{"id":847,"date":"2004-09-30T09:10:37","date_gmt":"2004-09-30T16:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/09\/turning_culture_into_kitsch\/"},"modified":"2004-09-30T09:10:37","modified_gmt":"2004-09-30T16:10:37","slug":"turning_culture_into_kitsch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/09\/turning_culture_into_kitsch.html","title":{"rendered":"TURNING CULTURE INTO KITSCH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>Timothy Noah&#8217;s story about the <A class=inline href=\"http:\/\/slate.msn.com\/id\/2107140\/\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><FONT color=#003399>Smithsonian&#8217;s new travesty<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> &#8212;<br \/>\nunder the headline &#8220;The National Museum of Ben Nighthorse Campbell&#8221; &#8212; is a devastating<br \/>\naccount of what&#8217;s wrong with the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.<br \/>\nHe writes: <\/P><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE>The new museum stubbornly refuses to impose any recognizable standard of<br \/>\nscholarship, or even value, on the items in its galleries. Precious artifacts are mingled with<br \/>\npresent-day kitsch, with few if any clues provided about what makes them significant. The<br \/>\nmuseum&#8217;s curators regard the very notion of a Native American cultural heritage as anathema<br \/>\nbecause it clashes with the museum&#8217;s boosterish message that Native American culture is as<br \/>\nvibrant today as it ever was. This isn&#8217;t a museum; it&#8217;s a public service<br \/>\nannouncement.<\/BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P>Also, without addressing the issue, Noah lends implicit support to criticism by the activist<br \/>\nAmerican Indian Movement that the museum ignores the history of the &#8220;holocaust&#8221; carried out<br \/>\nagainst Native American Indians by the U.S. government. One of Straight Up&#8217;s readers had a <A\nclass=inline href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/archives20040901.shtml#87719\"\ntarget='new\"'><B><FONT color=#003399>different response<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, not to the<br \/>\nmuseum itself but to the Native American Indians she encountered on their way to D.C. last week<br \/>\nfor the opening of the museum.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Timothy Noah&#8217;s story about the Smithsonian&#8217;s new travesty &#8212; under the headline &#8220;The National Museum of Ben Nighthorse Campbell&#8221; &#8212; is a devastating account of what&#8217;s wrong with the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. He writes: The new museum stubbornly refuses to impose any recognizable standard of scholarship, or even value, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-dF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}