MoMA R&D
Salon 6 Taboos
Taboos focused on the theme of topics that are shunned, gasped at, suppressed, and remain out of sight in societies. From public breast-feeding and incest to consuming horsemeat, bugs, and non-Kosher meals, taboos span the sacred and the profane, the ridiculous and the sublime, the irrational and the sensible. Sometimes confused with prejudices and superstitions, they can be common-sense codes of behavior, means of producing cultural cohesion, productive sources of popular fascination, or tragic pretexts for divisiveness and violence. Innovative approaches to taboo subjects are especially necessary given that, especially today, worldwide turmoil extends beyond geopolitics and economics to include crises of culture and values.
Watch the videos from the salon and explore some of these questions: What subjects should or should not be addressed by cultural institutions? How can museums be more open to debate on sensitive issues? What can art—from literature and performance to film, theater, and painting—do to help people understand and metabolize ancient and new taboos and, in the process, help society evolve? What can museums and other cultural institutions do to help this process? What are great examples of exhibitions and artworks that tackled taboos, and what impact did they have? What are today’s most dangerous taboos? Is technology reshaping taboos?
Tom Finkelpearl agreed to participate off the record, so we are not sharing his presentation and the Q&A session.
The salon took place on October 23rd, 2013.
Speakers
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Severin Fowles
Severin Fowles is Professor in the Barnard College Department of Anthropology. Trained as an anthropological archaeologist, Severin’s research centers on questions related to pre-modern religion, cultural landscapes, human-object relations, indigeneity, Native American studies, and the archaeology of the present.
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Mona Eltahawy
Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-American award-winning journalist whose work spotlights Arab and Muslim issues. During the 18-day revolution that toppled Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, she appeared on most major media outlets, leading the feminist website Jezebel to describe her as “The Woman Explaining Egypt to the West”.
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Tom Finkelpearl
Tom Finkelpearl is Cultural Affairs Commissioner of New York, a position he has held since spring 2014. Prior to his appointment, Tom was the President and Executive Director of the Queens Museum for 14 years, and the Deputy Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center during its merger with The Museum of Modern Art. Most recently, he authored What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation.
Reading Resources
- Bens, John H. “Taboo or Not Taboo.” College Composition and Communication, Vol. 22, No. 3 (October 1971): 215-220.
- Cook, Captain James, and James King. “A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean: Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere: Performed Under the Direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore: In the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780: Being a Copious, Comprehensive, and Satisfactory Abridgement of the Voyage.” London: Champante, Whitrow and M. Watson, 1793.
- Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger. Routledge: New York, 1966.
- Freud, Sigmund. “Chapter 2: Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence.” In Totem and Taboo, translated by A. A. Brill. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co., 1918.
- George, Rose. “The Taboo of Menstruation,.” New York Times, December 28, 2012.
- Golden, Thelma. “How Art Gives Shape to Cultural Change.” Lecture from TED Talks, New York, February 2009.
- Golub, Alex. “Copyright and Taboo.” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Summer 2004): 521-530.
- Goodyear, Dana. “Grub.” The New Yorker, August 15, 2011: 38.
- Judson, Olivia. “The Subject is Taboo.” NYTimes.com, June 28, 2006.
- Lansing, Stephen J. “The Cognitive Machinery of Power: Reflections on Valeri’s ‘The Forest of Taboos’.” American Ethnologist, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Aug., 2003): 372-380.
- Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: Longman, Roberts & Green, 1869.
- Scheff, Thomas J. “Shame in Self and Society.” Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2003): 239-262.