Course Description and Outcomes
This seminar is an introduction to the art history methodology of material culture. Simply put, the study of material culture is the study of “things”—human-made or human-modified products. These “things” can include clothing, your grandmother’s heirloom jewelry, a formally landscaped garden, a painting, or the contents of a trash can. Scholars of material culture investigate these cultural products as a way to uncover the beliefs, values, attitudes, needs, hopes and fears of a particular society at a particular moment. In this class we will look at art (early American portraiture; southern plantation architecture; hand-built wooden furniture), luxury goods (Marie Antoinette’s clothing; silver teapots), consumer goods (Tupperware; table forks), and popular imagery (photographs of President Kennedy; the interior decor of Graceland) through the material culture lens.
However, the study of objects alone is not enough. Material culture scholars must study contexts as well as objects, for it is only by considering the historical, social, spatial, and cultural contexts that we can come to a fuller understanding of the meaning expressed by the human-made/modified product itself.
In addition, the field of material culture studies is filled with challenges and debates. Scholars sometimes argue that objects “speak” to us about the past. What does this mean? How can we know for sure what the artifact(s) is “saying” to us? What are the limitations of using objects as evidence? Is it possible to overstate an object’s value as evidence? Is it possible to overstrain an interpretation? Such questions are endemic to the field and are important to our investigations this semester.
This course introduces students to the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field of material culture studies through readings, discussion, and research in an array of fields including art history, anthropology, folklore, and history. It is important to recognize that our readings will NOT deal primarily with contemporary art. Rather, this seminar is designed to help you develop critical skills of object analysis and will encourage you to consider the relationships between human –made/modified products and cultural meaning.
Responses for Friday, October 31
This week, respond to any aspect of Alison J. Clarke,
Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999). Try to consider the ways in which Clarke incorporates issues of gender, class, and race into her discussion of Tupperware.
7 comments:
Through Alison J. Clarke's The promise of plastic in 1950's America I guess I found "Tupperware: The Creation of a Modernist Icon?" and The Ascent of the Tupperware Party most interesting. In the creation of a modernist icon I found it really interesting its more about the rise of Tupperware itself and how it came about. how it became a alternative to traditional methods of food storage and presentation in turn it had no direct competitors. In the ascent of the Tupperware party it talked about middle- class suburbia. How Tupperware parties also known as "patio Parties", and Vogue Plastics really boomed in the 1950's.
Some things that stuck out to me were already the obvious. When in a time of wanting everything to be simple, fast, efficient, and waste saving it seems Tupperware popped up over night. the parties give suburban housewife something to do during the day where they could converse with other wife/mothers, and still feel like they were contributing to the household with what they would make from being a hostess. I also liked the reference to the American sewing circle and quilting bee. Tupperware, developed contemporaneously with postwar suburbia embraced both domesticity and conspicuous consumption. I boil it down to the suburban housewives were bored, Tupperware helped reduce the monotony in their lives. and was also a huge postwar consumer culture. I might be off but that's what I think of when I think of the whole Tupperware movement.
Tupperware. The vile villainous creature is discussed in Alison J. Clarke's book. Overall the read was interesting in that the beginnings of how it came about in American culture. We all have Tupperware and we use it daily but can we fathom how much of a technological advancement this was during the 1940s thru 60s.
Plastic apparently was in a league of its own and certainly being that the form of the Tupperware products were molded. It provided for new inventive designs that people were seeing it from a new angle. The utilitarian quality of the product is thrown out of the door on a surface level to some degree and the product is being seen as sculpture. A new embodiment of art itself.
That is something big during this time if I may say so. Not only are we looking past art as being seen merely in a museum aesthetic retrospectively but now we are getting into seeing anything can be considered art. The science behind plastics and its other helpful features in a post-war society a bit overshadowed.
One way in which Clarke incorporates class issues into "The Ascent of the Tupperware Party" is the social distinction sought by the consumers of Tupperware, namely suburban families. I, myself, had always assumed that Tupperware must have been created to cheaply and efficiently answer some immense demand made by middle-class suburban families. Clarke points out, however, that suburban families had been seeking a unique identity for quite a while, and their primary means of doing so was through consumerism.
Clarke discusses other ways in which newly suburbanized families sought distinction, such as creating new, horrifying combinations of foods, i.e. vegetables suspended in lime Jell-O. It is important to note that middle-class suburban families strove not to set themselves apart from urban families in any way that underscored wealth or class. Simply, Clarke demonstrates, suburban families sought individuality in a neighborhood where all the houses were the same style, all the driveways were of a prescribed, set length, and so on. These families saw that the easiest, and possibly the most effective ways to accomplish this was to establish themselves as a distinct consumer base.
The most interesting thing in this week's reading -- and for me, the most intriguing idea in any assigned reading so far -- was the development of industrial plastic in the 20th century. This development seems to me to parallel the course taken by avant-garde sculpture during the same time period. Plastics, originally thought to be crude and worthless in terms of commodity, were reevaluated, stripped of all ornamentation and decoration. Earl Tupper began to allow his plastics to maintain their original color throughout the injection molding process. If other color was added to these pieces, it was a soft, desaturated tone consistent all over the piece. The form of the pieces also became simplified as Tupperware was produced in a single molding process.
This streamlining of production, simplification (or elimination) of style, and purification of raw form reminds me instantly of early minimalist and postmodernist sculpture. Artists like Donald Judd had their pieces fabricated in factories by other people from "crude" materials (galvanized steel, aluminum, etc.) that boasted no decoration whatsoever. Early postmodernist work from the early 1950s also displays this yearning for elimination of imagery and obscurity of almost everything outside of pure form. For the avant-garde artist, this allowed their work to speak on a grander scale and with more clarity; simplification of form and intentional neglect of decoration allowed their work to approach actual physical manifestation rathr than fabrication.
For Tupperware the same conclusions can be drawn. The elimination of gaudy patterning allowed consumers to see Tupperware for what it was: no more than colored plastic. However, this also made evident that Tupperware did not feign elegance, which most -- if not all -- other tableware did at the time. Its utility and efficiency and even its low production cost were all perceptible in its unassuming presence.
While it may be impossible to trace the development of Tupperware as in accordance with avant-garde sculpture, or vice-versa, it is interesting to note that the same ideological developments were taking place in both areas at around the same time. What both seem to have been attempting, though, was a new honesty in production/fabrication. The object is what it is, without decoration hiding its component parts and materials; the object uses its own form and presence to speak for itself, of itself. Successful application of these ideas must have been refreshing as well as exciting for the consumers and art critics alike who saw these objects for the first time.
Before reading Alison J. Clarke's "The Promise of Plastic in 1950's America" I had really never given much thought to tupperware. I always considered it a cheap container to store leftovers in, and didn't realize that there were so many more products that were considered tupperware, such as coffee and tea sets, dishes for entertainment, and tobacco related products.
I found "A Gift of Modernity" most interesting. Clarke discusses how tupperware and other products around that time were advertised to appeal to women's emotions so they would buy more. Tupperware was mainly aimed at women aside from some cigarette holders for men. They were advertised as making women good hostesses, or as perfect gifts for brides. Its modern appearance was appealing, and it came in pastel colors with names obviously made to appeal to women. I find it funny that tupperware was the "premium" to entertain with; today it is such a cheap thing that everyone owns.
This was definitely an interesting read... well, as interesting as Tupperware can be I suppose. The idea of a postwar material mirroring that of the returning soldiers I found absolutely fascinating, war profiteering at its most innocent. No blood is shed to get this product out there, save for maybe the older, more individualized, kitchen-ware.
Obviously nearly everyone has Tupperware these days, indeed the suburbs are an ocean of Tupperware from my own personal experience in the land of consumerism run amok. Though, not necessarily of the brand "Tupper" the name has become synonymous with the product that is manufactured by many different companies. Ironically enough some of the most popular tupperware products today are manufactured by Ziploc, a company which got its feet from a direct competition between the plastic bag and the plastic container, one which the article points out the baggie was losing early on when the price per baggie was more than the price per Tupperware container, the opposite of today. Hence all the angry moms upset over their kids accidentally throwing away their precious Tupperware containers now eager to buy "disposable" tupperware that Ziploc manufactures.
Tupperware, much in part due to the "Tupperware" parties and aggressive ad campaigns became a staple of the quintessential "perfect" house wife of the 50s. Its hard to imagine a "Leave it to Beaver" type world where at least one piece of Tupperware isn't "burping" somewhere in the neighborhood. Still today this holds true, housewives all over the country still throw "Tupperware" parties, though the idea of a "patio party" or "Tupperware" party has given birth to jewelry parties and all sorts of similar somewhat guerrilla advertising schemes.
I find the parallels forming amongst our readings very interesting, moreso this Tupperware Reading compared to the "whitewashing" and "pot calling the kettle" readings.
Except from the 1940s to 60s, it wasnt greatly about race distinction (although, im sure it was predominantly white for sometime), it was about the Middle Class. Their hayday, many new technologies as products of war, a population boom, the advent of "leisure". A new time of free women; whom which were a great proportion of the companies growth. Allowing the mid 20th century Housewife to get out of the house, conversate with others and just step out for a bit. The newly busied woman also may have found leisure at these events.
But the large contributor to being paired with the rise of the middle class was the economic value of the tupperware. Tupperware was affordable and allowed for a greater number of people to participate in the community activity that it became.
Suburbans were the leaders in the tupperware drive, they saw it relate to their newly similar "looking" lifestyle. Similar houses on similar lots and similar cars, all the way down to similar tupperware.
Kyle Scott
In Clarke's "The creation of a Modernist Icon" I felt that there where two topics that kept jumping back and forth. The first one was Industrial Design as it pertains to the development, manufacturing, and modification of Tupperware. The second topic was advertising or, how they sold this stuff. More importantly then how they sold the stuff was how they kept selling modifications of the same product. Even though i think this reading should be mandatory for Advertising and Industrial Design students, i think there was a bigger picture painted here.
I think Tupperware serves as a milestone for the overly consumer based culture we are today. Tupperware stressed this overwhelming idea of consumption that we have all become custom to. If you look at our contemporary society everything is marketed like that. We would rather throw down all of our savings on the latest shoes, cars, clothing, DVD's so on and so forth, then save our money. The reason being is a trait of this consumer culture we are all victim to makes us think that we need these things like we need water. Did you know that health in our country is so bad that most Americans, when they think they are hungry, are really thirsty and just need to hydrate. I think that is a metaphor for the latest fashion craze that we all get the bug for. I want to close on this, if you have not got a chance to see the television show "Erie Indiana" there is an amazing episode called Foreverware. A crazy home maker seals her twin boys in giant Tupperware containers every night so they never age. It serves as a great companion to this reading.
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