Undoing Sophisticated Illusions: Bricolage Genealogy and Resonant Iconic Similarity

This article, aimed at transcultural education, examines the juncture of race and aesthetics. It argues that implicit in the hybrid identities produced by modern imperialism and colonialism is a more global figure of humanity. That figure remains suppressed by lingering race/ethnocentrism in contemporary art discourse. Postmodernist framing of art/culture as "language" has generally weakened the strong conceit of difference. But that progress is offset by failure to acknowledge how globally distributed and "pre/non-modern" that insight is, effectively making it exclusively "Western." Furthermore, postmodern linguisticism's strong identification with verbal language maintains civilized/primitive dualisms, perpetuating the denigration of nonliterate cultures.

Unfortunately, it also compromises the communicative efficacy of art/material culture. Consequently, linguisticism becomes a knot inhibiting the turn from racism to recognizing the relational origination of differences and their emergence from iconic similarity. Pivoting around iconic similarity uncovers the diverse non-Euro-Western genealogies of bricolage, collage, and cubism entangled and obscured by the resilient conceit of difference in différance. It redresses the asymmetry of attributing the deconstructive insight associated with bricolage/collage exclusively to postmodernist authorities. Nagarjuna's critique of self-generation, modernism's essential assumption, helps make the case for iconic similarity and for promoting it as a better basis for art-education theory and practice.