Word: artes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...problem is that there is much in China that needs breaking. In fine imperial tradition, Jiang has left this task to an underling. While Jiang pacifies by practicing the art of the possible, it is Premier Zhu who prefers--even enjoys--sharpening his teeth on the impossible. Zhu staked his personal prestige on doing a WTO deal single-handedly when he traveled to the U.S. in April--and failed when the White House decided a deal was politically unwise. Jiang patiently waited for Clinton to approach him, meanwhile building a consensus among the Chinese leadership that made the final negotiations...
...creatively pierced, multiply tattooed teenagers who hang out at every mall in America probably don't realize it--and neither, undoubtedly, do their unsettled parents--but they belong to a tradition as old as recorded history--probably much older. Ever since our Neolithic ancestors invented art tens of thousands of years ago, humans have been painting, sculpting and otherwise decorating everything in sight. The human body is just the nearest and most intimate canvas. Says anthropologist Enid Schildkrout of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City: "There is no known culture in which people do not paint...
...this universal phenomenon is being celebrated in two separate showcases. Last week a cross-cultural exhibition titled "Body Art: Marks of Identity," curated by Schildkrout and devoted to the past 4,000 years of body modification--"bod-mod" to the cognoscenti--opened at the American Museum. At the same time, photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, based in London, have published African Ceremonies (Abrams; $150), two magnificent volumes documenting the continent's rapidly vanishing kaleidoscope of tribal rites, many of which involve elaborate body decoration...
...reasons for doing it, moreover, are largely the same. Traditionally, body art has served to attract the opposite sex, boost self-esteem, ward off or invoke spirits, indicate social position or marital status, identify with a particular age or gender group or mark a rite of passage, such as puberty or marriage. It's this sort of strictly prescribed, highly ritualistic decoration that Beckwith and Fisher depict in African Ceremonies. "We've tried to show how body art is relevant to every stage of development, from birth to death," says Fisher...
...latter is included in the American Museum show, which runs through May, along with photos, paintings and artifacts such as textiles and carvings that replicate body decorations. Schildkrout hopes visitors will come away from the exhibition understanding that "everyone does body art in one form or another. It's just the conventions that change...