The Building of a Label: The New American Folk Art Museum

Abstract

THE LABELING OF ARTISTIC CATEGORIES IS A MESSY BUSINESS. IN ART HISTORY departments, practitioners rely on boundaries of knowledge to divide courses into coherent entities, thus creating sub-categories, in which art historians then become specialists. A typical art history department of modest size might have five full-time faculty members who teach and do research in their own sub-genre of art history. For instance, an Americanist would probably not be expected to teach or do research in the area of Ancient Rome, and likewise, a modernist would be hesitant to teach medieval unless he or she was teaching the introductory survey class during a particular semester. Those who teach in art or art history departments know this information intimately, and those who teach in English, history, and other areas are also aware of this disciplinary fascination and promulgation of sub-specialization. The connection between discursive strategies within academic specialization and the social construction of artistic movements, such as art, has always been strong. Like other artistic categories, the definition of folk art has struggled through a number of semiotic shifts. Material culture scholar Kenneth Ames traces the problematic history of folk art by delineating five strains of thought that helped promote the