[Hugues de Payens] is founding the "Knights Templar," the "poor fellows of Christ." They are a scraggly bunch who look as if they haven't bathed in months. The are a kind of Tac Squad for Western Civilization; a mighty highway patrol assigned to protect the pilgrims en route to the Holy Land from attack by infidels and robbers. (56)The very fact that western civilization needs a "Tac Squad" as wide reaching and powerful as the Knights Templar supposedly are in this novel means that there is some serious threat to western civilization that needs to be defended against. The quote above says that the threat is infidels and robbers, but I think what this really means is non-western civilization. This is because the cultures that these infidels and robbers come from are non-western cultures, or at least in 1118 A.D. they were non-western. With that in mind, this quote then reads: The Knights Templar are a kind of Tac Squad to defend Western Civilization against the rest of the cultures of the world. The "Center of Art Detention" is one of the parts of this defense, containing and controlling the art taken from other cultures by western civilization. The word "Detention" in Reed's name for this museum tells us that the control this museum has over the art takes a much more containment based form, rather than promoting the art of the non-western cultures represented in this museum. Using this museum, Reed forms a kind of metaphor for how America treats the rest of the world's cultures in this time period, specifically African culture. America takes in the valuable parts of the culture, but at the same time stops the culture from spreading and evolving. Essentially, America ends up controlling the cultures of other people like the Metropolitan Museum controls art.
Friday, February 5, 2016
The Center of Art Detention
I think that Ishmael Reed renames the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the "Center of Art Detention" because he is making a statement about how western civilization both exploits non western cultures, but is also afraid of their influence. The image Reed conjures of a museum being like a prison for the art, much of it from african, asian and south american cultures, but at the same time we know that people pay to see this art from other parts of the world. In this way, western culture is making a profit off of other cultures. However, western civilization is also afraid of other cultures as can be seen in the description Reed gives of the Knights Templar.
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"Center" in this context has connotations of official-ness, of being related to some serious issue - Center for Disease Control, Center for Economic Progress, Center for Business Innovation, etc.
ReplyDelete"Detention" also implies that the thing being detained has done wrong, has committed or is related to a crime--in this case, the crime of being outside of Western culture.
I agree with Kari. It seems very totalitarian and dystopian even to hold art in "detention". It really shows that by changing the names for a couple things in his book, Reed has the power to completely change the reader's outlook on the parallel universe in which this book takes place.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mikhail that this small change of title shows us the power that Reed wields over the history in his book. This brings up another layer of the history vs. fiction argument: not only can we never know if certain seemingly fictional events happened, now we can't be sure that fictional places and people don't refer to real things such as this Center in Mumbo Jumbo.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent observation, I think. It reminds me of Morgan coopting the parts of Egyptian culture that he likes for his own use, holding them in detention of sorts, away from the ancestors of the culture(s) that made them. I also think that the concept of African art being imprisoned is especially poignant given this country's eagerness to incarcerate African Americans.
ReplyDeleteWow, I never thought about this connection to the modern-day detention of African Americans but that's an interesting point. If we extend the idea of cultural detention to people, I could imagine the nation's history of slavery as one more, very large, example -- where Atonists took people out of their original setting, placing them into a European environment (a white background, if you will) and trying to strip them of their heritage by banning their language, religion, etc.
DeleteI like your arguement, but I don't know if I can fully co-sign with it. In your first sentence, you said that western nations exploit non-western nation culture which I agree with. But then, you go on to say that western nations are also afraid of non-western culture. To an extent, maybe. I think the fact that western nations are now adopting and assimilating non-western cultures sort of disproves the second part of your statement granted this new policy has been fairly recent.
ReplyDeleteI think Western culture traditionally is afraid of non-Western culture, as Reed supported with his points about witch burnings and exorcisms. Still, I think Justin has a point in saying that Reed's ideas may be a little outdated at this time. I think Western culture, probably as a part of or result of postmoderist ideas, is much more willing or even eager to embrace other cultures. Granted there are still plenty of Westerners who remain afraid, which makes them bullies of a sort to foreign cultures.
ReplyDeleteI read in a magazine that only 1% of the artifacts in the British Museum's possession are on display at one time, and I've heard similar information regarding the Field Museum. Knowing this adds more meaning to the idea of museums being "detention"--artifacts are not only being quarantined from the places they came from but also being stored where no one but curators and other museum workers can see them.
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