Research Project: Here for Now, Then and There

Mieke Bal

Looking at Art through Cultural Analysis

by Britte Sloothaak

In a get-together recorded as a podcast (with video) in the new collection presentation of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, renowned cultural theorist Mieke Bal took part in a conversation about interdisciplinary research on the basis of the concepts of narratology, migratory aesthetics, and politics versus the political. These terms broaden the scope for thinking about individual artworks, collections, and exhibitions by providing a gateway to a more fundamental and epistemological set of questions: How do we know what we know about art history, and moreover: What don’t we know and don’t address within art historical frameworks? Without excluding frameworks, but rather by bringing together various knowledge domains to create discourse and discussion, Mieke Bal offers us additional modes of thinking.

Mieke Bal is the first woman, first humanities scholar and first UvA professor to be appointed a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was the co-founder of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam. The guiding principle in her work is that cultural objects can be best approached from multiple disciplines. With her lauded work on feminism and gender (women’s studies), migratory culture, psychoanalysis, and the critique of capitalism, she has coined terms and introduced research perspectives that have aided cultural and visual analyses for generations.

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In a get-together recorded as a podcast (with video) in the new collection presentation of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, renowned cultural theorist Mieke Bal took part in a conversation about interdisciplinary research on the basis of the concepts of narratology, migratory aesthetics, and politics versus the political.

Cultural Analysis

A first disclaimer for those who wish to listen to the podcast (with video): The conversation does not offer a close reading of artworks. Rather, it aims to explore frameworks for looking at art through conversation, in other words: looking at art while thinking and talking about art. The first of these frameworks is cultural analysis. As Bal explains, cultural analysis is the comparative and interdisciplinary study of culture (in all its forms and expressions) from a broad perspective of the humanities.

Narratology

Following the introduction of the notion of cultural analysis, the conversation touches upon narratology: the study of how stories are forged and their effect on readers or viewers. Originating from literary theory and semiotics, Mieke Bal’s study of narrative structures departs from the idea that narratives are found and communicated through a wide variety of media. As she explains in her books, narratology is a perspective on culture (Bal 1985, fourth edition 2017; 2021). Beyond the traditional relation between a text and the act of reading — or in other words, the artwork and the act of analyzing an artwork — Bal enables the differentiation of the location in which a narrative can unfold. Narratology allows a close analysis of not only texts, but also various other forms of cultural expression, such as art objects, artefacts and events.

Migratory Aesthetics

Mieke Bal’s thinking highlights the significance of movement, mobility and direction. She points out during the conversation, for instance, that if we forget or fail to acknowledge that reading direction can be from left to right as well right to left, we allow one tradition to become dominant at the expense of the other. The point provides a segue into migratory aesthetics a term that leans on the physical changed look of public space under the impact of traces of migration (not migrants). Bal puts the focus on aesthetics, as a means to evoke desire or to make someone feels something – and compares this to the experience of artworks evoking an emotion. She uses migratory aesthetics as a metaphor for something that is sense-based, rather than as a direct representation of migration itself (Bal 2008, 2021).

Politics versus the Political

Against the backdrop of the video installation Utopia (1969-76) by Nalini Malani, the conversation circles back to the necessity of founding the ASCA with the intent to include social and political analyses in all its activities. Mieke Bal explains the difference between politics and the political with reference to political theorist Chantal Mouffe: Politics refers to official party politics, whereas the political refers to the domain in which discussion and disagreement is allowed to thrive. (Mouffe, 2005) The conversation concludes with Bal stressing the importance of dialogue and debate, so as to avoid the repetition of existing ideas. She notes that research includes repetition by default, but without subsequent discourse to extend the boundaries of research, there is no point to the activity in the first place.

Got a question?

This talk was organized as a closed session owing to Covid restrictions on public events. But we invite you to send any questions you may have about the talk to [email protected] between now and the end of the research log series (1 January, 2023)

References

Mieke Bal

Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985; Fourth rev. edition 2017
Narratology in Practice. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press 2021
“Migration: Migratory Aesthetics for New Visions”, 175-201 in Future Theory: a Handbook to Critical Concepts. Patricia Waugh and Marc Botha (eds.) London: Bloomsbury 2021
Image-Thinking: Artmaking as Cultural Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2022*
*Discount code NEW30 for 30% off

Mieke Bal and Miguel Á. Hernández Navarro