What style of Tiki is this? - Collecting Tiki

B bigbrotiki Tiki Socialite Tiki Island, above the Silverlake Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 11621	B bigbrotiki Posted posted on Thu, Jan 17, 2008 6:07 PM On 2008-01-16 16:14, Moai_Mama wrote: ...that cool piece in the photo~ is that a Mom & baby? Yup! :) On 2008-01-16 17:05, Haole'akamai wrote: Like this Witco lamp? Is that a request for information or a challenge? Way to confuse a newbie! Citing exceptions to a rule or appraisal does not prove anything, it just confuses the issue. If I would go into all the complex variances and facets of Polynesian pop here I would need a page per post and be considerably more boring, so I am not. I try to be clear and simple. On the first page of the first Witco chapter in Tiki Modern, their 1962 catalog presents a mission statement of Witco: "The cultures of Indonesia, Polynesia, Melanesia AND OTHER ANCIENT CULTURES OF THE WORLD...are vividly exemplified in the rough hewn lines of the ABSTRACT AND PRIMITIVE carvings..." Witco and Tiki Modern style was informed by a general pop primitivism which drew from a multitude of sources of "primitive" art, but their main common denominator was "Tiki" style. Does that Tiki (named "Polynesian Idol" in the Witco catalog) maybe have a pre-Columbian influence? Maybe, but not enough to prove anything else than what I mentioned above. But this questioning brought me to an interesting observation, one that might potentially get me into a lot of trouble here. Is some of the discord about what is Tiki and what is not perhaps gender-related? Looking back, It does seem to me that the die-hard obsessive Tiki archaeologists are in the majority male. There is a certain male "being a specialist" mentality that women just do not subscribe to as often as men. One of the best scenes I remember that portrays that was in the early Mickey Rourke movie "Diner", where the boys discuss Jazz music and bands. They know every album, every year of issue, every band member and when he left. The girls are oblivious to this anally precise knowledge, they know what bands they like and what songs they like to dance to, and that suffices for them. (I AM AWARE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS!) While men enjoy taking over a subject through logic and piling up of knowledge, women grasp it more intuitively. Both ways have their own value. But it seems to me that a certain hardcore Tiki mentality is more possessed by the males, and that its demonstration sometimes creates annoyance in the females who have a more happy-go-lucky I-like-what-Iike attitude towards the genre. It is as if too much Tiki scholarship cramps their style, or threatens to spoil the fun. The thing is, for many men this kind of obsessive brain game is the greatest fun to be had. :) (AGAIN, I AM AWARE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS!)

On 2008-01-16 16:14, Moai_Mama wrote:
...that cool piece in the photo~ is that a Mom & baby?

Yup! :)

On 2008-01-16 17:05, Haole'akamai wrote:
Like this Witco lamp?

Is that a request for information or a challenge? Way to confuse a newbie! Citing exceptions to a rule or appraisal does not prove anything, it just confuses the issue. If I would go into all the complex variances and facets of Polynesian pop here I would need a page per post and be considerably more boring, so I am not. I try to be clear and simple.

On the first page of the first Witco chapter in Tiki Modern, their 1962 catalog presents a mission statement of Witco:
"The cultures of Indonesia, Polynesia, Melanesia AND OTHER ANCIENT CULTURES OF THE WORLD...are vividly exemplified in the rough hewn lines of the ABSTRACT AND PRIMITIVE carvings..."

Witco and Tiki Modern style was informed by a general pop primitivism which drew from a multitude of sources of "primitive" art, but their main common denominator was "Tiki" style. Does that Tiki (named "Polynesian Idol" in the Witco catalog) maybe have a pre-Columbian influence? Maybe, but not enough to prove anything else than what I mentioned above.

But this questioning brought me to an interesting observation, one that might potentially get me into a lot of trouble here. Is some of the discord about what is Tiki and what is not perhaps gender-related? Looking back, It does seem to me that the die-hard obsessive Tiki archaeologists are in the majority male. There is a certain male "being a specialist" mentality that women just do not subscribe to as often as men.
One of the best scenes I remember that portrays that was in the early Mickey Rourke movie "Diner", where the boys discuss Jazz music and bands. They know every album, every year of issue, every band member and when he left. The girls are oblivious to this anally precise knowledge, they know what bands they like and what songs they like to dance to, and that suffices for them.
(I AM AWARE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS!)
While men enjoy taking over a subject through logic and piling up of knowledge, women grasp it more intuitively. Both ways have their own value. But it seems to me that a certain hardcore Tiki mentality is more possessed by the males, and that its demonstration sometimes creates annoyance in the females who have a more happy-go-lucky I-like-what-Iike attitude towards the genre. It is as if too much Tiki scholarship cramps their style, or threatens to spoil the fun.

The thing is, for many men this kind of obsessive brain game is the greatest fun to be had. :)

(AGAIN, I AM AWARE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS!)

Post #355646 by bigbrotiki on Thu, Jan 17, 2008 6:07 PM