Beyond Aesthetics Art and the Technologies of Enchantment
- Binding: Hardcover
- Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
- Publish date: 11/01/2001
Description:
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, postcolonial environment. Alfred Gell argued in his posthumous book Art and Agency that art objects could be seen as forms mediating social action. His provocative book proposed a novel perspective on the roles of art in political practice and made fresh links between analyses of style, tradition and society.
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Offering a new overview of the anthropology of art, this book begins where Gell left off. Distinguished contributors present 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. Subjects covered include music and the internet as well as ethnographic traditions and contemporary indigenous art.
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