Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how anthropologists may better capture what it is to exist in the conditions of contemporaneity and whether contemporaneity actually exists outside of the images and objects that fleetingly and elusively define it?

Paper long abstract:

Art historian, Terry Smith, conceives of contemporary art as "An interrogation into the ontology of the present, that asks; What is it to exist in the conditions of contemporaneity?" (2009:2). This conceptualisation of contemporary art primarily as a means of enquiry rather than an expression / reflection of the artist's psyche, provokes a challenge to how anthropology has traditionally treated the art object. Following the perspective that art is a projection of the artist's psyche, anthropology has tended to treat art objects as a projection of culture, a 'cultural product'. Insights into a particular culture, it is therefore assumed, can be interpreted from the images, stories, sculptures and other objects the culture produces. While this is undoubtedly true, the interpretation of the object taking precedence over engaging with the question the artist is posing through their work is also problematic, especially concerning anthropological investigations into ontology of the present.

This paper poses the question as to what value could be gleaned by anthropology by examining materialism through the lens of contemporary art. How can anthropologists better capture what it is to exist in the conditions of contemporaneity and does contemporaneity actually exist outside of the images, sounds and objects that fleetingly and elusively define it?