Label & Exhibition Alternatives

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Label:

Emil Nolde, a German Expressionist, portrayed scenes of urban life in early 20th century, while also borrowing inspiration and themes from non-Western art. The Mulatto brings these two fields of interest together, situating an exotic figure in Berlin's nightlife. The bright smeared colors of her heavily-applied make-up, and the halo-like nondescript shape around her head all help to communicate her non-idealization and mixed influences shaping her identity. His treatment of questions about racial diversity was in conflict with Nazi ideas of racial purity of the 1930s and 40s. All of his works were confiscated and this work was exhibited in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937. 

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Different ways of exhibiting:

Before discussing a few alternatives to how this painting can be exhibited, I want to borrow some thoughts about the deliberate decisions museums make from a previous paper I wrote on the subject.*

<< Any decision of how to exhibit a certain artwork in a museum setting involves decisions of categorization. In the story of art told by a museum, categorization is the most important element; it is simultaneously the backbone of the presentation and the perspective through which the visitors perceive it. Classifying and mapping are devices for describing difference and hierarchy, and they exist within and through  “assumptions about time and its narrative, history.” (Nelson 39) Such assumptions define the tone of the museum in telling the story of art and the approach it takes toward the foundational principles of art history, namely, influences, reactions, relations and other ways of establishing connections between different works of art.

Bruner, Goodnow and Austin define categorization as a “man’s ability to render discriminately different things equivalent, to group the objects and events and people around him into classes, and to respond to them in terms of their class membership” (Bruner, Goodnow & Austin, 1) Therefore, categorization is the act of simultaneously seeing the similarities between the different and the difference between the similar.

These observations come with a warning. When applied to art, this practice may prove problematic, inefficient, or even deceiving. The discerning art historian must be very careful when labeling art works, as careless classification can lead to “jagged gerrymandered divisions of art history.” (Nelson 28) The museum is an attempt to homogenize the heterogeneity of the art world: to interpret, order, classify.  As Schubert says, the allure of categorization is irresistible, so much that the “mechanism of classification can become more important than the classified object and, in a wider sense, the world it stands for.” (Schubert 145) Indeed, it is very common for an art museum visitor to remember the visit within the framework of the categories the divisions in the museum imply, rather than the actual art work seen during the visit. >>

In light of these observations and thoughts, I can suggest a few alternative ways of exhibiting Nolde's Mulatto. The most obvious of these would be a periodic/stylistic exhibition ("German Expressionist", "Early 20th century"). This framework would help the visitor get the bigger picture of the period, perceive common stylistic and thematic trends, and sketch a thread of progression within the specific period. For example, the German Expressionism exhibiton at MOMA in the summer of 2011 employed both a chronological and thematic categorization within the period, discussing how important events like the World War I influenced the inspirations and techniques of the artists.

Another possible way of exhibiting this painting would be a thematic organization ("degenerate art", "urban life in early 20th century") Tracing these themes through different periods, styles and cultures, a curator can convey the sense of the theme's universality. For example, the current exhibition at Tate Modern in London explores the theme of modern urban life in the past few decades in different cities like New York and Tokyo through photography and film. Such a categorization helps the viewer extrapolate the theme in question to his/her life today and think about how (s)he would have contributed to such an exhibition if asked.

Finally, another suggestion could be to exhibit The Mulatto, along with other works alluding to primitivism, in a traveling exhibition in the countries Nolde visited during his South Seas voyage. Such a decision would first de-contextualize the painting, then to re-contextualize it within its sphere of inspiration. It would be interesting to see what the reactions of the native populations would be to their portrait from the eye of a Westerner.

  MOMA New York, German Expressionism Exhibition, Summer 2011

Sources:

* Bereketli, Ezgi, “A Visit to the Sackler Museum: A tour of art historical methods of categorization, their cognitive explanations, potential problems and alternatives” Paper written for Expos 20, Spring 2009

Bruner, J. S. , Goodnow, J. J., Austin G. A. A study of thinking New York: Wiley and Sons, 1956.

Nelson, Robert S. "The Map of Art History." The Art Bulletin 79.1 (1997): 28-40.

Schubert, Karsten. The Curator's Egg : The Evolution of the Museum Concept from the French Revolution to the Present Day /. London : One-Off Press :; Distributed by Christie's Books, 2000.

  

Image Source: http://www.brigittabungard.com/German-Expressionism