A Multitude of Markets

NANCY J. PAREZO

INTRODUCTION

We have a myth in our society that art is divorced from economics and marketing, that economics can only corrupt. To be art, an object should have no other function than to exist, be pleasurable to look at, carry an aesthetic message, and convey the emotions and insights of the artist. To be a "real"' artist the myth continues, the individual must produce art for the love of the act, for the creativity involved, for the necessity-one has no choice but to produce art. The artist has special powers which place him/her above society. This means that he/she cannot be concerned with whether his/her work is of society. An artist should not be concerned with the crass world of commercialism and is even expected to disregard whether the artistic creation sells or not.

The reality is that art is a special type of commodity that has economic value and is sold in markets. An artist earns a living by producing and distributing art, thereby earning a reputation so that the works are seen and appreciated. Artists, like consumers and collectors, do not work in social vacuums; they are players in "art worlds," which consist of the artists themselves and individuals who assist with the art––from the people and firms that produce raw materials, to those who market, display, and sell the art, to audiences and consumers, to critics who enhance reputations (Becker 1982). For society, art does not exist until it is made public and shared. This commonly means it is displayed in a gallery or museum, usually in such a manner that it reflects ideas about the artist society, in order to help it be sold. Economic exchange creates value. It crystalizes and enhances preconceived images of all actors involved in the art world. It conveys messages about life, place, ourselves and others. If the art is from the Southwest, it must look "Southwestern," and if made by a Native American, it must look "Indian." It is for and during an economic exchange that many such images are created.

While we have special trouble seeing art in our own culture as a commodity, Anglo––Americans have even more trouble seeing the art of native peoples from anywhere in the world as objects with economic histories and destinies. Native peoples, like mainstream artists in our own society, are thought to be above economics. Native artists are categorized as "primitives" or "pure Noble Savages," living naturally in a state of grace, under the control of religion, without the stresses of civilization's economic and political structures. Economics in any form, therefore, is conceptualized as an imposition of colonialism or imperialism, irrefutably corrupting. And in many cases it is. There is no question that the interaction of Euro-Americans/Europeans with native peoples and the introduction of cash economies has affected what art is produced, why it is produced, and how it is distributed both within and outside the societies involved. Many objects have been destroyed and stolen, alienated from their cultures; only recently have native peoples began to acquire the power to actively seek their return. One of the most famous cases is the repatriation of the Zuni war gods. Because of this situation, some scholars are now conceptualizing the fate of all native people's art as a plight––the twentieth-century equivalent of the slave trade––in which art and material culture are captured and transported to distant lands, devastating and diminishing the maker's cultural heritage and thereby "dehumanizing the Primitive Art and its makers" (Price 1989:5). The economics of art has a dark and complex side.

What is often forgotten in many recent critiques, however, is that art has always been "sold" or "exchanged" in all societies, that the movement of objects within and between societies is not solely a product of Western imperialism and colonialism, that many objects have been freely traded and still others produced intentionally for sale to conquerors, that economic transactions do not have to involve money. The marketing of art did not begin with Western contact. People share and give gifts to each other and the gods. When individuals from two societies meet, one of the prime mechanisms used to establish relations is the exchange of art. This can be by force if the encounter is asymmetrical with regards to power so that goods are seen as booty, as occurred, for example, when Spanish explorers conquered Puebloan peoples (Bolton 1916), or peacefully if the encounter is more symmetrical so that art moves as gifts that symbolically express the value placed on the meeting, as happened, for example, on the Plains (Ewers 1984, 1989). (See Appadurai 1987 or the extensive literature on trade and culture contact for more examples.)

To ignore the economic aspect of art and its exchange in native cultures, to see the values placed on Southwestern art as coming only from the politically dominant, i.e. Anglo-American or European culture, is to conceptualize all native peoples as passive actors, boxed in as in an old exhibit, frozen in time and space (see Parezo 1985, 1988). This is just not the case. Art moves within and between societies in the Southwest at the discretion of makers as well as of entrepreneurs and consumers. Highly knowledgeable and sophisticated makers use the available systems to their own ends, as do entrepreneurs manipulating a variety of marketing techniques. As did Nampeyo and Maria in the past, so does R. C. Gorman and hundreds of others today.

The art market wherein native peoples sell special forms of art to members of politically and economically dominant cultures is the international ethnic art market (Graburn 1976). This active and evergrowing market is not completely symmetrical with regard to power; native makers often have less control over the sale of objects, especially at the beginning of their careers, and much art that is not meant to be sold on the market is commoditized. But this is by no means a slave trade. Nor is it a market (see Wade 1985) which, when subdivided, is geographically delineated, acknowledging the effect of place on art. Thus there is a market for Northwest Coast art, for Eskimo art, and for Southwest art, each reflecting that it is produced by "Indians." Within each geopolitically defined ethnic market, a multitude of submarkets exists. Each has its own goals, modes of distribution and production, values and marketing messages. All are particularly dynamic spheres of culture contact, of makers and consumers playing out their conception of what is art and what is not art, what is good art and what is bad art. All of this is done partially as negotiation within an economic framework.

The multitude of submarkets can be easily delineated. Of course by erecting a typology of markets we make things simpler than they really are, for the markets conceptualized by consumers and sellers do not necessarily coincide with the markets conceptualized by mak ers. And, as Graburn (1976) has demonstrated, one type of art or object can be found in more than one situation or market at different times, thereby losing and gaining value. Indeed one of the most fascinating things about art is that it is very mobile––each piece has a life history (Appadurai 1987), and actors move it around different markets, making it a commnodity and decommoditizing it.

Often the artist cannot envision how a piece eventually will move. For example, a Zuni or Hopi elder in 1875 making an offering for use in a ceremony, intending it to rest in a shrine so that it could return to Mother Earth, had no intention that a nineteenth-century tourist or anthropologist would pick it up thinking it was "garbage since it had been left to rot," take it home, and place it in a museum, where it is given a new value as a symbol of peoples who would eventually assimilate to the Anglo-American norm (Parezo 1985). This movement and new imposed value is, of course, seen as incorrect by the original maker since the misuse of the object's original purpose places religious practices and the society in jeopardy. It is regarded as correct by the members of the receiving society because it "saves" part of what is thought to be a "dying" culture. The movement of ethnic art is the source of much cultural misunderstanding and conflict, especially when the transaction involves theft and the unrecognized assumptions of the receiving culture that their actions are philanthropic or "for the good of the makers or the art" (see Price 1989).

Markets and values change over time. Messages change and are reevaluated as markets expand and contract, and as historical situations and power relationships change. The markets and their messages always remain complex and multifaceted. In general, the more actors involved in the cross-cultural movement of an art form, the more complex the situation, the greater the number of preconceptions about other actors and their desires, and the more marketing is used to translate. The simplest exchange situation is a transaction between maker and ultimate consumer within a community with the intended use mutually understood and agreed upon. Thus the oldest type of market in which Native American art occurs in the Southwest is internal.

INTERNAL MARKETS

Many objects are made for and used within Southwest Native American societies, often as gifts. One gives presents for friendship, for love, for birthdays, for special occasions-to celebrate births, comings of age, weddings, and other times of significance in people's lives. The exchange of art helps reinforce values such as helping relatives. I know a Navajo artist who always gives sand paintings to relatives on birthdays and other special occasions so they can sell them in Gallup and buy whatever they need-as he said, they are like aesthetic gift certificates. Usually the family members sell the paintings, but sometimes they keep them to decorate their homes.

The distribution of art solidifies and symbolizes social and religious relations within the society. Hopi men, for example, still make wedding dresses for their brides while the brides' families "payback" the families of the grooms with forty to sixty baskets––a repayment for the bridal robes, for the new household member, and for his work. The baskets are made by the bride and her mother or donated by relatives and friends. The brides mother gives plaques to others over the years, building up credits to be called in at her daughter's marriage. Women who have not participated in this regular circuit of plaque-giving find they must buy plaques for a daughter's payback. "In Second Mesa villages plaques change hands frequently as gifts or 'paybacks,' the value of which is not merely utilitarian or monetary, but largely in their power to maintain balance in a complex system of reciprocity" (Miller 1989:65). Art, channelled through mothers, daughters, and sisters, changes hands several times.

Religious ceremonies still require handmade art: pottery bowls, masks, baskets, costumes, religious paraphernalia and gifts to and from the Holy People. Pahos, or prayer sticks, payback the gods for their assistance in maintaining order, balance, and harmony. On public occasions in Puebloan villages children are given gifts by the kachinas––small plaques, kachina dolls, rattles, bows and arrows, as well as food. Many of these objects with religious significance are, of course, taken out of circulation after an initial exchange, ceasing to be social or economic commodities. For example, to return to the Hopi basketry example, the groom's large plaque, delivered to his mother piled high with white cornmeal in the shape of a cloud is retained so that at his death, his spirit might make the transition to the underworld safely. "A century ago this plaque might have been left at the man's grave along with other items his spirit would need for its journey after death. Now, some Hopi families take the plaque to the burial and then bring it back to the village where it is kept by the man's mother or sister, safe from any who would steal it from the grave to sell regardless of the harm done to his journeying spirit" (Miller 1989:67). It is used by one of the religious societies or hung on the family wall.

Art is also traded to others within the maker's society and to artists and nonartists of other Native American groups through an informal barter system and for cash. Hopi kilts are sold to Zuni, Acoma, or San Juan. Because of the demand within the Pueblo sphere, few kilts are ever sold to Anglo-American collectors. The same is true for the Navajo wedding and ceremonial baskets often manufactured by Paiute women. I have seen Navajo textiles in Zuni homes and Santa Clara wedding pots in a Pima home––a wedding present from a friend. Navajo painters trade for Navajo silver; Zuni potters give a pot to an Acoma potter in exchange for one of her pots, reflecting and reinforcing cultural specialization and interaction. Art in the Southwest is social currency––part of the ever-flowing network of reciprocity, before it ever reaches the external market.

EXTERNAL MARKETS

External markets are situations where art is sold and intended to be used by individuals from societies and cultures other than the artist's. In the Southwest this is usually the wealthy Anglo-American community. External markets often require the intervention of middlemen to interpret the needs and desires of both cultures and serve as entrepreneurs; in the Southwest they are called jobbers, wholesalers, and retailers. It is here that the Southwest Native American art market has been most affected by Euro-American culture, richly differentiating it along axes of consumer demand, basic assumptions about Native Americans and Anglos, intended use, and the nature of the interaction. This differentiation exists due to the nature of the market economy and the seemingly ever-increasing demand by Anglo-Americans for exotic and handmade art forms that are easily recognizable as being made by "others,"––however "the other" is defined. It also exists because of the flexibility and ingenuity of the makers. Most makers and consumers specialize in one or two types of markets, although a sharp break between markets is false; they blend on their borders. All are embedded in our perceptions of the Southwest, Native Americans and their art, and their perceptions of us.

Ethnographic/Archaeological Specimens

Scholars and their special homes, museums and universities, have been major consumers of ethnographic and archaeological art, called specimens, a special type of material culture. Some of the first exchanges involved explorers who wanted to take home a scientific specimen of their expedition. This is very specialized yet extensive collecting; specimen art is meant to be representative and typical of the group, to stand for the society and culture, and often to show internal variation. It does not have to be beautiful or unique. More importantly it must be pure, uncontaminated by other cultures, especially Hispanic, Mexican, or Anglo-American. Thus, older objects, those that reflect remembered culture––what the grandparents or ancestors made and used––is preferred. Ideally specimen art has been used internally before purchase, but reproductions made by the artists themselves for the anthropologist are acceptable for ethnographic, but not archaeological, artifacts. The latter are called "fakes." Specimen art is used to categorize cultures using various typological schemes, such as evolutionary models in the nineteenth century, or as evidence of scientific theories about origins, diffusion, cultural development, and innovation.

Fine Art

Ethnic art has not always been conceptualized as fine art. In the Southwest, Native American art has increasingly been sold as fine art. Since the early 1970s this submarket has grown phenomenally, as the Civil Rights Act reawakened interest in ethnic diversity, as inflation and speculation drove the prices of European masters beyond the reach of 95 percent of the population, and as the Wall Street Journal stated that "Indian art" was a sound investment. Southwest Native American art became big business. And it continues to grow, conceptually caught between the folk art market and the mainstream fine art market.

Fine art is collected. The fine art market is situated in galleries and auction houses in urban areas, especially those with elite populations and wealth––Santa Fe/Taos, Scottsdale/Phoenix, Los Angeles. The hallmark of the fine art market is the original, one-of-a-kind piece that expresses a special vision of the creator, conveying emotions and truths to the viewer. In this case it is a marked form of truth that needs translation because it is "Indian," exotic and mysterious, possibly more of the earth and closer to nature than that of the industrialized and urbanized East or West Coast, and always beautifill. The marked form, like all forms of fine art, must be authenticated and legitimized for the collector by art historians. Scholars and museums legitimize and provide reputations and thereby raise prices further by demonstrating the worth of a piece. Museums help display quality pieces and have retrospective shows. The galleries, museum displays, and shows are important distribution points for they show a range of similarly marked art types, from gift/home decorations to the most innovative modem or traditional works. Galleries and museums amass. They educate the buying public and validate authenticity. They produce messages. They say "this is 'traditional'"; "this is 'nontraditional and innovative but definitely Indian"'; "this is 'handmade'"; "this is 'quality.'" Some museums even sponsor special markets; for example the Museum of Northern Arizona's Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni shows. The Heard Museum and the Denver Art Museum annuals are famous and draw collectors from all over the West. But museums also take art out of the market by providing a final resting place or home for the art with the intention that it be preserved for the use of future generations and not sold again.

A unique marketing outlet for fine art, in fact for the whole spectrum of arts ranging in quality and price, is the Indian markets, such as Pow-Wows, the Gallup Ceremonial, and the Indian Market in Santa Fe. Promoting craftsmanship and revitalization, these markets are an outgrowth of earlier fairs that have existed since the Spanish colonial period. Here individuals and retailers erect displays of saleable goods and hold special competitions to recognize outstanding pieces.

A specialized fine art submarket is antiquities, a special form of antiques. We have always been interested in old things, partly because our country is so young. Native American history, especially the obvious connections between prehistoric and historic Puebloans, has become our own history. And what better way to display this connection and heritage than through old pots? These can be ethnographic pieces that are older than 1900 and hopefiiuy closer to the protohistoric, but archaeological materials are even better. Pot hunting has been big business since the 1890s and is still growing. As a specialized form of smuggling it is now third only to drugs and arms. Always destructive, quasi-legal, and quasi-respectable at best, it is nevertheless entrenched. This illegal market is motivated by the huge sums of money available in the legitimate market and, in turn, fuels and fands the legitimate market. Old heirlooms, the desire for sacred things, national pride, and high costs of that which is exceptionally rare are too overpowering; prehistoric Southwestern artifacts are firmly part of the multi-million-dollar "primitive art" market.

To become part of the fine art market, Native American traditional art forms and specimen art had to be "revitalized" and recommoditized with the help of Anglo-American middlemen and womenwho translated consumers' demands and conceptions. Not all art forms have been so "revitalized," that is, have made it into the fine art market. By definition all paintings begin in this market but not all rugs or necklaces-only the top 10 percent are sold as fine art. The rest are marketed as craft. Some forms, such as Navajo sand paintings, ojos, beadwork, or yarn baskets, will always have a difficult time because of prior consumer conceptions of the proper materials and techniques of art versus craft.

Craft

Other markets in the Southwest are seen as belonging to the larger world of craft. The largest section of the craft market is what I term "home decorations and gifts," art forms that bridge fine art and souvenirs (Parezo 1983). In many ways this is the largest market because it has the widest appeal to potential buyers, has the greatest potential use, and is affordable for most middle-class patrons. There is more standardization in the forms than in the fine art market, and there is an emphasis on art that will complement Southwestern decor in homes and offices. Interior decorating is all-important. As with other markets, the crafts market has a long history. Originating with the need for objects in the home––a Pima or Tohono O'Odham pottery jar used to cool water in an Hispanic homestead––it moved to trading posts, and from there into urban areas as Indian traders became store owners. But one can also glimpse it at state fairs, at county fairs, in shopping centers, and at home shows. The Flagstaff Pow-Wow, the Northern Pueblo fair, and other tribal fairs are special outlets, as are the native owned and ran guilds. These latter outlets are increasing as Native Americans try to gain more control over the marketing of their art.

The craft market, like the fine art market, has a significant resale market, where individuals hunt for bargains. At swap meets, pawn shops, estate sales, and yard sales, individuals search for special items that have been recommoditized after a period of economic inactivity. All resale markets have an element of bargain and negotiation, with consumers trying to "find" or "discover" a treasure, a piece of art that the owner does not know he or she has. The original artist has little investment or influence in this game of consumers.

Souvenirs

Souvenirs are mementos of journeys taken, of trips to strange lands, of places other than home and the everyday, remembrances of happy or remarkable events. The Southwest has been seen, since the coming of the railroad, as the last frontier and the new frontier––an escape from the rigors of the East Coast, a place to regain physical and mental health, a place to capture the imagination. And where there are tourists, there is a demand for souvenirs of the experience––one wants to take home part of the Southwest. Puebloan potters early recognized the monies that could be earned from selling wares to middle-class tourists at the train station in Albuquerque. By 1884 Laguna potters were selling small water jars, sugar bowls, and salt cellars.

Souvenirs must be inexpensive, small (often miniatures of traditional forms), easy to transport (fit into suitcases), and easy to read (Graburn 1976). They must be easily recognizable as Indian, or what the consumer thinks of as Indian. One hopes they are handmade by Indians. But even this is less important than that they clearly show some symbol of "Indianness" and "the Southwest." Souvenirs require simplification and mass production, since the extra expense of the addition of time-consuming, intricate details brings no economic return. There are little or no monies given to the producer for creativity or innovation. Indeed monies obtained from souvenirs are conceptualized by makers as wages. Navajo sand painters who specialize in souvenirs make as many as sixty highly standardized paintings per day (Parezo 1983), and the number of similar turquoise and silver necklaces and small pottery animal figurines is well known to anyone who has shopped in Old Town in Albuquerque or at the Grand Canyon.

Most marketing is done through curio shops in urban areas, at national parks, at tourist attractions, or on the main routes to sites. But other retailers also sell souvenirs. Almost all shops selling Native American art have a few "bread-and-butter" items––always authenticated and usually at the higher end of the souvenir price range. Artists also market for themselves at roadside stands, at gathering points like the Four Corners Monument or the Little Colorado Gorge, sometimes at fiestas, in the villages themselves, and under the portal of the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. Buying directly from the maker, or at least from an Indian (for many Native Americans serve as entrepreneurs and market the work of others), provides a special experience for tourists. The experience is so important in Santa Fe that the portal is kept pure. Non-Indians must use the plaza. In only a single annual market, Hispanic market, is this pattern broken.

CONCLUSION

Art in the Southwest is a lubricant––it smooths the flow of personal interactions and satisfies traditional obligations to help relatives and friends, helping to restore and maintain balance. It also lubricates interactions between cultures. Art as commodity helps many native peoples participate in the larger monetary economy at a time when traditional ways of making a living are no longer feasible. Artists who have varying degrees of skill and desires can do this by manipulating different markets. If there were only a single ethnic art-fine art market, very few people could earn a living. The presence of fine art, craft, specimen art, and souvenir markets means that art as commodity functions in many different ways and conveys many different messages. Yet all are interdependent, for they deal with that which is distinctive, exotic, only partly understandable, and hence valuable.

This does not mean that the external art market is always well oiled. People try to control valuable objects. The nature of this control is currently under dispute and has been for a long time. Many Native American artists do not wish to be shown and typed as "Native American" or "Indian" painters. They want to be known simply as painters. The introduction of Euro-American culture has had an effect on Native American art through the introduction of mass-produced goods and new types of markets. As Wade (1985:167) has noted, "the rapid rise of ethnic art markets in the twentieth century represents a dynamically interactive form of culture change, wherein native peoples, grasping for cultural legitimacy and survival in the industrialized West, accept the economic option of converting culture into commodity." While I do not agree that by selling art Hopis or Navajos or Pimans are "grasping for cultural legitimacy"––they already have and know they have legitimate, viable, and strong cultures––there is no question that the Southwest Native American-ethnic art market is still asymmetrical. Native Americans are still dominated in many ways by the encompassing society. The history of the markets is in many ways a quiet, occasionally vocal struggle for control over the processes, the sale, and the products of native aesthetic culture (McNitt 1962; Wade 1985) as the submarkets increasingly diversify and expand. Because of this increasing complexity, no one individual or group is ever going to control them. Power will be shared. And the messages and the values attached to the art Will be shared, understood, and misunderstood.

By and large, regardless of the submarket, most Native American art is still shown in outlets separated from mainstream fine arts and crafts. There are galleries for Western art and galleries for Indian art. There are special markets and shows only for Indian art, special auctions, and special spaces to sell Indian art. "Indian" in the Southwest is still separated and kept distinct, unlike most black art or that of most other "minorities." This distinctiveness coincides with, and is reinforced by, our idea of the Southwest as a separate and unique place, different from all others. What is being marketed at all levels is ethnic diversity, with roots in a traditional past, whatever the modern garb. The main calling card in marketing the Southwest is still that it is "Indian-made," stemming out of the mysterious other, of whom we would like to be a part but will always be separated.

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