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I don’t remember a world without Michael Jackson.

I was born in 1983, a year after Thriller came out. It was still the #1 album on the Billboard charts when I was born. As a little girl, my neighbors — older girls who I worshipped — let me listen to their MJ albums; when I was a little older and went to Disneyland and saw Captain EO, they gave me their old Michael Jackson posters, since they had long ago moved on to George Michael. I saw the Thriller video at a friend’s house years after it came out, but still found it terrifying — and wanted to watch it again and again. When I was eight or nine, a close family friend was stricken with brain cancer; she was six or seven, and best friends with my little sister. Her older brother and I were born three days apart, and our moms had been friends during their pregnancies. She adored Michael Jackson, and toward the end of her life, her parents bought her a karaoke machine so that she could sing his songs with her family. She died when she was eight. There are a few MJ songs that I can’t hear without thinking of her. I wasn’t allowed to watch MTV as a kid, but the older neighbor girls (who by this time were old enough to babysit me) convinced my parents to let my sister and I watch Black or White, arguing that it was a positive message that we should be exposed to. Not long after, we spent most of a family vacation watching the television coverage of Michael’s child molestation charges. None of us had any doubt that he did it, and I have a very clear (and strange) memory of my mom theorizing that maybe Macauley Culkin was somehow involved. Through middle school and high school, Janet began to eclipse Michael as my favorite Jackson, but I still bought HIStory and thought the Scream video was one of the cooler things I saw on MTV. When I went to college, I bonded with the woman I would live with for the next four years over a shared love of Michael’s music — or more specifically, a shared love of memorizing every move from his videos. My affection for the Billy Jean dance carried over to future friendships, and my current room mate and I still break into it whenever that song comes on — it’s common enough occurrence where we took to calling Billy Jean “our song.” In law school, I went to Egypt to see someone I was involved with, and we spend eight long hours driving across the Sinai, sharing his ipod and listening to Michael Jackson albums.

I don’t believe that Michael Jackson was a great person; I think he probably did molest children, or at the very least had inappropriate interactions with them. He had serious and fairly well-documented psychological issues; “man-child” seems to be the favored description, and it’s pretty widely accepted that he had the psycho-social development of a boy. He was an abuse victim, and very possibly an abuser. His childhood and his own suffering certainly isn’t an excuse for the choices he made as an adult, but it is important context when looking back at a life that was tragic, damaged and damaging to others. I don’t think any of that should be overlooked or whitewashed. But as Holly points out, “I don’t think we have to have outlandishly complex thought processes in order to hold multiple, conflicting things about Michael Jackson in our minds. We’re human beings, we have really powerful brains capable of complexity and nuance.” Natalia’s post addresses some of that complexity, and she’s right about holding onto the music rather than the musician. For me, in my life, his music was important. I loved it, even while I found the man sometimes repulsive but mostly sad — and I found the man sad even while recognizing his profound influence on racial and gender presentation.

There are a lot of posts up around the internets today about Michael Jackson. This one at Juan Cole’s place, about Michael, Islam and the Middle East, is one of my favorites. And this one about Michael Jackson’s influence in Albania is also a must-read.

It’s not that I’m “grieving,” or that I’m heartbroken over the death of a larger-than-life musical icon (”celebrity” feels too small a word), even though I’ll admit that my voice cracked a little when I poked my head out of my office to tell my supervisors at work that MJ passed. It’s more that, possibly more than any other artist, Michael Jackson provided a soundtrack for some of the more personal and notable points of my life. I still love his music. I loved hearing it blasting from car windows and stereos while I walked down the street yesterday. I love listening to it as I write this post. For that, I will miss him.

In the opening essay to the book Shared Visions: Native American Painters and Sculptors in the Twentieth Century, Rennard Strickland and Margaret Archuleta write,

J.J. Brody in his classic study, Indian Painters & White Patrons, identified the colonial nature of a patronage system that narrowly defined and dictated what was “Indian art”…It seems almost as if definitionally…that paintings by Indians can be considered only in a primitive, aboriginal context. (p. 9)

They discuss Oscar Howe:

…[he was] thwarted in developing new directions in painting and striving to break away from the old stereotypes limiting Indian art…one of Howe’s Cubist style paintings was rejected from the 1959 Indian Artists Annual because it was “non-Indian” and embodied a “non-traditional Indian style.” (p. 9)

Strickland and Archuleta quote a letter from Howe to a friend:

“There is much more to Indian Art, than pretty, stylized pictures…Are we to be held back forever with one phase of Indian painting…?” (p. 10)

One of Howe’s Cubist paintings:

What Strickland, Archuleta, and Howe (as well as other contributors to Shared Visions) are discussing is the pressure American Indian artists have often faced to create a certain type of art. This pressure may come from other Indians or from non-Indians. Non-Indians have often had significant power over Indian artists because of their role as benefactors (providing money for artists to attend The Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School, for instance) and because non-Indians are the majority of buyers of art created by American Indian artists. And benefactors and art collectors often have a certain idea of what “Indian art” is, which includes assumptions about both themes and styles. Specifically, they want “traditional” images that depict Native Americans in a pre-modern world, often including images of animals.

I couldn’t help but think of that book when I recently picked up a tourist-oriented guide to Taos, New Mexico. Some images from advertisements for local galleries:

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying there is anything necessarily wrong with any of these particular art pieces (or with “traditional” type Indian art more broadly). I’m also not claiming these particular artists feel their artistic expression is limited by preconceived notions of what counts as “Indian art.”

What struck me was just the homogeneity of the images found in the guide (I lost the front cover somewhere along the way so I don’t know the name of it), which seemed to more or less fit the mold of the stereotypical idea of “Indian art.” It brings up the question: what is Indian art? Is it any art made by an American Indian? Or does it only count if it fits in with non-Indians’ preferences for what Indian art should look like? What if a White person, say, masters the “traditional” style–is it Indian art then? Over the years a number of American Indian artists have created art to intentionally challenge the idea of the romanticized 19th-century Indian as well as what Indian art can be. For instance, Fritz Scholder painted “Indian Wrapped in Flag” in 1976, in an attempt to deconstruct images of Native Americans (p. 16 of Shared Visions):

Apparently both Indians and non-Indians picketed some of Scholder’s shows in protest.

Similarly, T.C. Cannon painted “Osage with Van Gogh” (I’ve also seen it titled “Collector #5″; from around 1980), which reverses our idea of who collects or appreciates which type of art by showing a Native American collecting a European artist’s work:

“When Coyote Leaves the Reservation (a portrait of the artist as a young Coyote)”, by Harry Fonseca (1980):

(All images other than the ones from the travel guide found here.)

So are those pieces Indian art? Does it count as “Indian art” only if it contains specific styles and themes?  In which case, does it remain a sub-genre of art–part of “ethnic” art, as opposed to the neutral, non-marked mainstream art world?  Are Indians who paint or sculpt or play music in ways that don’t fit the existing idea of Indian art not “authentic” Indian artists?  If we accept that premise, “Indian art” is, as Howe said, “held back forever,” with themes and styles frozen in time and artists discouraged from experimenting or innovating in their work, as Howe learned so clearly. This tendency is apparent in other elements of U.S. culture, of course: movies like “Dances with Wolves,” books about “noble savages,” and conflicts over what types of technologies American Indians can use when spear fishing (with non-Indians arguing Indians should only be able to use the methods that their tribes used in the 1800s) all indicate a wider perception that “authentic” Indians should inhabit a time-warp universe in which their cultures and lifestyles have remained basically unchanged since the late 1800s or early 1900s, a requirement we don’t ask of other groups.

For more evidence that Indians are represented, and expected to represent themselves, anachronistically, see this post.

UPDATE: Commenter Camilla points out a documentary that asks similar questions about “African” art:

Christopher B. Steiner produced a fantastic anthropological documentary about the market for “African” art that addressed many of these same issues. It’s called “In and Out of Africa”…It explores the issue of how ideas such as “authenticity” and “tradition” are socially constructed phenomena. It also questions why particular types of “ethnic” art are successful in Western markets, while others are not.

I’m really pleased to announce that Confabulous has teamed up with the mighty Antigone Magazine to bring you the Dreams for Women project. Dreams for Women is an amazing postcard project, along the lines of Postsecret, where men and women paint, write or do a collage on a postcard, answering the question: what is your dream for women? It’s also a calendar, a series of videos, and exhibit in the International Museum of Women. Want to send in your submission? Go to it!

Antigone Magazine
C/O WILLA
Box 61 – 6138 SUB Blvd
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
OR antigonemagazine(at)hotmail.com

And now, here are this week’s postcards. Let them inspire you to make your own!

PS: The last 3 cards are from Anne Prampart, a Paris artist who makes the most amazing postal art. Check out her site: your jaw will drop and your mouth will water, guaranteed.

Related posts:

1. This Monday’s roundup–a real mixed bag
2. On the multiplicity of feminisms

Issues like discrimination against gays and lesbians, violence against females, eating disorders caused by socially competitive environments, lack of social services for the lower classes, and others hurt me at a deep level. Art is my way of coping with all those issues. -Artist Mariana Castro de Ali (emphasis: mine) Mariana Castro de Ali hails from [...]

I have just learned of a great project going on called the Survivor Mural Project.  The goal is to eventually create a patchwork mural of hundreds of works of art by sexual violence survivors to travel and serve as a reminder of the impact of sexual violence.

From the site:

We believe that collaborating with many survivors from all around the world will provide a powerful visual reminder of the staggering statistics and the devastating impact that sexual violence can have on people’s lives.

Participants can choose to remain anonymous. You do NOT need to be an artist! This is your opportunity to be heard, and to offer inspiration and hope to others.

At this stage there is no deadline for mural piece submissions.

All survivors of any form of sexual violence are welcome and encouraged to submit.  Judging from those pieces already in the gallery, the statement that contributors need not be artists seems very genuine — while many are visually stunning, others resemble PostSecret postcards, and are made up largely of text.  It’s really amazing seeing so many different survivor viewpoints and experiences being collected all in one place, and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

Check out the site for details on how to participate, and spread the word.  I imagine that this will be a truly stunning work of art and activism once it is completed.

h/t Marcella’s Twitter

SPEAK! by the SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective
(Liquid Words Productions)

When I first listened to SPEAK!, the spoken word collection put out by the SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective, I shied away from reviewing it. I was too biased, I worried. I couldn’t be objective. Some of the contributors read (and have written for) this very blog! It was fairer, I decided, to review works by people I’d never met or spoken to.

Blah blah blah. Fuck that. This collection is wonderful.

“I speak to live into my skin… I scream for my family, for my life, for your life, and for the ones to come,” says Adele Nieves in the CD’s opening track, “Why Do You Speak?” She sets the tone for the entire collection, tying personal histories to entire nations, connecting people to peoples. These voices whisper, yell, sing, rhyme, ponder, call, muse (think of the double meaning of the word “muse” - think of a muse channeling her inspiration through her own voice instead of silently bestowing it on someone else). There are so many great moments that it’s hard to figure out which ones to highlight.

Aaminah Hernandez’s piece, “When I Speak,” was one of my favorites. It begins with a telephone ringing and the beep of an answering machine. From the format, one might expect a sort of epistolary piece, but in a striking move Hernandez seems, at first, to address no one in particular. She ruminates on those who seek out Muslim perspectives, but panic when a Muslim woman - or, even more frightening, a Muslim woman without a college degree, or a Muslim mother - opens her mouth. “Surviving isn’t education… and being well-read only matters if it was guided by professors and resulted in something to frame,” she says, her voice measured almost to the point of monotone. The format is slyly appropriate for the subject Hernandez is tackling; one gets the sense that after being shut out of mainstream discourse, she’s entering it through the back door. But who is she speaking to? Whose answering machine is this? Perhaps she’s speaking past her listener, just as other speakers have done to her. Both her and Lisa Factora-Borchers’s criticisms of academia are incisive - why, their pieces ask, do you need a degree to talk about your own experience, your own truths? Why are you a sought-after commodity if you have culturally-sanctioned credentials, and a voice on an answering machine if you don’t?

Nadia Abou-Karr contributes two pieces on the Palestinian experience, “We Will Never Forget” and “Genocide.” In the second piece, she explores the role of the US mainstream in appropriating, repackaging, and mass producing the Holocaust as a tragedy like no other in the history of the world - in other words, the only “real” genocide. I was of two minds as I listened. On the one hand, I thought of the rage I felt at hearing John McCain and Sarah Palin chirp, “We don’t want another Holocaust!” in order to win an election - as if they gave even the tiniest damn about the members of my family who were disappeared after Germany invaded Poland. On the other hand, I couldn’t escape the visceral suspicion and discomfort I feel when any non-Jew appears to suggest that we talk about the Holocaust too much, or in the wrong way. I could feel myself bristling - but healthy bristling will happen when raw subjects are discussed frankly. And even that discomfort is minor when you consider the main point of the piece: that if we agree that each group has the most expertise on their own oppression, then Palestinians need to be able to use the term “genocide” to describe the ongoing erasure of their culture, land, and lives. (Think of this idea in relation to Hernandez and Factora-Borchers’ critiques of credentials and degrees. One of the main themes running through this collection, whether it’s Palestine or privileged feminism or the Song of Solomon, is the subversion of hierarchies and the questioning of accepted narratives. The Israeli government knows what it’s talking about; Palestinian civilians don’t. Academics and men and white people know what they’re talking about; everyone else does not. Meanwhile, the people who supposedly don’t know what they’re talking about are living and hurting and dying.)

Most of the pieces rely on minimal sounds - light percussion, synthesizers, background noise - if there’s any sound besides the speaker at all, so E. Rose Sims’ “On Cartography and Dissection” is a jarring change of pace, with an orchestrated score that matches the dark tone of her exploration of monsters. The piece is a brilliant series of connections between colonialism and transphobia and racism, with mapmaking serving as a metaphor for the naming and conquering of the human body. Flags are planted, already-established realities are ignored, and healthy, natural identities are twisted, by colonizers, into “a wrongness, a distortion.” Sims’s voice brims with sadness and anger as thunder crackles behind her and she ponders what Medusa felt the first time she saw her own reflection.

There are delightful moments of humor in the collection, too. BabyBFP, giggling, reads a poem about her cats, and the CD begins to draw to a close with a spirited rendition of “I Feel Pretty.” When I saw the title on the track listing, I was afraid it would be corny, but these ladies pull it off.

“What is this thing called ‘love’? And what does it mean to radicalize it?” BFP asks at Flip Flopping Joy. The idea of radical love is, as usual, being appropriated and twisted beyond recognition by mainstream “movements,” but SPEAK! is - I think? I feel? I’m new at this and the term resists definition - a work built from real radical love. It’s beyond the romantic or the superficial. “We don’t get to say, ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ - we say, ‘I am woman, dear God, I hope you find my sister today,’” Black Amazon says in “Something Else to Be.” In many ways, it’s beyond analysis.

Oh! And if you need any more evidence that you should procure a copy of this CD, all proceeds go towards helping single mothers attend the Allied Media Conference in Detroit this July. Listening parties, workshops, and a zine are options available to you.

So get it already! Get this CD posthaste. Listen, learn, and love.

ETA: Looks like Cara and I posted about this at the same time!