A world apart: The multicultural world of visible minorities and the art world of Canada.

Studies of racial inequality have not paid sufficient attention to a social process of cultural production that results in the marginalization of minority art and culture. This paper argues that Canada's policy towards Occidental arts and the arts community, and its multicultural policy towards minority arts and cultures have produced two different support structures, or unequal art worlds, for enhancing the artistic development of the dominant group and visible minorities. The first is a formal, legitimized and high-status art world of white Canadians, and the second a marginal, folklorie and low-status multicultural circle reserved for recent immigrants of mainly non-white origin. The formal art world of Canada and the multicultural circle of visible minorities are distinguishable by differences in social organization, rules of operation, standards of evaluation, source of patronage, and forum of communication; as well, their products differ in form and content and carry unequal aesthetic and market value. The Government's patronizing policy towards minorities' art and culture and the institutionalization of these two separate art worlds stifle the artistic creativity and aesthetic development of visible minorities. Canada's art and multicultural policies reflect and reinforce a cultural hegemony that upholds the dominance of Occidental values and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]