Paper short abstract:

Invocations of cynicism and sincerity in Palestinian artmaking reveal how artists and audiences negotiate an autonomous national self in the context of postponed statehood. This paper combines analysis of art objects and emotion-practices to bridge maker and reception based ethnographies of art.

Paper long abstract:

Invocations of cynicism and sincerity in Palestinian artmaking reveal how an autonomous national self is negotiated in the context of postponed statehood. For many Palestinians, art has long been authentic evidence of their collective cultural merit and state-worthiness. At base is the idea that art ex-presses an interiority and can prove and represent this otherwise invisible entity. While this conception corresponded closely to the structure of art production and circulation prior to 1993, it weakened with the addition of international funders, curators, and audiences into the formula. Some worry Palestinian art has been highjacked to promote "exterior" political agendas, such as continued colonialism. Debates riddle the connections Palestinian art has to Palestine as a territorial, national, and cultural entity today. Cynicism dominates these debates, and it manifests in art that mocks or muddies the sense of a sovereign interiority. Yet, cynical artists also voice significant concern for sincerity—of personal vision or expert execution, for example. Requiring neither concrete space nor collective belonging to motivate laudable action, sincerity is well-suited to imagining future publics in precarious political realms. Its co-presence with cynicism suggests that Palestinian artists do not disavow the possibility of a collective national self but, rather, willfully disbelieve and aesthetically undermine its current formulation. Examining artist-audience encounters (exhibitions, funding applications, and sales schemes) in the West Bank from 2010-12, the paper shows that art which is cynical and sincere may reinforce belief in a sentimentally, aesthetically, and politically coherent interiority and help shape it.