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Art Tours for Book Lovers: Enliven Your Book Club with Docent Led Discussions

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Art Tours for Book Lovers: Enliven Your Book Club with Docent Led Discussions Art Tours for Book Lovers: Enliven Your Book Club with Docent Led Discussions Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman ABOUT THE BOOK The mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea in 1961 has kept the world and his powerful, influential family guessing for years. Through exhaustive archival research and immersing himself in the Asmat way of life, Carl Hoffman has uncovered startling new evidence that purports to tell the full, astonishing story. Savage Harvest illuminates a culture transformed by years of colonial rule, whose people continue to be shaped by ancient rituals and traditions. BOOK DISCUSSION GUIDE Use the information and discussion guide on the following pages to facilitate your book club’s conversation about this book. Then visit us at www.umfa.org/arttoursforbooklovers to schedule a group tour. 1. Hoffman’s proposal is but one of the many theories regarding the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller. In your opinion does he prove his thesis? Is Hoffman a credible source? 2. Native Americans have a saying that to know a man you must walk for a mile in his moccasins. How well do you think Hoffman wore the shoes of the people he describes – Michael? The Rockefellers? The Dutch missionaries? The Asmat? 3. What about the Asmat and their living conditions do you find compelling? What parts of the culture do you find unfamiliar? Would you travel there? 4. How does the geographic setting influence how the Asmat live and think? Include the Asmat concept of time in your discussion. 5. What compelled Michael Rockefeller to go to a dangerous and remote area of the world to collect art? 6. What weaknesses did Michael exhibit that may have led to his downfall? Or was he just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Do you agree with Hoffman that Michael “had no emotional need to connect” with the Asmat people? 7. Although the expression “primitive” is used by Hoffman in connection with Asmat art, the term is widely acknowledged as being derogatory and ethnocentric. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts uses the accepted term “Pacific Islands” when categorizing art from that part of the world. Why might the word “primitive” be considered unacceptable today? 8. Is it ok to collect and display art, music and other items of Asmat culture? Who should own this culture’s art? 9. Asmat cosmology or world view is all about making sure the world is put into right balance and involves a duality between the human and spiritual worlds. How are western beliefs similar or different? Why do you think that tribal behavior that is perceived as violent by Western culture is traditional and acceptable among the Asmat? 10. The author speaks almost longingly of the special connectivity that Asmat people experience. Have we lost something in our society? ABOUT THE AUTHOR Carl Hoffman is a multiple-award-winning writer, a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler, and the author of The Lunatic Express: Discovering the World via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes, and Hunting WarBirds: The OBsessive Quest for the Lost Aircraft of World War II. Hoffman has won four Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation and two North American Travel Journalism Awards. A former contributing editor for Wired, Hoffman has traveled to more than 70 countries on assignment for Outside, Smithsonian, National Geographic Adventure, ESPN, the Magazine, Wired, Men’s Journal, Popular Mechanics and many other publications. ABOUT STEVEN C. CHIARAMONTE UMFA is pleased to exhibit part of the amazing Asmat art collection of Steven C. Chiaramonte. Chiaramonte is a California native who has settled in Fiddletown, CA after a seventeen-year hiatus in Salt Lake City. A self-described, reformed corporate executive, he now oversees a large collection of mostly sculptural art of the Asmat people of southwest New Guinea. Early in 1992 Chiaramonte was among the first unofficial westerners to visit the Asmat area of Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea. Returning to the area of alluvial swamp and thick jungle in 1993, 1995 and twice in 1998, he has traveled extensively by canoe along jungle rivers and on foot where possible to visit with the people and understand their art. His journeys took Mr. Chiaramonte to several of the villages visited by Michael Rockefeller in the early 1960s. Mr. Chiaramonte maintains long-term interests in environmental advocacy and the values of ethnic traditions. Source: Zoominfo, April 1994 (Edited 1999) ADDITIONAL READING AND VIEWING Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton, 1999. Morgan, Mary Rockefeller. When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin. Open Road Media, 2014. Rockefeller, Michael Clark. The Asmat of New Guinea: The Journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller [The Michael C. Rockefeller Expeditions, 1961], Museum of Primitive Art, 1967. Schneebaum, Tobias. Where the Spirits Dwell: An Odyssey in the Jungle of New Guinea. Grove Press, 1994. Smidt, Dirk A. M. (ed.). Asmat Art: Woodcarvings of Southwest New Guinea. George Braziller, 1993. RELATED WEBSITES “Cannibals and Colonialism: Solving the Mystery of Michael Rockefeller.” Interview. NPR.org. March 18, 2014. http://www.npr.org/2014/03/18/291140637/cannibals-and-colonialism- solving-the-mystery-of-michael-rockefeller Indo-Pacific Conservation Alliance. Asmat. http://www.indopacific.org/asmat.asp Metropolitan Museum of Art. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, “The Asmat.” http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/asma/hd_asma.htm “What Really Happened to Michael Rockefeller,” Smithsonian.com, March 2014. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/What-Really-Happened-to-Michael-Rockefeller- 180949813/ Witchita State University, The Downing Collection of Asmat Art. http://library.wichita.edu/colldev/asmat/asmatlinks.htm AVAILABILITY 12 copies available through the Salt Lake County Library system (one audio copy). 6 copies available through the Salt Lake City Library system. Available at area bookstores. New and used hardbound and paperback copies available through various online book companies. Amazon kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook versions are available. Area booksellers, Frost’s Books and The king’s English offer discounts on UMFA Art Tours for Book Lovers books. .
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