Anthropologists have to wrestle with the question of how to interpret art
in a complex, post-colonial environment. This book furthers the view which
links analyses of style, tradition and society proposed by Alfred Gell, both
elaborating on and dissenting from Gell's interpretation.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 Gell's
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.
