries discussing individual objects written by undergraduate and graduate students from Denison and Ohio Universities. The web materials can be accessed through the internet from any location, allowing a larger audience to experience the Burke collection.
It is hoped that Collecting Cultures and its catalogue will introduce the rich holdings of the Burke Collection to new audiences, and inspire interest in the cultures represented here. This show also focuses attention on the interaction between western and non-western cultures as evident through the creation and collection of art. Finally, this show reflects back upon the lives and intentions of art collections and the role of the museum that contains them. The objects in the Burke collection are witnesses to history and bear residue of all of the hands that touched them. Although these artworks were gathered from disparate times and cultures, Denison must now serve as their curator and custodian, and allow their many stories to be told for generations to come.
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1) From Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: G&C Merriam Co., 1976, p. 162.