Appendix I: a Note on Methodology, Or the Challenge of Artistic Practices
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Appendix I: A Note on Methodology, or the Challenge of Artistic Practices In terms of methodology, an emphasis on process (individual artists) rather than final product or result (i.e., artworks) represents a considerable challenge for ethnographic research. How to observe the process of artistic creation, let alone the discourses and actions of identity construction, which are not easily tangible and accessible? Anthropological fieldwork was carried out in Buenos Aires for one year from October 1999 to September 2000, and for a month and a half in November/December 2001.1 Because of the guiding interest in the processes of appropriation, I intended both to interview artists and to observe their working practices. However, it proved to be more difficult than I had expected to observe artists. Mostly, the single artist’s work is still solitary in the studio. Whilst one can hang around for some time, for instance, after an interview or after being shown work in the studio, it is less feasible, or almost impossible to be present when artists “work”—unless one is also involved in the process. This insight, that is to participate in the making of artworks, provided my way for- ward on several occasions, for example, when working in a ceramics studio, when casting extras during a film shoot, and when accompanying an artistic field-trip—all of which are discussed in the respective chapters (four, six, and seven). Rarely, have anthropologists opted for participation in the artistic process. It is still a novelty for anthropologists to cross borders into that direc- tion and take on artistic practices. For instance, Schneider and Wright (2006) advocate strongly the engagement of anthropologists with artistic work. During fieldwork, I employed a great range of methodological tools to get answers to the research questions, and tackle the variety and richness of empirical data.2 My ethnographic approach was “multisited,”3 involving fieldwork locales in Buenos Aires, as well as in Patagonia and in the Andean province of Jujuy, where I accompanied artists on their fieldtrips. Rather than restricting myself to any one method, I found great strengths in the combi- nation of several. Given the focus of my research on the appropriation of indigenous cultures among artists, the emphasis was on qualitative methods rather than quantitative ones. I conducted a considerable number of 188 APPENDIX I prearranged interviews with artists, critics, and gallery owners which, with the interviewees’ consent, have been recorded on tape. Interviews were open- ended and unstructured, following the course of the conversation rather than any pre-formulated questions. Key topics discussed in all interviews were the appropriation of indigenous cultures, the artists’ motivations, and their career paths. Participant observation was carried out during these interviews, and also at openings and during visits in galleries, museums, and other exhibition spaces, as well as during the week-long art fair Arte BA in May 2000 (see chapter three). The arranged encounters and interviews were agreed upon with artists at the places of their best convenience, and would take place at their homes and in their studios, in cafés or restaurants, at art fairs, in galleries, at art schools, and also at my home. The majority of encounters took place in the homes and studios (or a combination of the two when the artists’ studio was also at the place of his or her residence), and this variously allowed me a different kind of insight into their “world,” than I would have had in a café or other public place—although in some instances, a first meeting in a public place could be followed up by an invitation to visit at home and/or the studio. Some visits to artists’ homes and studios allowed me to make deductions as to artists’ social status, their interests and preferences in the art world (e. g., through the kind of works by other artists on display) and wider cultural tastes (indicated, for example, by furniture, books, and food). In other instances, especially with more established artists, studios or the showrooms in their homes were more arranged as display cases for their work, similar to gallery rooms, which would not allow any more insight into their life-worlds. There was no established pattern to the interview situations at home and in the studio (and where the two overlapped, see above), although on a number of occasions a conversation, with drinks, and sometimes food offered, would be followed by a showing of the artworks, and accompanied by specific explanations (but the reverse order was also possible). Intensive participant observation was carried out by attending classes for graphic and textile designers in Pre-Columbian Art, directed by Professor César Sondereguer at the architecture faculty of the University of Buenos Aires, as well as during visits to the studio classes of Juan Maffi, a Buenos Aires sculptor who also teaches at the national art academy, Ernesto de la Cárcova. Participation in the practical work of the ceramics classes of Pre- Columbian pottery in the studio of Mirta Marziali yielded important data on the actual process of appropriation, as did participation in the classes in the arts and crafts classes of the Escuela Taller Municipal de Artes y Artesanías Folclóricas de Morón in Greater Buenos Aires (see chapter four). The research for chapter five, which focuses on the issues of representation of indigenous peoples in both commercial and artistic photography, was based on a number of research strategies. These included both the reception of works (Gaby Herbstein’s exhibition and calendar Huellas (“Traces”)—in which fashion models were dressed as indigenous women), and interviews with the photographer, her assistant, and participating indigenous consultants. APPENDIX I 189 On two occasions the process of artistic appropriation of indigenous cultures was observed in-depth during extended and continuous periods of time during two field expeditions. Both of these resulted from interviewing the artists in Buenos Aires who then invited me to accompany them on their respective projects. Like many other jobs that are centered in the city (company executives, sales representatives etc.), some artists, too, have a mobile side to their work which gets them away from the city temporarily, in terms of production, knowledge acquisition, and consumption of the work they produce: these can be second homes, or studios in the countryside, travel for a specific artistic project (the two cases I was involved with), travel to art fairs, galleries, and museums in other cities and abroad to show their work. The first of these was the shooting of the Argentine feature film El Camino (dir. Javier Olivera, Argentina 2000), in the Mapuche reservation of Ruca Choroi in the Patagonian province of Neuquén, which I was able to follow in April 2000, courtesy of the kind invitation by director Javier Olivera (see chapter six). The second opportunity to observe artists’ work at close quarters consisted in accompanying the artistic field trip by visual artist Teresa Pereda, in order to document the celebrations around the winter solstice and the feast of St. John in Jujuy province in the Northwest of Argentina, in June 2000 (see chapter seven). I kept a fieldwork diary throughout my stay in Argentina, which recorded observations and impressions on daily activities interacting with my research subjects and other Argentines. In respective chapters, I use edited extracts from the diary entries to provide both ethnographic detail and to give a vivid illustration of the fieldwork process. Selection of Artists My aim was to interview a sufficiently large number of artists in order to arrive at some generalizations regarding their practices of appropriation. However, the theoretical emphasis of my approach is based on the processes of artistic appropriation, rather than the finished artwork. Therefore, at the centre of my concern was not the reputation or standing of the artists in the art world, but their artistic practice. To put it differently, interviewing a student at the Buenos Aires art school, Pridiliano Pueyrredón, was as valuable for my research as interviewing an internationally established artist. Obviously, I would take differences, in terms of standing in the art world and position in terms of career, into account—but they would not deter me from choosing somebody for interview, if the motivations, practices, and also the work (in that order) were of interest. This sometimes provoked vehement protest by some art critics, along the lines of “Well, if you chose bad artists [i.e., artists which are not recognized by the art world] then your study will also be bad.” Yet this did not discour- age me to continue with my unorthodox approach, and to interview and mix with those people I had selected for my research. 190 APPENDIX I At the beginning of my research stay, I consulted with a number of critics, gallery owners, and museum personnel whom I knew from previous periods of fieldwork (cf. Schneider 2000b), explaining my research project and compiling names of possible interviewees. Through these contacts I would also try to attend as many openings of gallery shows, and exhibitions at museums as possible. Very soon, my initial contacts and interviews led to more names, and this is how I eventually established the “universe” of my research. Unlike in other countries such as Germany, there is no census category for artists in Argentina, and it is difficult to estimate their number. Associations, such as the Sociedad Argentina de Artistas Plásticos (SAAP) (founded in 1925, 2.200 members in 2001) are not representative, and estimates which have been mentioned to me in conversations with the personnel at SAAP, spoke of as many as 20,000 artists in Buenos Aires alone.4 However, as in my previous fieldwork on Italian immigrants in Argentina, I have been of the opinion that it is better to work with a combination of methodological tools, and adopt an open-ended (and also open-minded) approach to fieldwork than to be in a rigid methodological straitjacket.