Anthropology Of Art

Performing Naturalness: Intersections of Conceptual Art and Anthropology In Ethnographic Filmmaking

by Dada Docot

(presented at the American Anthropological Association 2011 meeting, http://aaa.confex.com/aaa/2011/webprogrampreliminary/Session2230.html)

The policing of difference in Tokyo can be seen as one of Japan's strategies for immigration control. Exasperated with... more The policing of difference in Tokyo can be seen as one of Japan's strategies for immigration control. Exasperated with the “random” interrogations by Japanese police, I conducted a one-time experiment with the following hypothesis: that without doing anything out of the ordinary, I will be singled out by the police as an “other” from the large commuting crowd at one of Tokyo's busiest train stations within three minutes – the length of the single roll of 8mm film, which was used to document the experiment. The performance borrows from the Fluxus group the idea of producing brief happenings that can be called anything but spectacular. Thus, “performance” here does not refer to rehearsed theatrical acts, but to actions of the everyday, particularly by migrants, who un/consciously stage or exert their own identities in the international migration context. For this work, I also build on Jean Rouch's idea of the unmediated mise-en-scene (i.e. the train station) as a stage on which to hold this experiment. The work likewise explores the practice of observation in anthropology: the anthropologist moves to the research field to perform; the cameraman follows to document the pending encounter; the immigration police officers attempt to spot the other; and finally, at the event of confrontation, the rest of the crowd looks away. “Performing Naturalness” (2008, 3mins) is the product of this methodological experiment, which serves to engage with the viewer, and to provoke discussions of visual scrutiny in migration situations in Japan and elsewhere.

Watch Performing Naturalness at http://vimeo.com/4452050.

Let´s make a toast to art: A transnational economic paradigm

by Tinna Grétarsdóttir

Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton, Cultural reproduction, attitudes, and meaning in the category of outsider art

by Andrea Fritsch

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 4(1): 87-105. (May 2012)
Copyright ©2012 by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

An analysis of the debate surrounding the art exhibit Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton at Intuit: The Center... more An analysis of the debate surrounding the art exhibit Almost There: A Portrait of Peter Anton at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in 2010 reveals sets of actors with competing interests and claims on the term outsider art. I explore the public fascination with madness and outsider art, suggesting actors engage outsider art in three attitudes—aesthetic, instrumental and investigative. Aesthetic attitudes operate within an expanded definition of official ‘Art’ that allows outsider artwork, but not the outsider artist, to participate in the reproduction of fine art conventions. Instrumental attitudes engage outsider artwork and perceptions of madness as forms of cultural and social capital in the Bourdieuian sense. The curators of Almost There operated with an investigative attitude, seeking to understand the social conditions influencing the artist as well as the artist’s sociality and intent. Investigative fields such as documentary production and psychiatry situate outsider art historically, as art practice, and subjective expression. I argue each attitude strategically engages the label of outsider art to both negotiate and question hierarchical relationships. The imperfect fit of the Almost There exhibit in the category of outsider art demonstrates the limitations of current conceptions of artistic merit and mental health.

Tracing the City: Exploring the Private Experience of Public Art through Art and Anthropology

by Martha Radice

Co-authored with Kim Morgan and Solomon Nagler. Presented at ISEA2011, Istanbul.

What happens when the private experience of art is disrupted or reframed by the chance encounters and events of urban... more What happens when the private experience of art is disrupted or reframed by the chance encounters and events of urban public life? Conversely, what happens when modes of production of art are opened up for the public to intervene in artistic creation? We draw on Lefebvre’s sociospatial theories to present the framework for our interdisciplinary research-creation project, and use it to interpret an art installation on a public city bus route.

"Desire for Feathers: Transformative Relationships in the Pacific"

by Hannah Rose Van Wely

Abstract only. Forthcoming paper presentation at the Material Culture National Conference, April 2012. Original dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of MA in Material and Visual Culture (UCL) of the University of London in 2011.

Pacific feathers, as evocative substances, call into question the boundaries of “artifact.” Although a natural object,... more Pacific feathers, as evocative substances, call into question the boundaries of “artifact.” Although a natural object, feathers have traditionally acted as transformative materials in Melanesia and Polynesia. The partability of feathers allows them to shift from body to acquired body, mediating between humans, spirits, birds, and objects. In ancient Hawaii, all four of these relationships can be recognized in the feathered god figures. Feathers bridge interiority and exteriority in their uses as appropriated body ornamentation amongst the New Zealand Tuhoe and Papua New Guinean Hageners. The appropriation of this material as ornament unexpectedly reveals concepts of feather’s efficacious absorbency. Widely traded, Pacific handling of featherwork manifests power relationships and gender identities, and also describes their material fragility and preciousness. It is through perception - the blending of material and immaterial - that the Pacific feather becomes art.

Key Words: feathers, featherwork, Pacific artifacts, perception, material culture studies

Textiles of Healing: Native American AIDS Quilts

by Max Carocci

Visualizing Gender Variability In Plains Indian Pictographic Art

by Max Carocci

Clad With the'Hair of Trees': A History of Native American Spanish Moss Textile Industries

by Max Carocci

“Gagarin and the Rave Kids: Transforming power, identity, and aesthetics in the post-Soviet nightlife.”

by Alexei Yurchak Алексей Юрчак

in Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev. Adele Barker, ed. Duke University Press, 1999.

“We are all present absentees”: Art, Politics and Palestinianness

by Kiven Strohm

Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Meeting, November 2011, Montréal, Canada

This paper explores the idea of the “present absentee” and how Palestinian artists living and working in Israel are... more This paper explores the idea of the “present absentee” and how Palestinian artists living and working in Israel are appropriating this paradoxical category of identification in their practices. To begin I provide a historical and political background of the category of “present absentee,” this is then followed by how and why it has recently been adopted by Palestinians in Israel and, more precisely, by artists. Finally, I present three artists and a selection of their works, which I discuss in terms of this motif and how it is used to disrupt the exclusion and absence of Palestinians in Israel through the reconfiguration of their “Palestinianness” (falastiniyah).

“L’ infamille”. Les violences familiales sur la céramique classique entre monstration et occultation », Images Re-vues, dossier n° 9, "Parentés en images", novembre 2011. En ligne.

by Aurélie Damet

Draft Manuscript "Growing Art displaying Relationships" (8)

by Ludovic Coupaye

Draft of the Conclusion

I am not sure about giving the end of the story without the trajectory, considering the fact that I always think the... more I am not sure about giving the end of the story without the trajectory, considering the fact that I always think the demonstration as being essential - more than the theoretical musing that I'm having here. But I am submitting some of the results to see what feloows make of them.
The idea of the chapter is both to summarise and to play with what I haven't done in this manuscript. Which is loads, as always.
And here too, major changes are impossible. And the restrictions on printing, copying etc. the same as with the begining. Still you can contact me for specific questions.
And I'll definitely use comments and critiques to think further.

De « l’objet social total » à la « sociologie par l’objet »

by Ludovic Coupaye

A paper in French about to be published, in the edited volume of 2011 January conference in Paris "La Prehsitoire des Autres" (INRAP)

This short paper plays with Mauss's notion of "total social fact". I wrote it before finishing the... more This short paper plays with Mauss's notion of "total social fact". I wrote it before finishing the manuscript, and this is the first time that I start really thinking (and writing) about objects as social forms or even as a form of sociology.
The conference can be seen there: : http://www.inrap.fr/archeologie-preventive/Ressources-multimedias/Conferences-et-colloques/p-12271-La-Prehistoire-des-autres-Comment-l-archeologie-et.htm.

Draft Manuscript "Growing Art displaying Relationships" (0+1)

by Ludovic Coupaye

The final draft of the Prolegomenon and Chapter 1 of the manuscript from the thesis.

The "prolegomenon" came out of a metaphor used by Robin Kitnyora, my host brother in Nyamikum. It has shaped... more The "prolegomenon" came out of a metaphor used by Robin Kitnyora, my host brother in Nyamikum. It has shaped my thinking all the way through the writing. Alhtough I'm not super keen on navel-gazing pieces of academic writing, I still thought it makes senses when dealing with artefact and technology.
It now too late for major changes, so I'll take potential comments, and critiques for another publication!
(I set the restrictions high - to avoid the legitimate wrath of my publisher - so I'm afraid you can't print it. But you can write to me to ask for details)

When Anthropology Meets Contemporary Art

by Kiven Strohm

Collaborative Anthropologies, Vol. 5, 2012

Creating or Performing Words? Observations on Contemporary Japanese Calligraphy

by Fuyubi Nakamura

Fuyubi Nakamura. 2007.
In Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, Tim Ingold and Elizabeth Hallam(eds.) Oxford:Berg, pp. 79–98.

http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=3902
http://tamabi.academia.edu/FuyubiNakamura/

See Google Books.

Ephemeral but Eternal Words: Traces of Asia

by Fuyubi Nakamura

Fuyubi Nakamura (ed). 2010. Canberra: The ANU School of Art Gallery.

The catalogue of the exhibition I curated in Australia, 2010.
http://tamabi.academia.edu/FuyubiNakamura

Contents

Foreword by Howard Morphy

Introduction: Ephemeral but Eternal Words by Fuyubi... more Contents

Foreword by Howard Morphy

Introduction: Ephemeral but Eternal Words by Fuyubi Nakamura

The Memories of Kanji by Chihiro Minato

Floating Words by Savanhdary Vongpoothorn

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn: Words across Worlds by Chaitanya Sambrani

Phaptawan Suwannakudt by Chaitanya Sambrani

Tsubasa Kimura: The Infinite Possibility of Words by Fuyubi Nakamura

Creating New Forms of" Visualised" Words: An Anthropological Study of Contemporary Japanese Calligraphy

by Fuyubi Nakamura

Fuyubi Nakamura. Unpublished D.Phil. dissertaiton, University of Oxford, 2006.　http://tamabi.academia.edu/FuyubiNakamura/

Abstract uploaded. Abstract uploaded.

The most beautiful house in the world: The archaeology of aesthetics in eastern Hispaniola

by Alice Samson

Samson, Alice V. M. 2011 "The most beautiful house in the world: The archaeology of aesthetics in eastern Hispaniola." In Communities in Contact. Essays in archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian circum-Caribbean. C.L. Hofman and A. van Duijvenbode, eds. Pp. 421-438. Leiden: Sidestone Press.

Indigenous aesthetics are retrievable in the archaeological record of the pre-Columbian houses of the Dominican... more Indigenous aesthetics are retrievable in the archaeological record of the pre-Columbian houses of the Dominican Republic. This chapter presents evidence from thirty excavated houses spanning the ninth to sixteenth centuries from the coastal settlement of El Cabo. The excavations in El Cabo were part of the project “Houses for the Living and the Dead” funded by NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). Here,  natural wood, palm and bedrock materials were transformed into houses sharing similar architectural characteristics and life histories. The aesthetic choices of the inhabitants give insights
into social dynamics, especially with respect to the intra-settlement ethos of harmony and community.

Not growling but smiling: New interpretations of the bared-teeth motif in the pre-Columbian Caribbean

by Alice Samson

Current Anthropology 51:3, 2010