Seven Examples of Culture Inclusion Art
by Jana Švantnerová, curator of the Collections of Applied Arts Design and Architecture
When talking about inclusion at the museum or gallery, the first thing which springs to one’s mind might be the barriers that stand in the way of the integration of marginalized groups of artists (women, homosexuals), physically or mentally disadvantaged visitors or ethnic groups. However, these semantic aspects are not the subject of this article. I am interested in inclusion in terms of integrating other cultural narratives into gallery and museum practice. When we talk about culture in contexts, we are talking about inclusion.
Artefacts often give us the opportunity to learn about the historical and cultural contexts of their origin. I do not think we are making sufficient use of this potential for contextualization.
It seems to me that, compared to reality which is increasingly culture diversified thanks to the online space, our collection space is individualistic and selective. The Eurocentrism and Christian-Catholicism of our collections and their presentation on the portal Web umenia (the website presenting collections of Slovak galleries) is apparent after a short “scroll” through this network. Many might argue that in Slovakia it is mainly museums that own artefacts from other cultures. These are mostly remnants of the aristocratic collecting passions of the 19th century, which were nationalised during the socialist era. However, the representation of non-European artefacts on the portal Slovakiana is minimal as well. By the selection of presented establishments and subsequent selection of their artefacts for the online space, we may, subconsciously, try to bring our local story to the forefront. We present the artefacts of our socio-historical and art-historical narrative.
And yet, it deprives us a great deal. The artefacts, the history of which reflects the intertwining of cultures, contribute more effectively to coming to know each other, opening the way and understanding. As it is for international benefit, the International Council of Museums ( ICOM) also calls for it. The hitherto traditional goals of a cultural collection institution (acquiring, preserving, researching, exhibiting and educating) are currently expanding thanks to Anglo-American influence. Museums / galleries are to be active agents of the change in society. Inclusion should ideally lead to the suppression of prejudice and discrimination. Since 2019 the Louvre Abu Dhabi has been presenting the exhibition Universal Religions on world religions. As the first museum in the Arab world, it is to present the universal history of all mankind. The comparative approach of the presentation emphasises the diversity and relevance of all cultures. It is no secret that the Louvre Abu Dhabi is an arena of French cultural diplomacy. This cultural franchise of the West sets a democratic tone and it is the embodiment of international political correctness.
In my work, I have come across various research opportunities that are fitting examples of inclusion art. Finding creative points of contact and naming their political, economic, social or aesthetic starting points was a fascinating experience for me. I would like to share it with you.
1. Mythology versus Religion
On our Web umenia, illustrations from children’s books are the main visual instruments of comparative religion studies. You might say, “So what? Mythology is a set of fairy tales, after all.” So let us have a look at one of the oldest myths shared by several cultures. The flood myth. We can find it in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, dating from the 2nd millennium BC illustrated by Běla Kolčáková. There the gods send a flood upon people. The only survivors were a pious and righteous couple thanks to a vessel that was built as they had been advised by one of the gods prior to the disaster. Their relatives and animals were saved along with them.
On the Web umenia, the most abundant are the images of the Judeo-Christian myth of the flood. However, the subject of these paintings or prints is identified as a religious scene. One of the works on the Web umenia suggests the visual roots of our self-centeredness. It is a print titled The Flood by Gottfried Chodowiecki and Johann Schleuen.
It was once part of a book for children and young people from 1784 titled Bilder-Akademie für die Jungen. The book consisted of 52 prints. Its author was Johann Sigmund Stoy (1745–1808), an evangelical pastor, theologian and pedagogue from Nuremberg. As a supporter of the Enlightenment, he wanted to educate young people in a playful way through paintings. At the beginning of the book, he explained the subject matter of each of the nine prints: the central image depicts a biblical story, on which meaning all other images depend; the second image is a scene from everyday life; the third concerns secular history; the fourth is from the textbook by German education reformer Johann Basedow called Elementarwerk; the fifth represents the natural world; the sixth represents an occupation; the seventh is taken from a fable; the eighth is from mythology and the ninth is a moral lesson. In mythology, the author presents the story of Deucalion and Pyrrhé. The Greek myth speaks of a couple who are the only survivors of the flood sent upon the Earth by the god Zeus. Subsequently, they restored humanity by throwing stones at each other — the bones of Mother Earth, from which new men and women emerged.
Since the time of Johann Stoy, our culture has been taught by normative education that the Judeo-Christian version of the Flood is a religion, while its Greek or Babylonian version is a myth.
However, in hindsight, the matter may be viewed more critically. For example, through the eyes of the American myths expert and comparative religionist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987). He defined mythology as other people’s religion. Who are we and who are the others? Cultural history institutions have an important role to play in shaping the image of oneself and others. They are an indicator of how we perceive, interpret and further communicate cultural diversity. Galleries and museums may well become places of selective memory.
2. Migrating Motifs
However, not only myths but also motifs travel across cultures. An interesting migrating motif is the scene of a dragon fighting Phoenix from China. A dragon is considered a symbol of infinite power and Phoenix of immortality. Their duel is a symbol of balance in the fight, i.e. harmony. The first examples of the adoption and stylization of this symbol are known from Anatolia in the beginning of the 15th century. Throughout the years and migration, the scene gradually changed to an S-motif, which retained only abstract horns and a tail. This multiplied ornament has become typical for flatwoven carpets — Sileh Kilim from the Caucasus.
In the SNG collection there is such a woollen kilim consisting of two stitched strips of fabric. Their width corresponded to the width of the loom. This is probably the oldest rug in the collection that dates back to the early 19th century. The transformation of this symbol is a good example of a continuous cultural interaction. Another migrating symbol is an ornament called boteh or buta, which symbolises birth, growth, fire, dynamism and energy. Experts still question its origins. Some place it in India and others in Persia. In the SNG collection, we can find it in the carpet from Kayseri (Turkey), along with another popular depiction of the cypress, which is a symbol of happiness and longevity.
Asian rugs came to Europe as early as 1300, but their popularity did not grow until the Renaissance, when artists began to depict them in the interiors of religious and secular scenes. These rugs came from Persia as well as Turkey.
3. Symbol of the Social Status
The organised and prosperous trade with the luxury goods of the non-European countries left its mark. In response to demand each culture began to imitate their products and adapt them to the tastes of the European client. In parallel with the “genuine” imported items, the West began to produce its own goods. A perfect example is the recent acquisition of the SNG collections. The Portrait of a Man attributed to Ján Kupecký is the embodiment of a European fascinated by the “Orient”, who can afford this expensive luxury.
This is what a successful and content man at the beginning of the 18th century might have looked like. He is wearing a comfortable home robe called a banyan. This type of loose top coat was inspired by an Indian, Japanese and Turkish men’s tunic coat. The sleeved waistcoat, (French gilet à manches) is made from silk fabric, which probably belongs to the group of fabrics with a decor inspired by Asia. These textiles, characterised by exotic plant motifs, were produced mainly in Italy and France. The man’s waistcoat features a pomegranate and a cornucopia with apricots. A man holds a tea bowl and a teaspoon in his hand. Drinking tea was a symbol of high social status. The bowl and tea plate were the forerunners of the cup and saucer. While drinking tea, the plate was used to bring the bowl of hot drink to one’s mouth. It was customary to pour the contents of the bowl into the deep plate and thus cool the liquid and drink it from the plate. In the picture we see Japanese Arita porcelain with the Kakiemon style decoration. The porcelain set is decorated with a delicate floral motif with a more pronounced motif of orange flowers. It was probably a tea set intended for the European market. In the foreground we see a silver teapot with a rattan handle, in which the window is reflected. The influence of European taste has greatly affected both Japanese and Chinese production. We must, therefore, keep in mind that what we perceive in our European collections as Japanese or Chinese is, in fact, made exclusively for the European market. European preferences for certain types of goods, such as porcelain or fabrics, overshadowed other, more country-specific products, e.g. calligraphic scrolls.
4. Supply and Demand
The delicate Japanese ivory carving is also related to the direct influence of Europe on Japan. A fisherman with a boy represents a type of a statuette called okimono.
The fact that their origin is related to kimonos will serve as a mnemonic aid. It’s an interesting story. Traditional kimonos did not have pockets, so men used to keep tobacco and other small items in small containers strapped to their belts. These containers were attached to the belt with decorative buttons called netsuke. We can see it on the clothes of our fisherman. Netsukes were made of wood, ivory and many other materials, and enjoyed the greatest popularity during the Edo period (1603–1868).
However, since 1868, when the shogunate fell, Japan has opened to the West and the influence of Europe has been reflected in clothes. Traditional kimonos began to have pockets. The use of netsuke has lost its meaning. Europeans and Americans immediately showed an interest in collecting these small sculptures. Talented carvers, who had previously produced netsuke, began producing small ivory statuettes for the European market with genre themes of Japanese everyday life, i.e. okimono. Their production culminated in the Meiji period (1868–1912), and they were intended primarily for export to Europe. We may also perceive the adaptation of Japanese craftsmen negatively. As an example of the loss of part of one’s own cultural identity at the expense of the market and survival. On the positive side, the craft was given a chance to survive.
5. Rekindling the Interest
The Alhambra in Granada got a second chance as well. It is a gem of Moorish architecture from the 13th to the 15th century, when members of the Muslim Nasrid dynasty ruled southern Spain. They built an impressive palace and fortress complex with inner gardens above the city.
At that time, Granada was an administrative centre and also the centre of Islamic culture and education. Since the recapture of Granada by the Christians in 1492, Albambra was partially destroyed, partially rebuilt, partially abandoned. When the American writer, lawyer, and diplomat Washington Irving (1783–1859) came here in 1829, he was fascinated by its charm, which shone from under the rubble and the scribbles on the walls, which were left behind by less cultured visitors. His book The Alhambra (or The Tales of the Alhambra) was published in 1832. Thanks to its translations into various languages, interest in this monument grew enormously. The book was first and last published in Czech (never in Slovak) in 1837. This was due to the fact that Irving visited Prague in 1822 and since then the Czech public has been interested in his work. The book awakened interest in the monument. Subsequently, the Spanish government took steps to protect and restore the site. The process is still ongoing. To this day, one can meet crowds of proud American tourists in the streets of Granada, who hold this book in their hands or talk about it with enthusiasm. And rightly so because their native greatly contributed to the fact that Granada with the impressive Alhambra is here. However, another phenomenon from which stems the rehabilitation, perhaps even glorification of the Arab-Islamic heritage in Spain in the recent past is the massive influx of Arab tourists who have been spending generously in the region. When the King of Saudi Arabia Fahd died in 2005, a day of national mourning was declared in Spain, and in Andalusia, where the king was on holiday, mourning lasted three days. The history of the Alhambra and the whole of Andalusia, marked by religious and power struggles, is currently contributing to save the heritage, but at the same time it provides a breeding ground for nationalist and religious extremism.
6. Political Correctness
Works of art connected with the troubled past once overlooked are now gaining attention. In 2011, Vogue Italia caused a scandal by designating trendy dangling round earrings as slave-style earrings. A wave of criticism arose that saw the label as an insensitive approach to Maafa, the African Holocaust, while at the same time overlapping the original African traditions with the European slave industry.
Another such scandal took place in 2017. The clothes of one of the members of the British royal court were decorated with a Venetian moretto brooch. It was an ostentatiously decorated bust of a black Moor in a turban that was interpreted as racist. The Moors are the aforementioned Muslims, originally from North Africa, who ruled southern Spain. The still-living tradition of the Venetian Moretto dates back to the 18th century. Current manufacturers and historians deny any racist tendencies of jewellery. They do not perceive the luxuriously dressed black Moor as a slave, but as an exotic ruler or even Shakespeare’s Othello, who was an officer in the service of the Venetian Republic army. The Venetian moretto found its way to Rijeka, where, after a slight transformation, it settled under the name morčić (morchich).
The people of Rijeka chose jewellery (earrings, buckles, brooches) with Moor’s head in a turban as a symbol of the city. It is a traditional talisman for good luck and against a curse. It is worn by 70 percent of local women of various ethnicities and backgrounds. Three legends are linked to its existence.
Their connection with peace and impartiality is dubious, to say the least. The most frequently mentioned is the story of the defence against the Ottoman army. After the victory, the severed heads of the Ottoman Turks in turbans remained on the battlefield, which inspired the jewellers to make earrings as trophies — mementos of the victory. The severed head appears in all mythologies as a manifestation of sovereignty over the enemy’s life and soul. It is baffling that no one has yet exposed this gruesome promotion of morchich. It is probably due to the low number of Turkish holidaymakers in Croatian resorts.
In this context, our country too has something to contribute with. The coats of arms of several families from the Kingdom of Hungary feature a severed head of an Ottoman Turk. In the manor house in Markušovce we find a kind of horror cabinet, where the furniture, a porcelain dining set, drinking glasses and even a jewellery box feature the coat of arms of the Csáky family. I wonder, when will the coats of arms of the Turk-fighters become politically incorrect in our country?
If I have enticed you with these examples, I am pleased. At the same time, I regret not being able to recommend other similar examples. In Slovakia, we might regard the Slovak National Museum with its ethnic museum branches and a broad collection profile as an inclusion collection establishment. Foreign artefacts and their concentration in “cabinets” diversify and enhance the fairytale image of castles, chateaux and manors. However, we lack a sufficiently developed professional interest in non-European mythology, ethnography and art, an excellent example of which is the Weltmuseum in Vienna. This deficit is partially reduced by touring blockbuster exhibitions on the lost paradise in the Himalayas (Shangri-la. India-Tibet-Bhutan-Nepal, 2009), on ancient Egypt (Tutankhamun — His Tomb and Treasures, 2014) or more recently on the Incas (Treasure of the Incas, 2020). However, there is a lack of systematic and structured knowledge of foreign collection objects across Slovak museums and galleries. The only attempt to evaluate them was the initiative of my colleague Katarína Malečková from the SNM-Bojnice Museum in the form of the exhibition Art of the Orient (2014) and the related international symposium (2015).
The integration of other cultural narratives into the gallery and museum practice is not possible without strengthening the interdisciplinary cooperation of art historians with specialists in the field of Oriental studies at home and abroad.
Such cooperation took place when the sinologist Martin Slobodník, translated the inscriptions on the Chinese posters for the SNG research. It was a great contribution to the study of the shared cultural Czechoslovak and Chinese socialist experience. One of its aspects was the position of women in society.
7. Equal Opportunities
The Cultural Revolution in China generated thousands of propaganda posters to guide the Chinese people on their journey to reformed society. They praised culture, industrialization, the development of agriculture and the heroes of the revolution. They were designed not only for public places but also for households. One of them is a poster that campaigns for the integration of women in originally male professions with a technical focus.
The slogan “Let’s eagerly learn technical science!” is accompanied by a picture of a soulful female worker who can manage theory and practice. However, we must not forget that at the time, Chinese as well as Czechoslovak women had to meet not only work but also family responsibilities. In addition, they were expected to look content and charming. Thus, women — the society-builders — had to invest their wages in cosmetics as well, so that they would fit the picture of the socialist paradise.
With their appearance, public engagement and diligence, they were set as role models and their perfect image was presented to the public. While the image of a working woman in the socialist bloc aggressively suppressed the image of a housewife, the situation on the other side of the ocean was quite the opposite.
The working woman was an unfulfilled dream of American feminists. In the 1950s, American women were condemned to fulfilling a conservative dream of middle-class life. The women’s world was defined by caring for the family and the household.
In the socialist as well as democratic story of the 1950s, men played a major role, to whom women and their media image served the propaganda purpose of the higher good and the “right” world order. Beirut photographer Eli Rezkallah was recently inspired by these posters and created a photographic series In a Parallel Universe in which he swapped male-female roles. The vivid colours and perfection of the protagonists of his project emphasise the violent, offensive and degrading nature of American posters.
http://www.plastikstudios.com/inaparahlleluniverse
Sadly, looking at the recent and contemporary advertising banners, we have to say that the situation is still not ideal. At the same time, many will be surprised that Virginia Woolf wrote in her legendary essay A Room of One’s Own as early as 1929: “All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are “sides”, and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from the hands of the Headmaster himself a highly ornamental pot. As people mature they cease to believe in sides or in Headmasters or in highly ornamental pots.”
Our society still seems to be fighting for the headmaster’s award. Men struggle with women, nations with nations, religions with religions. How can we expect the elimination of unhealthy cultural overcrowding at this school stage of our development? One of the museums / galleries’ responses is INCLUSION.
At the SNG website, we are currently unable to offer you a sufficiently nutritious inclusion experience. But where artwork is missing, a book might help. At the SNG, the Library of Kornel and Naďa Földvári provides the closest inclusion experience. The collection of books by the voracious bookworm and writer, satirist, art and literary critic Kornel Földvári (1932–2015) and his wife, musicologist Naďa (1933), will allow you to step beyond the ordinary.
Bibliography and Online Sources
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The inclusive museum — Challenges and Solutions, State of the Art and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 1st and 2nd COME‐IN! Institut Verkehr und Raum : Erfurt 2018, s. 18–25.
Galla, Amareswar: In search of the inclusive museum. In: Murphy, Bernice L. (ed.): Museums, ethics and cultural heritage. Routledge : New York 2016, s. 304–316.
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Te Heesen, Anke: The World in a Box: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia. University of Chicago Press : Chicago 2002.
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Malečková, Katarína (ed.): Umenie Orientu. Zborník príspevkov z medzinárodného sympózia usporiadaného pri príležitosti výstavy Umenie Orientu. SNM-Múzeum Bojnice, 2015.
Toncinich, Erna: Il moretto fiumano. EDIT, Fiume : 2008.
Bahenská, Marie — Heczková, Libuše — Musilová, Dana: O ženské práci. Dobové (sebe)reflexe a polemiky. Masarykův Ústav a Archiv AV ČR : Praha 2014.
Slobodník, Martin: Socialist Anti-Orientalism: Perceptions of China in Czechoslovak Travelogues from the 1950s. In: Postcolonial Europe? Essays on Post-Communist Literatures and Cultures. Brill — Rodopi 2015, s. 299–314.
Translation: Lucia Cebová
Translated at the expense of the author.
