Petitions, boycotts, strikes, emigration, terrorism, assassination. People have used a wide variety of violent and non-violent means to resist what they view as oppressive social and political systems. One fascinating form of resistance is art. While artwork expresses the values, moral sensibilities, and perspectives of the culture in which it is created, artists also use their work to turn cultural convention on its head. This past November, Benjamin Murphy, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Gallery of Art, visited UNCG to give a talk on this topic. His presentation, "Identity, Hybridity, and Transformation in Latin American Art from the Colonial Period to the Present," focused on how indigenous Americans overtly or covertly used their artwork to critique aspects of the colonial culture imposed on them by Spain.
A key component of this process was what Murphy called "hybridity," or the melding of cultural traditions, especially in terms of religious practices and iconography. Anthropologists call this syncretism. Native American artists would, for example, use indigenous techniques and raw materials (like feathers) to create art in the European Christian style. They would also draw analogies between indigenous religious beliefs and Christian doctrines. For instance, indigenous artists made sense of the Catholic Christian idea of transubstantiation--the idea that the elements of the eucharist convert into the body and blood of Christ--by referencing the Aztec concept of ixiptla, which also held that a material substance (a human female chosen for sacrifice) could hold an essence (of the Aztec god Huixtocihuatl). Hybrid art was also used to subtly critique the dominant Christian culture. Diego Quispe Tito's Last Judgement, created in 1675, is an interesting example of this. Tito, an ethnic Incan, showed his displeasure with what he saw as an indulgent Catholic clergy by painting the pope himself descending into the Hell Mouth.
While listening to this presentation I found myself thinking about culture change and cultural borrowing. Indigenous artists clearly drew from Christian culture, and colonial officials co-opted indigenous concepts, and both did so to suit their respective needs. Just like there is no such thing as a pure human race, there is no such thing as a pure human culture. Whenever cultures come into contact--as they always have--an exchange of ideas, norms, and material culture follows. Indeed, such exchange can justifiably be seen as a core feature of the human experience. This process does, however, inevitably lead over time to a loss of cultural knowledge and a transformation of individual and collective identities. As unavoidable as it is, culture change feels especially distasteful when it is coerced, either implicitly or explicitly, by a more powerful, unjust, and oppressive culture. The hybridity described by Murphy is an example of this. However, the intentional manipulation of Catholic Spanish symbols by indigenous artists reminds us that members of a subordinate culture are not passive recipients of, but, rather, active participants in, culture change (as unwanted as that change may at first be).
