|Question 11Verbal

Source Texts

Text
In Diné (Navajo) culture, ikaah (sandpaintings) are created and then erased as part of sacred healing ceremonies lasting no more than a few days, but Diné hataałii (chanter, healer, cultural guide) Fred Stevens developed fixatives to preserve desacralized sandpaintings. While on a US-sponsored cultural ambassadorial trip in Europe and the Americas in the 1960s, Stevens produced several such sandpaintings and gave them to cultural institutions. This may seem in tension with the role of cultural ambassador—how could static objects authentically represent an inherently ephemeral and dynamic practice?—but such a view is itself overly object-focused and neglects how Stevens strove to convey exactly those characteristics of ikaah as a cultural practice.
Which quotation from an art historian would most directly support the claim made in the text?
"Stevens's ambassadorial sandpaintings are best understood not as self-contained objects but as reminders of the public creations of the sandpaintings, during which Stevens conducted appropriate ikaah rituals and encouraged viewers to closely track his movements and subtle shifts in the sand throughout the process."
A
"While Stevens's ambassadorial sandpaintings are undoubtedly educative for audiences that have little exposure to Diné culture, they should not be confused with authentic ikaah, which cannot be extricated from a practice that is intentionally and necessarily transitory nor condensed into a single persistent object."
B
"The most compelling way to reconcile the apparent tension between the temporary and performative nature of ikaah and the persistent and static nature of Stevens's ambassadorial sandpaintings is to recognize that Stevens was an ambassador not only of Diné culture but of a US art culture that tended to value permanent works over ephemeral ones."
C
"It is important to recall Stevens's own actions as a gift-giver—a temporary and performative role—of the sandpaintings, for by taking those actions, Stevens publicly enacted the transmission of knowledge of both traditional ikaah practices and cutting-edge chemistry (in the form of the preservative additives), a hybrid that reflects the dynamism of Diné culture."
D