The Embarrassment of Riches

Written by: Puscifythis

For my first Critical Engagement paper I decided to see an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts entitled The Embarrassment of Riches. The aim of this exhibit is to critically assess economic disparity and accumulation of wealth in the modern era from the perspective of upper class subjects (the designers of the exhibit explicitly stated that the use of a lower class perspective to assess this topic has, in other words, been over played). Overall, I felt that the exhibit did not meet my expectations, lacked effectiveness in terms of using art for social justice, and did not highlight or support feminist ideals.

As a Geography major, I have spent a lot of my academic career studying the history and effects of income disparity, wealth accumulation, and neoliberal capitalism on the global economy. This is a large part of why I chose to attend this exhibit, because while I don’t have a background in art, I do have a background in the alleged subject matter of the exhibit. The use of the word ‘embarrassment’ in the title of this exhibit led me to believe that the exhibit would feature photographs that highlight the hypocrisy, frequent cruelty, and malpractice that has come to characterize (in my mind) neoliberal capitalism as a global ideology under the hegemonic control of American politics and policies. Personally, I do find many things about excessive wealth accumulation very embarrassing. I think that western standards of living and measures of development are environmentally deleterious and undermine the ability of other nations to prosper and self-determine. This, to me, is a very embarrassing reality of our world. I expected to see my sense of these realities reflected in the exhibit. However, as I walked through the exhibit I began to feel more and more like I was watching a TV channel like Bravo, which preys upon the masses’ voyeuristic lust for the vicarious consumption the lifestyle of the upper class through passive ingestion of our popular culture and the subsequent repacking of the elusive ‘American Dream.’ For these reasons, I did not feel that the exhibit as a whole achieved its stated purpose.

Of the about 30 or so pieces of art featured in the exhibit there only a handful that I felt conveyed the message and embodied the spirit of a title such as “The Embarrassment of Riches.” One such of these pieces was a self-portrait done by a female artist named Cindy Sherman. The picture features a woman dressed so regally you might think that she is the Queen. The effectiveness of this piece is portrayed through the model’s eyes. She has a look in her face that betrays the thin veneer of satisfaction that materialism and wealth accumulation promise. Another piece that I felt was effective was picture entitled “Suzhou Creek, Putuo District, Shanghai” that juxtaposed dilapidated mansions in the foreground and the construction of monstrous high rises in the background. Most of the others, to me, seemed voyeuristic (like an image of a Chanel boutique changing room, several photographs of ornately decorated rooms, and several photographs of party-goers) or expected (like the photos of large piles of newly minted money, photographs of cars, and a photograph of an oil pipeline dominating the landscape in Russia). Several of the pieces that might have been effective undermined themselves through their stylistic temporal displacement harkening back to the 1970’s or the 1950’s deviating from the goal of presenting the modern day.

Furthermore, if the aim of the exhibit was to express the futility or lunacy of continuing the massive wealth accumulation that has characterized the early part of this century or even if the aim was just to hold a mirror up and show some sort of reflection of this life through the photographs the overall effectiveness of this exhibit was lost because it made no grander statement of the comparison of this lifestyle with the lives of those who, for example, live below the poverty line and it offered no prescription for what should be done in the future. I left the exhibit without feeling like any sub-facet of life had been revealed to me and without any sense of future action. For this exhibit to be effective from a social justice perspective, I feel, I should have achieved all or at least part of this.

To add to my frustrations with the exhibit, and in terms of the subject matter of our class, the exhibit lacked a feminist perspective, both implicitly and explicitly. If the exhibit were to have been explicitly feminist, there should have been greater female artist representation. If I were to guess, I would estimate that 1 in 5 of the artists represented in the exhibit were female. Even for the exhibit to be implicitly feminist, it should have challenged gender roles. None of the pieces did this. One would think that examination of consumption differences between upper class men and women would be a fairly easy topic to include under the heading ‘the Embarrassment of Riches.’ There was no such analysis. Quite antithetically, many of the pieces conveyed very traditional gender roles (more specifically, the woman as the sexual object and the woman as the mother). One piece that particularly appalled me in this aspect was a photograph of a private room at a polo match in Dubai. The photo pictured a wealthy Arab man in traditional grab standing next to his ‘trophy wife’ in western dress. Another photo display that conveyed these tradition gender roles was a set of 2 photos of a Chinese car showroom that depicted the common patriarchic equation of the woman and the car. These photos do, interestingly enough however, show the exportation of western ideals of gender roles around the world.

It is for these stated reasons that I do not feel like the M.I.A. exhibit The Embarrassment of Riches was effective from a social justice or from a feminist perspective. I hope that I have the opportunity soon to attend an art event in the near future that does.