Beyond Aesthetics Art and the Technologies of Enchantment

by Pinney, Christopher; Thomas, Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9781859734599
• ISBN10: 1859734596
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-09-01
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

The anthropology of art is currently at a crossroads. Although well versed in the meaning of art in small-scale tribal societies, anthropologists are still wrestling with the question of how to interpret art in a complex, post-colonial environment. Alfred Gell recently confronted this problem in his posthumous book Art and Agency. The central thesis of his study was that art objects could be seen, not as bearers of meaning or aesthetic value, but as forms mediating social action. At a stroke, Gell provocatively dismissed many longstanding but tired questions of definition and issues of aesthetic value. His book proposed a novel perspective on the roles of art in political practice and made fresh links between analyses of style, tradition and society. Offering a new overview of the anthropology of art, this book begins where Gell left off. Presenting wide-ranging critiques of the limits of aesthetic interpretation, the workings of objects in practice, the relations between meaning and efficacy and the politics of postcolonial art, its distinguished contributors both elaborate on and dissent from the controversies of Gells important text. Subjects covered include music and the internet as well as ethnographic traditions and contemporary indigenous art. Geographically its case studies range from India to Oceania to North America and Europe.

Author Biography

Edited by Christopher Pinney, Senior Lecturer in Material Culture, Department of Anthropology, University College London and Nicholas Thomas, Professor of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Nicholas Thomas' books include Entangled Objects (1991), Colonialism's Culture (1994) and Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture (1999)

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(12)
Nicholas Thomas
Romanticism, from Foi Site Poetry to Schubert's Winterreise	13	(18)
James F. Weiner
Agency, History and Tradition in The Construction of `Classical' Music: The Debate Over `Authentic Performance'	31	(26)
Ian Keen
Why Knot? Towards a Theory of Art and Mathematics	57	(22)
Susanne Kuchler
Captivation, Representation, and the Limits of Cognition: Interpreting Metaphor and Metonymy in Tahitian Tamau	79	(18)
Anne D'Alleva
What Makes Singo Different: North Vanuatu Textiles and the Theory of Captivation	97	(20)
Lissant Bolton
The Captivating Agency of Art: Many Ways of Seeing	117	(20)
Shirley Campbell
The Fame of Trinis: Websites as Traps	137	(20)
Daniel Miller
Piercing the Skin of the Idol	157	(24)
Christopher Pinney
The Politics and Personhood of Tibetan Buddhist Icons	181	(20)
Clare Harris
Aboriginal Cultural Production into Art: The Complexity of Redress	201	(34)
Francesca Merlan
When the (Oven) Gloves Are Off: The Queen's Baton--Doing What to Whom?	235	(24)
Charlotte Townsend-Gault
The Patent and the Malanggan	259	(28)
Marilyn Strathern
Index	287