There are several terms, which overlaps each other, among non-western arts. We will briefly face the topic to let you understand better the issues, our choices and vision.
Primitive art is a colonialist definition. There are no questions about. It was named like this in the 18th century, with a conception of Western Culture and Fine Art in the mind. Besides, if you value the art in these terms, it will be considered worthy only the old production, putting aside all the contemporary stuff. It’s also a countersense of the Westerns’ Art Market, since there are people more inclined to value the emotions of this art than our Westerns’ one.
Tribal Art is definitely more befitting. Since art is a socio-cultural expression, “tribal” will characterize the artistic production related to the local culture. Though it values the culture, probably it is more adapt for a production with historical meanings. Even if these societies are still ground on clans and tribal customs, we saw the t-shirt of Totti and Messi even in the midst of the Papuan jungle.
Oceanic Art (or in the specific, Melanesian and Polynesian) is simply the most correct definition, since gives an artistic value over cultural one to the local artifacts production, not only restricted to the antiquities but also the contemporary ones. This means that non-western arts is valued by those artists and their aesthetic concepts, not ours. As a matter of fact, our title “Fine Tribal” plays provocatively about both terms.
Art is worth if gives emotions and emotions are timeless. Therefore art may not be valued just for its timing, otherwise it loses its own sense. We got used to have almost industrial production by artists nowadays and we do value just for its name, as the antiquities for their cultural-historic sense.
We forgot that in many other part of the world the art is valued for the technical skills, the methodology, the material, for other aesthetic terms. Sometimes even mixed with the concept of artifact, similarly it’s what makes worth made in Italy worldwide (e.g. violinmakers). On the other hand, non-Westerns do not undervalue the value of our Fine Arts, but they are not struck by the same totemic emotion.