Post #448876 by bigbrotiki on Wed, Apr 22, 2009 10:58 AM

I am just sensitive to this over-fear of offending everyone nowadays, that is part of why the world we live in today has become so generic. Tiki should be a haven from exactly that.

For example: Does it strike anybody as absurd that nowadays there is no nudity on menu covers, matchbooks and paintings in restaurants, while 50 years ago, during a time that was much more restrictive, it was not uncommon--so that nowadays we have to oooh and aaah at the examples of this more liberal past?

I am not denying everyone the right to choose if they approve of nudity or not, but both views should be able to co-exist.

And to the question that is the header of this thread, it seems a little too far-fetched in my personal opinion. We all know that Tiki Style did not just pop out of nothing in the 50s, but as far as I am concerned, its main source is ancient Polynesian art and culture -because it was synonymous with the myth of a paradisaical lifestyle.

In my book TIKI MODERN I chronicled the parallel development of the rising appreciation of primitive art with that of the spread of the Tiki image in the 20th Century (including examples inspired by African art), and I described how primitive art in general was felt to be the "Birth of Art". I did that to describe the psychological climate at the time that facilitated that the Tiki became such an icon. But to jump from Africa straight to Tiki in one question is too far of a stretch in my opinion.