THE INDONESIAN ALCOVE AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Art, Culture Areas, and the Mead-Bateson Bali Project

IF 0.7 Q3 ANTHROPOLOGY
Urmila Mohan
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Abstract

Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson were iconic figures whose contributions to visual anthropology are well documented, but what is less well known is their role as collectors and curators of Indonesian objects. The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) houses a large Balinese collection with numerous textiles, paintings, carvings, and puppets. Some of these objects were housed in permanent exhibits, such as the AMNH’s Hall of Pacific People (HOPP), curated by Mead, or displayed temporarily in the Museum of Modern Art’s traveling exhibit, curated by Bateson. Against this backdrop, this article adds to the critical discussion of curating, anthropological history, and categorization schemes in Western museums by exploring how Bali and Java came to be so prominent in the AMNH’s Indonesian alcove. Stimulated by visitor responses to exhibits, museum archives, ethnographic notes, and actual physical displays, it traces how Mead and Bateson’s study (1936–1938) of “culture areas” and traits such as “art” in Bali influenced the representation of Indonesia. The alcove’s emphasis on art and aesthetics as forms of cultural equanimity and consistency can be related to prevailing hierarchies of religion and technological development as well as how ahistoricism became an anthropological device of freezing, categorizing, and representing. [Bali, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, art, ahistoricism]

美国自然历史博物馆的印尼凹室:艺术、文化区和米德-贝特森巴厘岛项目
玛格丽特·米德(Margaret Mead)和格雷戈里·贝特森(Gregory Bateson)是标志性人物,他们对视觉人类学的贡献有目可查,但鲜为人知的是,他们是印度尼西亚物品的收藏家和策展人。美国自然历史博物馆(AMNH)收藏了大量的巴厘藏品,包括大量的纺织品、绘画、雕刻和木偶。其中一些物品被安置在永久展览中,比如由米德策划的AMNH太平洋人民大厅(HOPP),或者在现代艺术博物馆的巡回展览中临时展出,由贝特森策划。在此背景下,本文通过探索巴厘岛和爪哇如何在AMNH的印度尼西亚龛中如此突出,增加了对西方博物馆策展、人类学历史和分类方案的批判性讨论。受参观者对展览、博物馆档案、民族志笔记和实际实物展示的反应的刺激,本书追溯了米德和贝特森(Mead and Bateson)对巴厘岛“文化区”和“艺术”等特征的研究(1936-1938)如何影响了印度尼西亚的表现。凹室强调艺术和美学作为文化平静和一致性的形式,这与宗教和技术发展的普遍等级制度有关,也与非历史主义如何成为一种冻结、分类和代表的人类学手段有关。[巴厘岛,玛格丽特·米德,格雷戈里·贝特森,艺术,非历史主义]
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来源期刊
Museum Anthropology
Museum Anthropology ANTHROPOLOGY-
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
75.00%
发文量
23
期刊介绍: Museum Anthropology seeks to be a leading voice for scholarly research on the collection, interpretation, and representation of the material world. Through critical articles, provocative commentaries, and thoughtful reviews, this peer-reviewed journal aspires to cultivate vibrant dialogues that reflect the global and transdisciplinary work of museums. Situated at the intersection of practice and theory, Museum Anthropology advances our knowledge of the ways in which material objects are intertwined with living histories of cultural display, economics, socio-politics, law, memory, ethics, colonialism, conservation, and public education.
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