Praxis Spaces
Cyberspace is rich in artistic environments, ranging from one person personal galleries, small group to community style
collectives of artworks, major portal commercial galleries, and online renditions of small to well known physical galleries, like the Louvre and the Metropolitan Art Gallery. Content on all of these contexts for art is diverse; however, there is a noticeable tendency towards elitism and Western art dominance on both the portal commercial galleries and the major Galleries like the Smithsonian.
Although art histories and study have occurred among most countries and cultures around the planet, the analysis and understanding gleaned from cultural art remains decidedly Western in perspective. "By Western, I mean the people, systems and institutions of the colonizing countries, most notably Europe, America and Australia. Western meaning might be quite different in worlds outside of Western culture" (Fortier Kreutter, 1996, p. 3).
The very idea of "art" and especially "cyberart" is a Western construct. This fact can missile critics and students of diverse cultural art to miss the meaning and intention imbued into the art work or object by the creator. For instance, when Western constructs are applied to indigenous "art", the viewer may well miss the vision and insight conveyed by the artist since the lens of perception used is a narrow one. There is an amazing amount of indigenous artwork available for viewing online, which in itself seems like a positive thing. However, one wonders if the effect of the cyberspace environment offers an authentic experience or is mere repetition of colonization - this time in a virtual world.
There are artists who choose to combine their ancestral heritage and artistic gifts with more contemporary, often Western styles and modes of expression. For instance, Enrique Chagoya, Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley described his method of art making as "...My artwork is conceptual fusion of opposite cultural realities that I have experienced in my lifetime. I integrate diverse elements: from pre-Columbian mythology, western religious iconography and American popular culture. The art becomes a product of collisions between historical visions, ancient and modern, marginal and dominant paradigms -- a thesis and an anti-thesis that end in a synthesis in the mind of the viewer. Often, the result is a non-linear narrative with many possible interpretations" (2002).
Still there is evidence that minority artists are marginalized in the Western art world. Li (1996) argued that "Canada has produced two different support structures, or unequal art worlds, for promoting the artistic development of the dominant group and that of the visible minorities. Accordingly, the first one is a formal, legitimized and high-status art world of white Canadians, and the second one, reserved for immigrant cultures and minority art, is marginal, folkloric and low-status. The differential support structures result in non-white immigrants and visible minorities structuring their cultural life and artistic creation around the cultural symbols and expected values of Canada; and in so doing, they also have to accept the cultural hegemony of the dominant group in defining the way immigrant culture and minority art are to be articulated" (p. 5).
Art has become an increasingly prominent factor in globalization, readily evident in cyberspace. There are literally tens, even hundreds of thousands of online art sites. Art is pivotal in the process of representation, reaction, and construction of global identities. How we view the spectrum from low art to high art, marginal to mainstream, is an underlying theme ever churning beneath the surface of the cyberart environment. One can witness authentic sociocultural expression from a variety of ethnic or racial lens, as well as gross misrepresentations and acts of marginality.
Major Gallery Spaces
If one examines the contents of some of the major galleries online, an eclectic smorgasbord is evident. For instance, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York features a handful of special exhibitions. Included are:
Thomas Struth's photography, "ranging from early black-and-white cityscapes in the United States and Europe to recent, large-scale views of primeval jungles and forests in Asia and South America, Struth's photographs show the actual condition of our world's cultures and traditions on the cusp of a new millennium".
As well, the Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting exhibit features artwork by 19th century French artists, influenced by Spanish masters like Velázquez, Murillo, Ribera, El Greco, and Zurbarán. A third major exhibition focuses on African-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings which focus on "the years 1929–45, the selection reflects aspects of daily life for African Americans during the latter part of the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression and New Deal era, and World War II." Another cultural theme is evident in the display, Great Waves: Chinese Themes in the Arts of Korea and Japan
"...explores how Chinese pictorial themes—Buddhist iconography, landscape imagery, flower and bird subjects, and figural narratives—were selectively adopted and reinterpreted by native artists in Korea and Japan."
The US National Gallery of Art presents artwork in a decidedly white male consciousness context, featuring works by artists Frederic Remington, Ernst Kirchner, and Thomas Gainsborough. The Smithsonian Institute offers a variety of online galleries, including the
African Art Museum, American Art Museum, American Indian Museum, and Anacostia Museum intermixed with decidedly Western content including the Air and Space Museum, Arts and Industries Buidling, the Postal Museum and the Natural History Museum The offerings are diverse, but the display and context of delivery remains decidedly Western in presentation.
Commercial Portals
Fine Art America is an excellent example of a commercial portal database that has drawn artists from around the world featuring close to 50,000 art pieces. The site affords a welcoming space for artists of all kinds, but if one examines the long list of artistic genres offered, the focus is again, a definite Western one. From abstract to classical, cubism to modern or renaissance - the categories follow the mainstream historical context of art. Even the contemporary genres appear Western: rural, seascape, South Western, Techno-Art, war, photorealism. Any hint of ethnic variance is minimal, limited to Asian, Anthropology and Byzantine.
Art Groups and Communities
A generous array of artistic community galleries exist in cyberspace, affording more genuine opportunities for artists of any gender, culture or social strata to participate. Many of these praxis spaces are free of charge, provided for the sheer act of offering a place to share one's art with the world. One example of this is Pegasus Art Gallery a quickly growing community of over 200 artists, with another 200 in the wings. Artists from around the globe showcase their art - both women and men with representatives from all continents. The atmosphere is less conservative than the commercial portals with equitable exposure for all artists, regardless of the type of art or cultural bent.
Personal Galleries
There are thousands of personal galleries on the world wide web, which exhibits the healthy condition of "artist as entrepreuner" in cyberspace. This sort of presentation affords the artist autonomy, personal choice, unhibited voice and content, and control. Depending on the way the site is positioned in search engines, the popularity of the artist, and the aesthetics of the site itself, this sort of presentation may or may not glean the sort of attention the artist seeks.
Often, personal sites get swallowed up in the ever changing 'sea' of the internet. Artists need to continually self promote and market their site to attrack a healthy level of viewership. Any search for individual artists will reveal virtually endless themes, readily available for instant viewing and appreciation. This one person show approach is most definitely the most popular method of cyberart representation, one embraced by both Western and nonWestern artists.
The richness of cyberart on the internet is steadily growing - every day, new artists join the cyberculture of online art. Most do so to share their art with the world, to make a statement, to add to the expressiveness and thoughtfulness of life. Without even knowing it, cyberartists reach out to others, using their creative work as psychological tools, to touch and move their audience. Art represents both the beauty and the baseness of the human condition. It shows the human interpretation of life events and inner thoughts and processes.
This new horizon of cyberspace offers a fresh new canvas for artistic expression, one that reaches into the homes of countless viewers and possible buyers. At the core of this swiftly growing movement, is creativity - psychological messages embedded in colour, line and form. New ways to reach out and communicate with people from all over the planet in a rich and genuine way. Hopefully in an equitable and free way, a bridge to bring meaning to the conversations and creative musings of all people, whether artist or art witness.
References
Chagoya, E.. (2002). Studio Art Overview. University of California at Berkeley. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/art/people/bios/chagoya.html
Fortier Kreutter, J. (1996). From dreamtime to machinetime: Recontextualizing Australian Aboriginal "art".Senior Thesis. Lewis & Clark College http://www.lclark.edu/~soan/jk/jkcover.htm
Li. P. S. (1996). Literature Review on Immigration: Sociological Perspectives. University of Saskatchewan Prepared for Strategic Policy ,Planning and Research and Metropolis Project. Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
http://canada.metropolis.net/research-policy/litreviews/li_rev/li_rev-01.html
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June Kaminski, MSN PhD(c) © 2000 - 2023
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