Multiculturism Art Essay (Essay Sample)

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Otherness
Coco Fusco was a writer and artist, working with various disciplines to create her works of art. She received her B.A from the Brown University in semiotics in the year 1982 and a master’s degree from Stanford University in Modern Thought and Literature in the year 1985 (Fusco). After which she made performances, lectured, curated and exhibited around the globe from the year 1988. Between 1992 and 1994, Fusco and her collaborator Guillermo Gomez-Peña, made a performance of one of the most acclaimed displays of all time titled The Year of the White Bear and Two Undiscovered AmerNative Americans Visit the West. In the performance detailed in Fusco’s publication titled The Other History of Intercultural Performance, they act as a couple of AmerNative Americans/Amerindians from a fictitious tribe thriving in the Gulf of Mexico, but had not been discovered by the British and the Americans. This was coupled with the video; Couple in the Cage a Guatinaui Odyssey, to make the story much more believable (Ginsberg).
From the context of The Other History of Intercultural Performance and Couple in the Cage, Fusco uses these two platforms to bring out some very intriguing themes. One of the major themes that come out is that related to otherness. Ideally the Euro-American culture considered the rest of the world cultures as indigenous and primitive. Any of the cultures that seemed foreign was considered inferior and unworthy of fair human treatment. This was a culture that was started by Columbus, where he would bring Africans, Asians and Mexicans to museums in cages to be exhibited. Although it was Columbus that started the practice, it later on became a common practice into the twentieth century (Fusco).
"The practice of exhibiting humans may have waned in the twentieth century, but it has not entirely disappeared. The dissected genitals of the Hottentot Venus are still preserved at the Museum of Man in Paris. Thousands of Native Americans remains, including decapitated heads, scalps and other body parts taken as war booty or bounties, remain in storage at the Smithsonian. Shortly before arriving in Spain, we learned of a current scandal in a small village outside Barcelona, where a visiting delegation had registered a formal complaint about a desiccated, stuffed pygmy man that was on display in a local museum." (Fusco, 563)
In the article by Fusco, there are some very disturbing yet distinct examples. In some of the cases the people from the tribes considered inferior would be exhibited live on stages in museums while others were just remains and stuffed bodies. Ideally this was the element of white supremacy, where any other culture that did not have the distinct features and traditions of the white people was regarded as inferior in the progression of the theme of otherness (Documentary-The Couple in the Cage). According to the author, to make sure that the practice of showing other cultures as inferior, they would look for persons with any form of disability and align them on a stand for the whites to see how these other tribes were inferior and poorly formed and developed even physically (Fusco). The other theme that was evident in the book was colonization. During the nineteenth century colonization was rife as some of the cultures that were considered advanced, took advantage of other tribes.
In her argument, the Euro-American culture is taken to be the most advanced and has taken this stance to discriminate the other cultures. According to Fusco, multiculturalism is a hoax, as some of the cultures that are considered to be advanced subdue the others on the other cultures that they do not know about. Fusco and her companion had taken the show to different places across America and Europe and the reaction was the same. Although people would argue that American is one of the greatest democratic nation, people still viewed the caged couple as inferior and a spectacle. Although the world is treated as one global cultural mix and there are ideologies about the beauty of multicultural backgrounds, the truth is one some of the cultures are considered advanced and worthy. The rest are subdued and exhibited as primitive forms of life, even though it does not take place in a cage or a museum as illustrated in 1992 (Documentary-The Couple In The Cage).
According to Fusco (557), the ideology of Columbus having discovered America, was just another smoke screen to musk the real intentions of the whites to claim what they felt was their right to the land. Ironically, part of the land that Columbus is said to have discovered which is now America was occupied by the Indians. This means that it was a land that was discovered way before Columbus stepped into the New World. The point of the smoke screen was to exalt the American culture above the Indian culture (Fusco). The Americans did not feel that the Native Americans were worthy of the land they occupied, however, the Americans had the natural right to this land, after all they were the superior culture. This is the same illustrations that are seen in the mainstream media where the western culture is seen as the right and more advanced culture, while the rest of the cultures are taken to be inferior and unworthy. This is the propagation of the element of otherness, while giving the illusion of a rich multicultural context of the global complex.
The screening of the couple in cage relates with the reading at a very subtle level. In The Other History of Intercultural Performance, Fusco tries to bring out the elements of multiculturalism as a lie and the fact that the colonial attitudes are still rife among the citizens in the American and European countries. As part of the performance, Fusco and Gomez acted as though they were indigenous from a tribe in the gulf Mexico. Apparently they had not been discovered and were inferior to the Euro-American culture of civilized people (Ginsberg). They were dressed in traditional regalia, fed on bananas and spoke a foreign fictitious language that had to be interpreted by the curators. When they would go out for nature calls they had to put on a leash. This is the same theme that was illustrated by Fusco in her publication The Other History of Intercultural Performance. Ideally the primitive cultures are taken to be animal like and without any form civilization. Ironically as documented in The Other History of Intercultural Performance and Couple in the Cage, Gomez wore leather boots, while Fusco wore sneakers; they operated computers and watched television, however not most people noted these elements. Most of the people due to the notion that they are of a higher culture than the people in the cage, only noted what they were told by the experts, dolls and the mode of dressing. This is a theme that is illustrated in both the reading and the performance.
One of the strengths that the author achieves from the performance and the reading is the creation of art. Ideally she took apart an element in the society and represented it in a creative manner. She also elicited emotion and reaction from the audience after they read and saw the performance at the museum. Secondly she represented the element of multiculturalism from a realistic point of view (Fusco). Through the reading and the video performance, she brings out the aspect of some...