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Artist as Shaman
Translating Art into Ritual Terms

A common view of the artist is as hero of the times;
their works as adjustments to current history, 
society, and life. But what of the view of the artist 
as shaman? What of the museum as sacred place?

This paper explores the formal, anthropological aspects 
of ritual as applied to the modern artist and art 
experience in general.

Key Concepts in Ritaul Studies

Current practice in ritual studies formally insists
that ritual involve sacred places/practices as well
as that the ritual transports the person to another
place and/or time. As such, since the practice of
art (as art and not as tribal act) deals only with
the here and now, of the secular world, and of
the real rather than the imagined, sacred, and 
spiritual experience. That is not to say that the
art can not deal with these subjects. But, for 
example, a picture of the transfiguraltion is
NOT the transfiguration (as experienced by the
devout), but a representation (in the secular 
world) made (often times) by a secular artist.
No matter how-inspired, the representation is
NOT the ritual that is represented. I don't
want to belabor this point, so let us take it 
as read that what the artist does is much like
ritual, but is not *formally* ritual as such.

One of the important pioneers in ritual studies is 
Aarnold Van Gennep [GENNEP 1960] who put together the
idea of liminality; literally "thresh-hol-ness" 
This concept arose in his study of so-called "rites of 
passage"; eg, rituals concerning birth, puberty, weddings, 
death, etc. He identified three phases in rituals: 

    Pre-liminal, Liminal, and Post-Liminal.

In the pre-liminal state, the person has a given status
that is accepted by them and their tribe (community,
group, etc). The ritual that translates them from 
that state to a new state IS the rite of passage.
For example, the practise of :baptism". In the 
preliminal state, the baby is just that a baby.
The ritual of baptism "welcomes" the baby into 
their community, *formally*. A blessing is 
performed and oaths are administered on the 
behalf of the baby and its parents. The baptism 
thus serves to elevate the baby into a privlidged 
state of liminality; ie, the threshold of "having
been baptised". Following the baptism, the baby 
(now in the post-liminal state) is accepted into 
their community in the new state. 

Following Van Gennep's work, the anthropologist
Victor Turner [TURNER ]
contributed the concept of "communitas". The idea
extends the concept of community to those undegoing
ritual transformation. Take for example, the coming
of age ritual for young boys common in many human 
cultures. The boys are at first rounded up and
taken away from their village -- often stripped
naked, shaved and so forth. They then undergo a
process of transformation (the liminal state) from
boy-hood to man-hood. Finally in the post-liminal
state they are brought back to the village and 
a feast is held. 

Turner noted the idea that in the liminal state 
the boys in transition form a new "community" which
he refered to as their sharing a sense of *communitas*.
He further emphasised the importance of three stages
of the ritual: Separation, transformation, and 
re-integration. In the process of re-integration the
participants gained a new status with regard to the
community. Thus, in order to undergo the ritual, the
participation are separated from their community,
form an independent, but co-herent snese of communitas,
and upon re-integration re-gained their previous sense
of communitas, concomitant with their new status and
privlidges pursant to it.

A final aspect of ritual is the role of the guides
(intercessors, diviner, shaman, etc) in the ritual
itself. In role of intercessor, the guide puts 
themself between the person and the forces at work.
As diviner, the guide determines the nature of the
problems besetting the person. And as shaman, they
effect a change to "cure" the condtion. I have of 
course over-simplified the complex nature of what
we will deal with as shamanistic activities. There
are naturally, differing scales and scopes of the 
person/village/world/universe that the actions of 
the shaman affect. 

Translating Art into Ritual

There are several objects with which we are familiar
that i wish to discuss.

  The art work itself
  The artist
  The audience
  The venue
  The public & critics
  Posterity

As Mary Anne Staniszewski [STANISZEWSKI 1975] points out
"art objects" such as the Mona Lisa is NOT art, while
the modification by Duchamp of "The Mona Lisa with 
the Moustache" IS. Her point is, that we need to determine
the purpose of the art work to consider its "art-full-ness".
Thus, while all traditional Art History I courses cover
the "Venus of Willendorf" as an artwork. We in fact have
no clue as to what its true role in its society was. As
such, we hold the time-element of "posterity" when viewing
such an object. In fact many art historians point out the 
newness of the modern experience. Rather than engage
the vast varieties of what  Gerald Feldman refered to as
the "visual experience", 

Let us therefore




Bibliography

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           Myth, and Affecting Presence. Philadelphia. University of 
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Deflem, Mathieu. 1991. “Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: 
        A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic 
        Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 
        30(1):1-25.  [web-ref]


Feldman, Edmund Burke (1996). Varieties of visual experience.

a
Grimes, Ronald L. (1996) Readings in Ritual Studies. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Parezo, Nancy J. (ca 1983) Navajo SandPainting: From religious act to commercial Art. Tuscon, Ariz. University of Arizona Press.

Rappaport, Roy A. [Grimes: Pp.427-440] The Obvious Aspects of Ritual. Grimes: OpCit.

Saint_, Toni (2001). "Liminality and Altered States of Mind in Cyberspace"
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Smith, Johnathon Z. [Grimes, P.478-481].The Bare Facts of Ritual. Grimes: OpCit.

Staniszewski, Mary Anne (1975). Believing Is Seeing: Creating the Culture 
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Turner, Victor W. (1967) Symbols in Ndembu Ritual. Grimes: OpCit, Pp. 520-529.

Turner, Victor (1969). "Liminality and Communitas" in The Ritual Process. 
                       New York: Aldine de Gruyter.



Van Gennep, A. (1960). The Rites of Passage. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago Press.