Art history and potlatch: cross-cutting comparaisonsbetween France and Canada

• Published in: Perspective
• Main Authors: Assu, Sonny, Labrusse, Rémi, Mauzé, Marie, Townsend-Gault, Charlotte
• Other Authors: Laboratoire d'anthropologie sociale (LAS), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: [SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology; Canada; Miró; First Nations
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03484019; https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03484019/document; https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03484019/file/06_PERSP-2018-2_DEB_potlatch_20.pdf; https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.11061

International audience The present debate aims to question the relationship between art history and the potlatch in a new light. It is indeed agreed, in the field of art history, to see in this ceremonial institution used by the First Nations of the northwest coast of America above all an activity of sumptuary exchange and ostentatious destruction of wealth. It is Georges Bataille, in his 1933 text "La notion de dépense" (The notion of expenditure), taken up and developed in 1949 in La part maudite (The accursed part),1 who develops this spectacular conception of the potlatch. He also insists on the eminently critical dimension of the potlatch for the utilitarian ideology of industrial societies, which are affected by phenomena of sumptuary losses, but which refuse to confront this "cursed part" of themselves. This Bataillian conception of the potlatch has been abundantly taken up by artists and theorists of modern and contemporary art, among whom Miró, Yves Klein, Guy Debord or Thomas Hirschhorn. While revisiting this fascination of the Western art world with the potlatch, this discussion also aims to take into consideration an element that is too often forgotten in this history: the point of view of the indigenous people. It is important to remember that while European anthropologists, art historians and artists were making much of the potlatch as a key principle of modern creation, it was strictly forbidden in Canada - any violation being punished by the confiscation of ceremonial objects and the imprisonment of the organizers. It is this denial and dispossession of First Nations cultures by the colonial power that we also wanted to recall. It also seemed necessary to us, in order to conduct such a debate, to place ourselves at the crossroads of art history and anthropology, but also to call upon French and Canadian specialists in the relationship between art and potlatch. We have also deemed it essential to invite Sonny Assu, a contemporary Ligwilda'xw (Kwakwaka-'wakw) artist who evokes in his practice the ...