ART'S INTERVENTION: ACTIVATING CULTURAL MEMORY FOR SOCIAL CHANGE LISA SCHINCARIOL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO DECEMBER, 2012 ©LISA SCHINCARIOL, 2012 Abstract This dissertation develops a socialist feminist aesthetic theory that brings an intersectional and anti-capitalist analysis of aesthetics to art criticism, museum studies and cultural policy. It begins by positing the social value of the arts in terms of their relationship to social change, which is catalyzed by cultural memory. This argument proceeds by developing the concept of cultural memory through keystone texts in aesthetic theory, which it redeploys to explain how cultural memory operates through the arts. The dissertation then outlines a socialist feminist politics that distinguishes cultural memory from discourse and explains the mutual impact of discursive and material conditions through the mechanism of cultural memory. This theoretical construct is applied to a case study of Charlotte Salomon's massive and multidisciplinary Life? or Theatre?. The case study attends to the socialist feminist dimension of the work, which has otherwise been underrepresented. The dissertation further applies a socialist feminist theory of art as cultural memory to its analysis of problems in the work's exhibition at the Art Galley of Toronto in 2000. This analysis reveals the ways in which the work's political content was circumscribed by the exhibition. It also explores the political and economic climate of patriarchal capitalism impinging on the gallery to describe how this circumscription was preconditioned. By developing the concept of cultural memory in this way, the dissertation makes a contribution to the study of Salomon's work, as well as debates on art's social value and political effects, feminist art history, and the sociology of art. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my committee members Drs. Kevin Dowler, Deborah Barndt, and Monique Tschofen for giving this project thoughtful and thorough consideration. I also wish to thank the Jewish Historical Museum of Amsterdam, which accommodated my visit to the Charlotte Salomon Archives and kindly answered my many inquiries from afar. Several allies provided encouragement during the PhD process. Robert Case in particular supported me through the final year of writing with his companionship and regard. However, I am most indebted to my husband Dr. J.J. McMurtry whose breadth of understanding provided unparalleled assistance. 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 Defining "Art" ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Defining "Cultural Memory" ................................................................................................................... 7 Theoretical Stance ...................................................................................................................................... 9 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 1: Art's Social Value ............................................................................................................................. 16 Art's Imbrication in Subjectivity and Social Change ................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: Establishing Art's Cultural Memory as an Agent of Social Change: Definitions & Applications ............................................................................................................................................................. 37 Memory as Power and Resistance ..................................................................................................... 38 Narrowing the Field of Study ............................................................................................................... 40 Memory and Representation ................................................................................................................ 42 Reading "Cultural Memory" from Aesthetic Theory................................................................... 44 A History of the Concept of Art as Dialectical... ............................................................................. 52 Summary....................................................................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 3: The Feminist Frame: A Consideration of Art's Social Value Often Excluded from Domi11ant Discourse ............................................................................................................................................. 63 Thinking Socialism & Feminism Together...................................................................................... 64 Major Contributions of Feminist Art & Criticism to Social Praxis: The Personal/ Political Dialectic ................................................................................................... 7 4 Feminism, Art and Memory .................................................................................................................. 81 Memory as Material ................................................................................................................................. 84 Chapter 4: Life? or Theatre? as Feminist Cultural Memory ............................................................... 101 The Feminist Dimension ..................................................................................................................... 109 Critical Framing of Life? or Theatre? .............................................................................................. 122 Universalizing Experience .................................................................................................................. 140 Chapter 5: Policy as a Cultural Memory Frame ...................................................................................... 146 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................. 172 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................................................... 181 iv Introduction This dissertation challenges the premise that art exists for the purpose of decoration, distraction, and distinction, to nurture a mood within a particular place or person, or to gratify an urge toward self-expression by individuals .of a peculiar disposition. Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed these ideas when he made the following remarks after cutting $45 million from arts and culture funding: "I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up - I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people" (Toronto Star). The country's foremost representative was articulating a popular perspective among Canadians-one that views the arts as a realm of privilege and little collective relevance. Indeed, the Harper campaign saw its highest polling numbers the day after he made what has been dubbed his "Ordinary People Don't Care About the Arts statement" (Wheeler), suggesting that many Canadians regard artistic practice as frivolous and private, rendering marginal value to society at-large except when, as a commodity of decoration, distraction, and distinction, it can produce consumer value. It does so either by generating cultural capital through the sheer aura of originality or by connecting consumers to capital generating corporations, thereby fueling a local, regional, national or global economic system. This is why lucrative cultural industries 1 exist within Canada, as does an affluent but extremely narrow art market. Even so the average artist lives below the poverty line. There remains within :the population of Canada at least a residual understanding that some human activity is not market durable yet might merit communal support for the sake of enrichment and innovation, otherwise known broadly speaking as the public good. For this reason, the arts have long been supported by private and public donors in this country, despite a pervasive attitude of indifference and occasionally disdain. This is the popular profile of the arts in Canada at the time of writing. This is the profile by which artists and artworks of every ilk and character are to be recognized in every branch of mass media, as well as perhaps in most classrooms and living rooms. It is a profile reflected in the ghettoization of arts education into underfunded, academic sub-disciplines. It is evident in the well-publicized need of cultural institutions to continuously pursue another blockbuster event or architectural makeover. The names and faces of our artists never appear on our currency or on our public infrastructure, as they do in other countries (Leger). Rather, the arts