Postethnic, post-identity, post-gender

Last week in class we discussed what it means to be labeled a certain types of artist (i.e. black artist, woman artist, latino artist, etc etc etc.) and part of our discussion made me think about what this race/gender/class-specific labelling (which I believe still exists today) means in a postethnic society. Another classmate discussed her frustration with the pressure to express something about her African-American identity in her work. It seems that any ethnic/social/gender group that has a history of oppression is "supposed" to express something about their previously oppressed identity as some sort of compensation for the past. I sometimes wonder if I've given into that pressure since I only photograph women. However, those of us that fit into the category of middle to upper class caucasians are under pressure to be inclusive and pluralistic. While my classmate is questioned when she chooses not to express something about being an African-American woman, I have experience criticism about not including women of other ethnic backgrounds (since the majority of the women I have photographed have been caucasian). Another friend and I were recently discussing the fact that not as many people in the graduate photography program at Columbia are photographing people as there was when we started this program. Is this because of all the questions surrounding identity that an artist must deal with in depicting people? Are we, as artists, fed up with the "identity discussion" and avoiding it all together? It seems that we have become incredibly self-concious about offending particular groups of people (myself included) that we avoiding visual depictions of identity. This is opposed to Paul Cadmus's quote in Richard Meyer's article that artists have more freedom to break rules and get away with more than the general public. It seems that we are taking less advantage of our societal position that "allows" us to break the rules and potentially offend others.

Judith Roof discusses the idea of post-identity in her article "Thinking Post Identity." She suggests that the "post" doesn't necessarily mean a break with the past, but a change with the past still in mind. I think this is important because obviously from the discussion we are still having about racial/gender/class specific artists, we have not left the past identity "problems" behind.

Richard Meyer discusses the issue with interpreting artworks in relation to their creators. From an art historical standpoint, a work is rarely interpreted in the same context in which it was made. He uses Paul Cadmus as an example. He was creating works with homoerotic tones in the 1930s and he has been heroicized as one of the most influential gay artists, yet he refuses to discuss his identity as a gay man. He identifies himself soley as an artist. This brings me to the idea of "communities of consent" as opposed to "communities of descent." While we are allowed to join any particular community that we desire, political definitions of identity still often pigeonhole people in the five general categories (Asian American, African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Native American/Indigenous). This idea of communities of consent made me think of my aunts personal identity or affiliation. She's a native born Korean, adopted at age 7 by my grandparents, raised Lutheran and in a traditional Norwegian family. She carries out the Norwegian traditions passed down by my grandmother, such as cooking lefsa and krumkaka, yet she checks the box "Asian-American" on official documentation. She's consented to be part of the Norwegian community, yet is still restricted by her physical appearance and geographical origins.

One artist that deals with the idea of communities of consent and integration is Nikki S Lee. I find it ironic that she is breaking social/racial/cultural boundaries, yet her biography identifies her as a Korean-American artist. I've always viewed her work more as performance than photography, although the documentation of the alteration of her identity is done through photographs. I feel that the most important part of her work is her attempt at seamless assimilation into another culture, which she often studies and participates in for a week or more. There is much more to participating in a community than physical appearance and this also suggest that an individual's physical appearance must match that of their chosen community.

Lee's work also emphasizes the idea of performativity instead of expression in relation to identity, which Judith Butler explores in her article. Lee has proven that she is able to perform other cultures and she is not expression an innate, internal identity. However, I feel that the snapshot photograph doesn't do justice to the effort in assimilating into another "foreign" culture. It makes her work seem as thought the alteration of appearance is sufficient in entering a community, when in reality, Lee learns the "lingo" and specific, nuanced gestures of the communities.

QUESTION: Although I feel that I have a concrete understanding of the difference between biological sex and socially constructed ideas of gender, however Butler identifies the idea of the body as an "historical idea" and not a "natural fact." First, I am wondering if she is talking about the physical body (made up of sex-specific parts) or the preconcieved notion of what the sexed body is. It seems that the physical body has an identifiable sex, determined by the genetalia, but the body can be "gendered" either male or female. I understand that gender is no longer viewed as a set of binary oppositions, and that sex is no longer seen as quite as oppositional, but there seems to be distinct physical differences in the actual body (i.e. the woman's uterus allows her to bear children).

I am also interested in Butler's argument that heterosexuality is a "condition" reinforced or even created by a social pressure to reproduce, and not inherently natural to the human condition. This suggests that if we were not concerned about populating the earth, we would not be as inclined to choose a partner based on sex.

With all these concerns regarding postethnicity, post-identity and post-gender, it seems that there are still a lot of issues from the past that need to be sorted out before we declare ourselves in any kind of "post" condition.