RE: ‘Kimono Wednesdays’ and Spotlight Talk ‘Flirting with the Exotic,’ originally running every Wednesday, June 24 - July 29, 2015
NOTE: Please explore this site for a chronicle of events and a more nuanced response (now in progress).
FRAMING La Japonaise is a painting by Claude Monet of his wife Camille ‘in Japanese costume’ and a blonde wig to ‘emphasize her western identity.’ The MFA’s Spotlight Talk about La Japonaise was titled ‘Flirting with the Exotic’ and visitors were encouraged to ‘Channel your inner Camille Monet and pose wearing a silk kimono just like hers in front of the portrait painted by her husband.’ This language begs the question, ‘Who is the intended audience?’ There is also an implied understanding that these selfies would be curated for desirability - ‘Our favorite photos will be featured on Facebook and Instagram!’
WHY? We have been organizing in response to the MFA’s events, ‘Kimono Wednesdays’ and ‘Flirting with the Exotic,’ because they are an Orientalist presentation of culture by an internationally-recognized art institution and because the museum chose to host these events during free admission hours - a time made to encourage members of the public who are not typical visitors to take a chance on the museum, a public historically suspicious of institutionalized representations of culture because representation is often insufferably classist or anthropologically racist and continues to other and reminds such visitors they will always be others.
These activities serve to erase the oppression Asia and its diasporic population have experienced and continue to experience from the West and reaffirm that Asian culture is an exotic curiosity. Instead of broadening the understanding of how cultures influence each other, the MFA reduces Japanese culture to an exotified experience.
Moreover, the MFA, instead of investing in redressing past wrongs in colonial representation, chose an exhibit activity that would compel members of the public to participate in Orientalism, donning the uchikake as a form of yellow face and thus viewing La Japonaise through a racially uncritical lens. This encourages museum goers-of color to reinforce their own history with oppression and oppressive standards of European beauty and others to walk away thinking nothing of the Orientalism internalized in our attitudes and normalized by cultural institutions engaging in this type of miseducation. This is truly devastating within the greater context of the current media attention that the often-vilified #blacklivesmatter and indigenous rights movements are commanding. What happens in ivory towers of culture is intimately connected with the iconography that is institutionally and uncritically supported and propagated that informs the justification of violence against othered bodies on the streets.
LIST OF DEMANDS AND CHARGES The museum needs to engage a contemporary look at how the influence of Japanese art is part of Western imperialism as well as its relation to the broader strokes of racism that Asian-American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) endure.
1. An apology - The MFA’s July 7 public statement is not enough. We demand that the MFA issue a formal apology through multiple media outlets and on social media acknowledging the reasons why this event is unacceptable, stipulating the specific logic that the MFA engaged in for this to occur in the first place and why they are problematic - not just a blanket apology that characterizes this event as a ‘mistake/accident’ - and what steps the museum will take to prevent this type of event ever to happen again. In this letter we demand that the MFA pledge to actively engage AAPI in future planning and discussions about education of Asian cultures and community cultural organizations in general for any other programming on cultures that are typically othered, which means most programming.
2. Stop ‘Kimono Wednesdays’ - We demand that the MFA stop inviting people to try on the uchikake (this demand was met July 7). The updated event, which invites people to ‘touch and engage with [the kimonos],’ continues to be inappropriate without proper mediation and acknowledgement of the Orientalism of cultural appropriation of dress and the implications of the Orientalist gaze on often-exotified and thus dehumanized femme bodies - especially given the past three weeks of museum-facilitated Orientalism. Though the replica uchikake may be a work of art in itself (the Orientalist underpinnings of its commission remaining highly problematic), a partner AAPI organization might facilitate this type of hands-on knowledge-exchange with careful curation.
3. Change the Spotlight Talk from ‘Flirting with the Exotic’ to a more critical public discussion - We demand that the title ‘Flirting with the Exotic’ be addressed but not erased, and in its stead, the Spotlight Talk become a more critical discussion of La Japonaise (on July 6 the MFA website continued to call the Spotlight Talk ‘Claude Monet: Flirting with the Exotic,’ but on July 7 the title changed to ‘Claude Monet: La Japonaise’). In fact, we demand that the MFA organize a public discussion where the organizers of this event and other community members and artists of color are invited as panelists. The MFA stated in its July 1 memo that ‘The Museum is a place for dialogue and we appreciate your feedback.’ We demand that the MFA, then, honor their stated commitment to dialogue by holding this public discussion.
4. Change the placards to acknowledge and explain the history of the museum’s art - We demand that the history of art, particularly, the story of its first acquisition, be properly acknowledged and framed as a way to begin reframing the history of the art. This would immediately begin to alert curators to engage critically, because language is a power tool in cultural narrative.
OUR PARTICULAR RESPONSE to ‘Kimono Wednesdays’ and ‘Flirting with the Exotic’
THIS IS A HYPHENATED-AMERICAN PHENOMENON Our concern with the MFA’s event has to do with the specific issues Asian American/ Pacific Islanders (AAPI) face in U.S. culture. AAPI have historically been either under- and misrepresented in American media and culture. AAPI are rarely portrayed in films or television, and when we are, it’s often as a sidekick, Fu Manchu, exoticized prostitute, or a near-sighted buck-toothed Mr. Yunioshi (i.e. Breakfast at Tiffany’s). This, therefore, becomes an issue about racism in this country, when replicated on this soil without critical discourse by institutions like the MFA.
Having the uchikake made in and tour around Japan does not validate the cultural appropriation specific to American history. Japanese people in Japan do not face the same under- and misrepresentation that Japanese-Americans and other AAPI do here. Also, the MFA claiming that ‘we don’t think this is racist’ doesn’t make it so. So often there is a declaration of ‘appreciating’ Asian cultures, then why are Asian-American peoples and voices not treated with the same kind of consideration when we approach the institution with our concerns? In fact, coming from the MFA, this denial is a clear example of Institutional Racism.
Cultural Appropriation is simply a manifestation of Institutional Racism. Orientalism is a branch of it.
WHAT SPECIFICALLY IS THE MFA INFORMING VISITORS ABOUT JAPONISME? About Monet’s personal collection of Japanese artifacts? Why not that Japan was an isolationist nation until 1854 when the United States forced Japan to open its borders at gunpoint, and that’s how japonisme got its start. Nor that japonisme is part of the larger narrative of Orientalism within the context of places colonized by Europe and the U.S. as a means to generate iconography that reinforces stereotypes that justifies imperialist domination and enslavement. Orientalism exoticizes (read: others, demeans and obscures) many cultures including South Asian, East Asian and Middle Eastern traditions, and resulting aggressive attitudes (both micro and macro) towards Orientalized peoples persist to this day. Also, what is the ‘better understanding’ they hope visitors to come away with? If the MFA wants to make a point about dressing up being a respectful and authentic cultural experience, then why call the event ‘Kimono Wednesdays’ when in fact the garment is an uchikake?
ON CHOICE OF PAINTING By choosing a painting of a European woman to highlight and to invite the public to dress in her ‘kimono,’ the MFA is continuing in this tradition of exoticizing the ‘East’ through the lens of a misogynist White patriarchal West while contributing to the invisibilization and erasure of the AAPI experience. Monet’s painting by the MFA’s own wording was ‘a witty comment on the current Paris fad for all things Japanese.’ By ‘witty comment’ we are meant to understand that the painting is supposed to be a satirical jab at the absurdity of Europeans fascination with ‘all things Japanese.’ What is the value of inviting the public to then dress up and participate in the very thing Monet was critiquing? Why not choose a print from the Hokusai exhibit to highlight the experience of Japanese women? Or why not provide a discussion on the historical context and criticality about the 1870’s obsession? MORE ON OUR READING OF THE ORIENTALIST ICONOGRAPHY IN LA JAPONAISE.
ON OUTREACH As soon as we realized this was happening, we reached out with our concerns and left voicemail with the MFA’s PR department. It was not until the afternoon July 7 that we received a private tweet to update us about changes to the MFA’s programming related to Monet’s “La Japonaise" with a link to their statement. They have still not reached out personally by phone.
In its most recent public statement, compelled by press coverage, the MFA claims that the talks provide ‘an opportunity to engage in culturally sensitive discourse.’ We were present at the third installment to see if they have taken any steps to modify their curation and was met with resistance.
FAQs MADE OF THE PROTEST While we have garnered much support from peers and the media, there has also been an absolute denial from some members of the public with many negative comments on various digital media platforms. The often aggressively defensive tone and boldness are examples of vitriolic Orientalist attitude. By extension, these behaviors are precisely what events like ‘Kimono Wednesdays’ and ‘Flirting with the Exotic’ foster and make acceptable. The MFA is essentially helping to perpetuate these Orientalist perspectives and doing little to eradicate them.
XTINA * AMES X * AMBER YING * PAMPI * LORETO PAZ ANSALDO
