(Note: I’ve posted comments and summaries of the texts of several books that I have had in my Master’s in Communications degree. This isn’t one of them, though it is by one the professors I have had for said degree. But it is the book I have most enjoyed reading from that academic background. I am sharing my own perspective on the book, and doubtless have missed much of the scholarly point and may even have misunderstood some of it. For the scholarly among you, I apologize for that. For the rest of you, I encourage you to read more deeply than you usually do with my “scholarly” reviews. This one is more fun, and more worth it.)
Chapter Four: Indian Arts in the Double Voice and Petty Commerce
I read this chapter trying to understand the title. Perhaps if I read it multiple times I’d be certain I understood what was meant by “Double Voice”, but I didn’t so I only have the impression I got. I know the reference to “Petty Commerce” because the chapter is laced with obvious references to it.
The chapter is all about the commerce of the Indios. There is this whole culture predicated upon the difference between the mass culture and the traditional culture. The “fear” is that commerce will spoil the “authenticity” of the traditional culture. Some of the works of Xavier are deemed authentic, others not, based on the “influences” of the commerce upon it. Are they made for sale or for art?
Artesanos like Xavier have to navigate between the two of those. This is what I think is meant by the double voice. They have to be the artist, but they also have to be the merchant. He learns how to retell the Indian tales of the uncorrupted artisans in a way that benefits his own business needs. As Shlossberg notes:
In Michouacan, humble artesanos who are occupationally successful and upwardly mobile are also, typically, very energetic, entrepreneurial, and creative merchants. (Shlossberg, 128.)
The examples Shlossberg gives of the mask makers as merchants shows the opposite of the Indian Tales. The tales say that commerce destroys the destruction of the real cultures. Instead, Shlossberg says, it is the commerce that provides the artesanos with the resources and network to continue their art. Without it they would be burdened down by the hard labor of making a living, with little time for the art.
My own take on that is the myth says that market forces, capitalism, destroys art, when in fact it is the access to that same market that enables the art to thrive.
The piece that is inserted in here is the whole question of identity. In the making of the masks, the Indian Tales, and the identity presented by it, is important in the creation of the market for the masks. It enables the sales, and it also pigeonholes the artesanos. People like Xavier can work with, and against that stereotype. Again a double voice, worked against the background of petty commerce.
At The Rainbow 