Couple in the Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West

Reception

Criticism for The Couple in the Cage varied upon the location of the presentation, though what alarmed the artists most was the substantial public belief that their performances were reality and the substantial number of critics who critiqued their work as unethical due to its misrepresentation, rather than to fully discuss its cultural and institutional critique.[3]

Despite a substantial number of intellectuals remaining critical towards the misinformation of the performances, performative scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett points out that Gómez-Peña's and Fusco's were not the first to fictionalize ethnography, but rather participate inside a previously established history.[12]

The performance gained further recognition and criticism through its participation in the 1993 Whitney Biennial; despite reflecting the political times, art critic Roberta Smith disparaged that the exhibition lost sight of art as a visual experience in its motivations to further a cause.[13]

In stark contrast to the Western response, people of color responded either in distaste due to the inauthenticity of the performance, discomfort in identifying with the experience, or solidarity in its symbolism:[3]

"One Pueblo elder from Arizona who saw us in the Smithsonian went so far as to say that our display was more "real" than any other statement about the condition of Native peoples in the Museum."

-Coco Fusco, The Other History of Intercultural Performance


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