Cultural Appropriation and the Arts - James Young

Whilst searching for materials in my field, I discovered an interesting journal by James Young.

What is a culture?
Young attempts to explain the essence, of culture, and leads with saying it is "a set of beliefs, achievements, customs and so on that is characteristic of a group of people".

Artists are constantly pulling from cultures outside of their own for inspiration and design elements.
Traditional painters such as Picasso have used motifs which originate in African carvings. Musicians are notorious for borrowing and appropriating jazz and blues styles originally developed from African-American culture. For years, the film industry has attempted to do the same. Dreamworks' Road to El Dorado and Disney's Pocahontas are prime examples for these.

These examples of cultural appropriation and others alike have sparked controversy throughout all media platforms. There are both ethical and aesthetic issues that occur when cultural appropriation occurs as an art form. It can be argued that to produce art through cultural appropriation is immoral, as stereotyping can occur, as well as misinterpretation of the original culture.

"The aesthetic failure of certain artworks may cause them to be wrongly harmful to members of a culture. (The work may, for example, misrepresent the originating culture in a harmful way.)" However, many acts of this can be seen as honoring culture, resulting in artworks of value.

This is relevant to my area of research, as through practical methodology I shall be taking influence from non-western cultures to inspire conceptual development pieces. It is important that the work produced is not ethically offensive, which could occur through visual stereotyping. In addition to this, it will also be important to consider the design from a researched and learned standpoint, as Young stresses the importance of accurate representation, and discusses the Cultural Experience Argument.

This argument is based on the premise that in order for an individual to successfully appropriate a cultural style, the artist must have experience as a member of this culture. Young explains this view as "living as a member of a given culture is the necessary condition of being able to create successful works of the types developed by the culture". A harsh argument from an artists point of view, as if true it would essentially limit their creative content to whatever local culture was available.  This point of view is often found in the music industry, with the argument that a musician cannot properly learn the blues unless they experienced the lifestyle of black men in America. Young quotes the blues musician LeRoi Jones; "the idea of a white blues singer seems an even more violent contradiction of terms than the idea of a middle-class blues singer. The materials of blues were not available to the white American".

Whether this argument holds true is based solely on opinion, at least in the concern of musical taste. Whilst it is true that blues originated in African-American culture, does this limit the success of blues musicians beyond this culture? The Cultural Experience argument appears to agree with this. It is true to say that blues music originated from the slavery and eventual freedom of black slaves. These songs and this style of music was created as a response to the experiences of this men.

The Cultural Experience argument concludes that artists (at least in the music realm) who do not have the experience or previous knowledge of a culture are almost certain to produce works of poor quality. Jesse Steinberg in his book "Blues - Thinking Deep About Feeling Low", states that "blues as a whole has become "diluted" under the influence of it's white consumers and performers", which further backs up the Cultural Experience Argument as far as blues is concerned. It seems that the cultural appropriation of blues music is less about the finished product (whether the song is harmonious or dissonant), and more about the origin and experience of the artist. It is hard to apply this argument to further subjects, as it condemns the vast majority of artists who draw inspiration from foreign culture. Simply because an artist is not from a particular culture, this does not necessarily have any condemning factors in their ability to create beautiful work.

Young goes on to discuss two methods of cultural appropriation, innovative and non-innovative appropriation. In simple terms, innovative cultural appropriation draws inspiration from a style without obvious replication. It is to draw influence and knowledge from a culture, and use aspects to improve the work being created. Bluntly replicating a culture that is not familiar or known to the artist can result in non-innovative appropriation, and can be received negatively. "We would have an example of such appropriation if an American performer were to attempt to enter into the tradition of Japanese epic ballad recitation by chanting (in Japanese) the Tale of the Heike while accompanying himself on a biwa" This ties in with my previous post on stereotypes.



Visual Culture Studies Journal: http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/28934_Smith___Introduction.pdf

Cultural Appropriation and The Arts - James Young file:///D:/Cultural_Appropriation_and_the_Arts.pdf

Thinking Deep About Feeling Low: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZT0dUgzmtL4C&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=white+people+can%27t+play+blues&source=bl&ots=1yq7RkxRDd&sig=Wm6RpPM8N1HHdSVaHJTqm9KuFmw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAjgKahUKEwiwrdq3honJAhXB0h4KHRmsAn4#v=onepage&q=white%20people%20can't%20play%20blues&f=false