Res is a journal of anthropology and comparative aesthetics dedicated to the study of the object, in particular cult and belief objects and objects of art. The journal presents contributions by philosophers, art historians, archaeologists, critics, linguists, architects, artists, and others. Its field of inquiry is open to all cultures, regions, and historical periods. Res also publishes iconographic and textual documents important to the history and theory of the arts. Res appears twice yearly, in the spring and autumn. The journal is edited by Francesco Pellizzi. More information about Res is available at www.res-journal.org.
The anthropology of art is a fast-developing area of intellectual debate and academic study. This beautifully illustrated volume is a unique survey of the current state of anthropological thinking on art and aesthetics. The distinguished contributors draw on contemporary anthropological theory and on classic anthropological topics such as myth and ritual to deepen our understanding of particular aesthetic traditions in their socio-cultural and historical contexts. Many of the essays present new findings based on recent field research in Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia, and Mexico; while others draw on classical anthropological accounts of the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia and the Nuer of the Southern Sudan to form new arguments and conclusions. The introductory overview of the history of the anthropology of art, by Sir Raymond Firth, makes this volume especially useful for those interested in learning what anthropology has to contribute to our understanding of art and aesthetics in general.
The contents of this issue are: “Between Creation and Destruction,” by Finbarr Barry Flood and Zoë Sara Strother; “People Have Three Eyes: Ephemeral Art and the Archive in Southeastern Nigeria,” by Sarah Adams; “Beyond Monument Lies Empire: Mapping Songhay Space in Tenth- to Sixteenth-Century West Africa,” by Kristina Van Dyke; “Censorship and Iconoclasm—Unsettling Monuments,” by John Peffer; “Recycling Icons and Bodies in Chinese Anti-Buddhist Persecutions,” by Eric Reinders; “Modifications of Ancient Maya Sculpture,” by Bryan R. Just; “Roman Oscilla: An Assessment,” by Rabun Taylor; “Turning Tale into Vision: Time and Image in the Divina Commedia,” by Gervase Rosser; “Building outside Time in Alberti’s De re aedificatoria,” by Marvin Trachtenberg; and “Restoration as Re-creation at the Sainte-Chapelle,” by Meredith Cohen; and the documents and discussions “The Constitution of Pleasure: François-Joseph Belanger and the Chateau de Bagatelle,” by Taha Al-Douri; “Composing Vinteuil: Proust’s Unheard Music,” by Mauro Carbone; “Diskotel 1967: Israel and the Western Wall in the Aftermath of the Six Day War,” by Daniel Bertrand Monk; “The ‘Kulturbolschewiken’ I: Fluxus, the Abolition of Art, the Soviet Union, and ‘Pure Amusement,’” by Cuauhtémoc Medina; and “Aby Warburg in America Again: With an Edition of His Unpublished Correspondence with Edwin R. A. Seligman (1927–1928),” by Davide Stimilli.
The book aims at a new exposition of the basic idea of modern aesthetics by way of a reconstruction of its genesis in the 18th century, between Baumgarten''s Aesthetics and Kant''s Critique of Judgment. The claim is that the historical invention of aesthetics was not about expanding the range of legitimate objects of philosophical inquiry--these objects all existed before aesthetics. Rather, aesthetics, by introducing the category of the "aesthetic," fundamentally redefined these objects. But most importantly, the reconstruction of the historical genesis of aesthetics shows that the introduction of the category of the "aesthetic" required nothing less than a transformation of the fundamental terms of philosophy. What begins in--or as--aesthetics is modern philosophy. More precisely, Force shows that in--or as--aesthetics modern philosophy began twice, in two different, even opposite forms. On the one hand, Baumgarten''s Aesthetics is organized around the new concept of the "subject": the concept of the subject as the totality of faculties, as the agent defined by his capabilities; of the subject as one who is able. By conceiving sensible cognition and (re)presentation as the exercise of subjective faculties acquired in practice, Baumgarten has framed the modern conception of human practices (and of philosophy as the inquiry into the conditions that enable the success of these practices). That is why aesthetics, the reflection upon the aesthetic, is a central pillar of modern philosophy: in aesthetics, the philosophy of the subject or of the subject''s faculties assures itself of its own possibility. Yet here, in the aesthetic and the reflection on it, the aesthetics "in the Baumgartian manner" (Herder), as the theory of the sensible faculties of the subject, at once faces a different aesthetics: the aesthetics of force, which conceives the aesthetic not as sensible cognition but instead as a play of expression--propelled by a force that, rather than being exercised, like a faculty, in practices, realizes itself; a force that does not recognize or represent anything because it is "obscure" and unconscious; a force not of the subject but of man as distinct from the same man as subject. The aesthetics of force is a science of the nature of man: of his aesthetic nature as distinct from the culture, acquired by practice, of his practices. That is the hypothesis the six chapters of Force intend to unfold. The first chapter, analyzing the rationalist concept of the sensible, recollects the point of departure of aesthetics: the sensible is that which is without determinable definition or measure. The second chapter reconstructs Baumgarten''s aesthetics of sensible cognition as a theory of the subject and its faculties. The third and fourth chapters draw on writings by Herder, Sulzer, and Mendelssohn to develop the basic motifs of a counter-model, an aesthetics of force: the aesthetic, as the operation of an "obscure" force, is a performance without generality, divorced from all norm, law, and purpose--a play. And the aesthetic, as the pleasure of self-reflection, is a process of the transformation of the subject, of its faculties and practices--a process of aestheticization. The aesthetics of force founds an anthropology of difference: between force and faculty, between man and subject. The two concluding chapters explore the consequences: for the idea of philosophical aesthetics; and for ethics as the theory of the good. The fifth chapter engages Kant to show that an aesthetics conceived as an aesthetics of force is the scene of an irresolvable contention: aesthetics unfolds within philosophy the contention between philosophy and aesthetic experience. The sixth chapter draws on Nietzsche to demonstrate the ethical import of aesthetic experience as the experience of the play of force: it teaches us to distinguish between action and life; it teaches the other good of life. - "The last word of aesthetics is human freedom."
Contemporary Art and Anthropology takes a new and exciting approach to representational practices within contemporary art and anthropology. Traditionally, the anthropology of art has tended to focus on the interpretation of tribal artifacts but has not considered the impact such art could have on its own ways of making and presenting work. The potential for the contemporary art scene to suggest innovative representational practices has been similarly ignored. This book challenges the reluctance that exists within anthropology to pursue alternative strategies of research, creation and exhibition, and argues that contemporary artists and anthropologists have much to learn from each others' practices. The contributors to this pioneering book consider the work of artists such as Susan Hiller, Francesco Clemente and Rimer Cardillo, and in exploring topics such as the possibility of shared representational values, aesthetics and modernity, and tattooing, they suggest productive new directions for practices in both fields.
This volume includes the editorial “The absconded subject of Pop,” by Thomas Crow; “Enlivening the soul in Chinese tombs,” by Wu Hung; “On the ‘true body’ of Huineng,” by Michele Matteini; “Apparition painting,” by Yukio Lippit; “Immanence out of sight,” by Joyce Cheng; “Absconding in plain sight,” by Roberta Bonetti; “Ancient Maya sculptures of Tikal, seen and unseen,” by Megan E. O’Neil; “Style and substance, or why the Cacaxtla paintings were buried,” by Claudia Brittenham; “The Parthenon frieze,” by Clemente Marconi; “Roma sotterranea and the biogenesis of New Jerusalem,” by Irina Oryshkevich; “Out of sight, yet still in place,” by Minou Schraven; “Behind closed doors,” by Melissa R. Katz; “Moving eyes,” by Bissera V. Pentcheva; “‘A secret kind of charm not to be expressed or discerned,’” by Rebecca Zorach; “Ivory towers,” by Richard Taws; “Boxed in,” by Miranda Lash; “A concrete experience of nothing,” by William S. Smith; “Believing in art,” by Irene V. Small; “Repositories of the unconditional,” by Gabriele Guercio; “From micro/macrocosm to the aesthetics of ruins and waste-bodies,” by Jeanette Zwingenberger; “Are shadows transparent?” by Roberto Casati; “Invisibility of the digital,” by Boris Groys; “Des formes et des catégories,” by Remo Guidieri; and “Further comments on ‘Absconding,’” by Francesco Pellizzi.
True to anthropology's hallmark relativism, Anderson includes the popular arts in his analysis, giving as much attention to such things as wedding cakes, rock-n-roll, and tattoos as he does to fine arts, such as gallery paintings, classical music, and serious literature."--BOOK JACKET.
This anthology provides a single-volume overview of the essential theoretical debates in the anthropology of art. Drawing together significant work in the field from the second half of the twentieth century, it enables readers to appreciate the art of different cultures at different times. Advances a cross-cultural concept of art that moves beyond traditional distinctions between Western and non-Western art. Provides the basis for the appreciation of art of different cultures and times. Enhances readers’ appreciation of the aesthetics of art and of the important role it plays in human society.
In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of Lévi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Lévi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensée sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into an unusual and imaginative whole.
This book offers an alternate approach to aesthetic anthropology through an inquiry into the work of 5 contemporary artists. The author shifts traditional ideas of aesthetic experience and the creative act away from the faculty of the imagination towards the faculty of cogitation, suggesting a new "anthropology of cogitation" that is underwritten by a general, artistic intelligence.The book draws from three interconnected resources: the vital "ecology of mind," theorized by anthropologist Gregory Bateson; the salutary play in intermediary "potential spaces," advocated by British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott; and the virtus cogitativa found in the oeuvre of Ibn Rushd (Latin Averroes), the 12th century rationalist thinker known for innovating Aristotelian psychology and science of the soul.By opening a new dialogue between anthropology, art history, and philosophy, Tarek Elhaik examines image-work, ethical demands, and aesthetic struggles of his interlocutors, the artists Adrian Piper, Anna Maria Maiolino, Mathias Goeritz, Mounir Fatmi, and Silvia Gruner.
