Washington Post, Pollack revisit an old stereotype

In a Washington Post review/feature on the El Anatsui exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art (this is essentially the same El Anatsui show that's been traveling in the US and Europe since 2004), Barbara Pollack opened with a paragraph that included this unfortunate passage:

"The art of El Anatsui... demonstrates the creativity at the heart of African resourcefulness."

Pollack was referring to El Anatsui's use of discarded objects as the materials from which he makes his art. (At right is 1999's Peak Project and 2007's Many Moons.) Among the problems with Pollack's line is that non-African artists have bee doing the same thing for 90 years; that is there is nothing particularly African about El Anatsui's resourcefulness.

After all: Did Arman's use of used objects in his sculptures demonstrate the creativity at the heart of French resourcefulness? Did Robert Rauschenberg's use of his used bed sheets or other objects demonstrate the creativity at the heart of Texan resourcefulness? Does the Rural Studio demonstrate the creativity at the heart of being an architecture graduate student? Does George Herms' or Joel Morrison's (at left) use of garbage in their art demonstrate the creativity at the heart of California-based resourcefulness? (I could keep going...)

Of course not. Pollack took a colonial-era stereotype and lazily squeezed an artist and his oeuvre into it. Pollack's line never should have made it into print.

UPDATE: Ed Schad makes excellent points in disagreeing with me. I discuss Schad's post here.

Related: Doug Harvey, America's most underrated art critic, had a thoughtful take on El Anatsui in the LA Weekly last year. [Photo from same.] The Nelson-Atkins has a new El Anatsui and 'opens' it for the first time. The Passage Project takes in the Met's El Anatsui.