Anthropology and Art Practice

Description

Anthropology and Art Practice takes an innovative look at new experimental work informed by the newly-reconfigured relationship between the arts and anthropology. This practice-based and visual work can be characterised as 'art-ethnography'. In engaging with the concerns of both fields, this cutting-edge study tackles current issues such as the role of the artist in collaborative work, and the political uses of documentary. The book focuses on key works from artists and anthropologists that engage with 'art-ethnography' and investigates the processes and strategies behind their creation and exhibition.The book highlights the work of a new generation of practitioners in this hybrid field, such as Anthony Luvera, Kathryn Ramey, Brad Butler and Karen Mizra, Kate Hennessy and Jennifer Deger, who work in a diverse range of media - including film, photography, sound and performance. Anthropology and Art Practice suggests a series of radical challenges to assumptions made on both sides of the art/anthropology divide and is intended to inspire further dialogue and provide essential reading for a wide range of students and practitioners.

Arnd Schneider is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo, Norway.Christopher Wright is a lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK where he teaches visual anthropology.

"A major virtue of the book is the way it is possible, given the accessible writing styles and each chapter's length ... to simply browse through as one might do when reading a set of short stories to seek out one's own favourite chapter(s), although I found too many favourites to mention them all. - Qualitative Research - Karen Henwood, Cardiff University, UK This little collection of essays by artists employing a variety of media is magical! It captivates the reader by its reach, but also by its depth, and the reflectiveness of the short essays of which it is comprised. So regardless of whether the objet d'art is a film, a photography series, or a multimedia installation, the thoughtfulness of analysis that the artists reveal in their words is challenging and enthralling ... The third volume in a remarkable series. - Visual Anthropology Review This volume is an exciting contribution to a burgeoning literature on the ways that artists and anthropologists operate in shared spaces ... and is therefore relevant reading for visual artists and cultural anthropologists alike ... Scholars in the art world, contemporary artists, and visual anthropologists would all benefit from reading this text. - Museum Anthropology Review - Elizabeth Derderian, Northwestern University, US The approaches offered in this volume afford relief from a critical orthodoxy that has insisted on imposing on emergent phenomena theoretical formulations elaborated in response to very different historical conditions and applied with an oppositional certitude that seriously constrains one's ability to productively navigate the circumstances one wishes to understand. For this reason, above all, this volume makes a very welcome contribution. - Museum Anthropology - Pamela G. Smart, Binghampton University, US Those familiar with the two previous outstanding collections edited by Schneider and Wright, examining the relationships between art and anthropology, will find this addition, making a trilogy, equally indispensable. The distinctive value of this collection is indeed its close examination of 'practice' amid the growing importance of thinking and experiment that blurs the boundaries between anthropological research and artistic intervention. No other work better shows, rather than tells, what 'keywords' like performance, collaboration, participation, installation, and curatorial/ ethnographic method mean in this lively realm of the senses, imagination, and contemporary curating. - George E. Marcus, Director, Center for Ethnography, University of California, Irvine One of the most promising directions for new research into contemporary art practice can be found in the rapprochement between art history and anthropology, as artists increasingly find themselves working in complex social contexts beyond the confines of galleries and museums. Schneider and Wright's collection provides an invaluable compendium of current research at this important disciplinary intersection. - Grant Kester is Professor of Art History at UCSD, USA and author of 'The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context'"