Exhibit Examines Orientalism in America

Art Business News, Feb, 2001

On Feb. 3, a new exhibit opens at the Mint Museum of Art that focuses on America's version of Orientalism. Entitled "Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930," the exhibit features approximately 100 paintings, decorative arts, sheet music, advertisements, Shriner memorabilia, photographs, fashion and film clips. Highlights include John Singer Sargent's "Fumee d' ambre gris," depicting a mysteriously beautiful Moroccan woman;William Merritt Chase's "The Moorish Warrior," and Edwin Lord Week's"Interior of the Mosque at Cordova."

The exhibit is divided into two major sections. The first section examines how American painters during this period imitated Oriental styles popular in Europe but toned down racy subjects such as harem interiors and female bathing scenes, which were considered to be the erotic staple of French Orientalist art. It also examines how, unlike in Europe, where Orientalism was imbedded with racial prejudice and an attitude of cultural superiority, the American preoccupation with the Orient was more positive.

The second section examines how American Orientalism was transformed into a raw material for mass communication and mass culture beginning with the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. There, 27 million visitors were introduced to both the formal Orientalism portrayed in paintings and also to the "hootchy-kootchy" of live belly dancers at the Fair's carnival. Soon, Orientalism appeared in movies, advertisements, cigarette boxes and department stores. Oriental images became associated with a guarantee of pleasure--forbidden or otherwise. "The Orient became a toy, a game, a required masquerade away from normal and real life," wrote Oleg Grabar in the exhibition catalog. "Curiously poised between desire and repulsion, beauty and ugliness, it was an Orient that answers deep psychological and social needs."

The exhibit remains on view until April 22.