Hot Topic: Identity Politics (Yes, Still)

For the last week or so I've been pondering approaches to identity in art. These thoughts were prompted by a couple of recent reviews in Toronto media that expressed exasperation with identity politics in certain exhibitions. The reviews I'm thinking of are Sarah Milroy's review of Remix in the Globe and David Balzer's review of South-South in Eye Weekly.

As Milroy put it:
Is it still possible these days to make a viable, themed exhibition about contemporary aboriginal art that doesn't feel stillborn? And what happens when works of art are gathered around ideas such as cultural hybridity and racial identity? In an era in which Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk is winning prizes at Cannes and Northwest Coast artist Brian Jungen is showing at the Witte de With in Rotterdam and the Tate Modern in London, aren't these kinds of initiatives anachronistic and weirdly protectionist?
The current exhibition Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World (at the Art Gallery of Ontario until Aug. 23) makes you think so.

And for his part, Balzer wrote:
Everywhere you look in contemporary art, binaries are being defined and then deconstructed. This is unsurprising given the grasp post-structuralism has had on most artists’ educations (which are, in turn, almost uniformly post-secondary and/or graduate), though it’s hard to imagine who, among their viewers, still needs the lesson. It must appeal equally to an artist’s sense of conviction and vanity: that is, to base an entire career on exploding the neat-yet-evil pairs of boxes our culture supposedly puts us in (male/female, west/east, light/dark, straight/gay and so on) — and, specifically, to be the one to proclaim that no person, especially an interesting and intelligent one, fits into them.

Where would identity-politics art be without this approach? Justina M. Barnicke Gallery’s new show, “South-South: Interruptions and Encounters,” suggests it would cease to exist — either that, or it would become a lot better, as other recent shows at this very gallery (notably 2007’s “Rightfully Yours”) have proven.

I respect both of these colleagues, and appreciate them putting forth honest reactions to the shows, thereby raising tough issues. But I'm still niggled, a bit, by what makes these issues tough.

To me, as long as people are treated differently--be it economically, socially, physically or otherwise--on the basis of their outward identity, we will have, quite reasonably, identity politics at work both in art and in life. To me, it's a totally valid field to work in. Necessary, even.

At the same time, I understand the need for critics to point out deficiencies in artistic or curatorial merit. After all, it's our job. I myself have done this in reviews, namely for Black Creek Projects and Queer Here Queer Now.

However, I did see both these shows--Remix and South-South--and I didn't have nearly the same degree of negative reaction that Milroy and Balzer did. I agree not all the work at the AGO is what we might call "museum-quality"--that is to say, adequately thought through or at a strong skill level. And at South-South there is some work that is also not as strong, or that seems more self-involved to the detriment, rather than the benefit, of the art. But both exhibitions did introduce me to a few artists new to me, who I doubt had shown works in Toronto before, and whose works I really enjoyed. That's a function of these types of themed exhibitions that I think remains important--would artists who are women or artists who are queer be anywhere near as accepted in the art mainstream without similar group shows created on those themes the past?

I'm open to any comments. Basically I'm uncertain on how to approach all this and am wondering what others have to say.