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- Convenors:
-
Sachiko Kubota
(Kobe University)
Howard Morphy (Australian National University)
- Location:
- Hall 2
- Start time:
- 15 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The theme of this panel is the relationship between the anthropology of art and art history. It is increasingly becoming recognised that in order to understand the place of art in world history, an interdisciplinary approach is required.
Long Abstract:
The theme of this symposium is the relationship between the anthropology of art and art history. It is increasingly becoming recognised that in order to understand the place of art in world history an interdisciplinary approach is required. In the late nineteenth century anthropology and art history were closely allied disciplines, emerging out of European interest in the cultures of other places and times. However as the disciplines of art history and anthropology continued to develop their disciplinary identities the dialogue between them became less productive. For much of the twentieth century the focus of anthropology shifted away from material culture.
Art as a research topic began to come back into anthropology in the latter decades of the twentieth century, with the developing interest in meaning and symbolism and then on the aesthetic and sensual dimension of culture. Complementary processes occurred in the domain of art history and had a similar effect of bringing the disciplines more into conversation with one another.
Bringing art objects broadly defined together in the context of a more global comparative anthropological art history can be highly productive, challenging presuppositions that separate people from each other too much in space and time. Broader comparative analyses are likely to produce insights into art across cultures and show commonalities in the ways in which humans beings use aesthetic forms as a means of acting and creating meaning and value.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The drawings of the Australian Aboriginal artist Tommy McRae, made between 1864 and 1901, are an excellent case study of the ways in which art historical, cross-cultural, post- colonial and ethnographic interpretations have interacted over the last century. The paper will examine closely the work of this exemplary artist, will analyse its technical and formal properties and the various interpretive frameworks that throw light on the artist's world.
Paper long abstract:
Tommy McRae died in 1901 and for much of the ensuing century his work was rarely seen. Some of his drawings were included in the international exhibition The Art of Australia, 1941-2, but generally his work escaped wider exposure. In the 1980s this began to change, markedly. By the beginning of the 21st century, along with many other Aboriginal artists who made drawings, Tommy McRae, had become part of the ‘canon’ of Australian art history.
Tommy McRae’s drawings were originally made in sketchbooks, save for a few scattered examples, and were made between the 1860s and the 1890s. There are many examples that have survived in library and museum collections and in private hands. The sketchbooks were usually commissioned by people with an interest in the shape of Aboriginal society before colonisation. McRae’s style was original and immediately recognisable, but the drawings were later annotated by a number of different collectors.
McRae’s drawings are an ideal study of the various ways in which Aboriginal visual culture, in particular that which has a strongly narrative dimension, has been interpreted over time – as anecdote, as historical and ethnographic documentation – and as art. The drawings raise a great many questions that cross or merge a variety of disciplinary approaches. This paper will bring these approaches to an examination of some of the more elusive dimensions of his art, in particular, the ways in which we might interpret his unique spatial sense.
Paper short abstract:
Asian art is a topic that has rarely been examined by anthropologists. This paper explores the emerging roles of artists as cultural translators by examining the experiences of contemporary artists with connections to Asia who create and show artworks that negotiate diverse cultural contexts.
Paper long abstract:
Many Asian cultures possess highly developed artistic traditions of their own, and such production was until recently considered a matter for art historians rather than anthropologists. However, the recognition of forms and practices as 'art' within various Asian cultures may also be a source of misinterpretation ―subtleties being invisible by virtue of apparent similarities. A number of scholarly works have questioned classifications such as fine art, folk art, primitive art or popular art, yet they have still done so largely by adopting how these categories are understood in Euro-American discourse. Research into the history of art has also been slow in recognizing modern and contemporary Asian arts on their own terms rather than as poor reflections of Western art.
Artists trained in the field of 'traditional' art―from Buddhist mural paintings to classical calligraphy―often struggle for recognition in the global artworld unless they incorporate 'modern' art elements into their work. At the same time, certain markers of 'ethnicity' or recognisable cultural icons―such as the Buddha or Asian scripts―have been common features in the artworks by internationally successful artists from Asia. This paper discusses the experiences of artists born in Asia who have moved between different countries and/or traditions, and explores how they have worked to deal with the issues of identity through and in their work. The paper considers in what ways artists operate as 'cultural translators' who may act as local representatives and as transcultural agents.
Paper short abstract:
Breaking a Kwakwaka'wakw copper enhances the status of its owner while casting aspersions on the status of the fragment's recipient. Artist Chief Beau Dick's unprecedented public enactment before the British Columbia legislature activated regimes of validation from art, ethnography and politics.
Paper long abstract:
Sanctioned variously in Kwakwaka'wakw practice, memory, and ethnographic record, the breaking of a copper, ultimate symbol of wealth, has long enhanced the status of its owner while casting aspersions on the status of the recipient of the broken fragment. In September 2013 artist and chief Beau Dick (Namgis of the Kwakwaka'wakw) broke a copper on the steps of the British Columbia Legislature in the capital of a Canadian province notorious for its failure to settle Native land claims. The ceremony never before performed in public also drew attention to the dwindling stocks of Pacific salmon. The Face book announcement superimposed a famous Edward Curtis photograph of a Kwakwaka'wakw man holding a copper against the ornate colonial architecture of the Legislature. Image and idea sent a frisson though communities and social media: breaking a copper in public was either breaking a taboo, or setting a precedent in using the hitherto protected power of an Indigenous practice to demote that of the colonial authority, or it was performance art before a local audience historically primed for the affective dimension of any public appearance of 'the Native'. Since Hal Foster identified 'the artist as ethnographer', and Fred Myers drew attention to conflicting 'regimes of value' around Indigenous art, it is argued that this public breaking of a copper activated what are better termed regimes of validation as community debate, ethnographic turn, and contemporary art theory act, or fail to act, together.
Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses on art by Narritjin Maymuru, a Yolngu from Arnhem Land in Australia. Combining perspectives from anthropology and art history I analyse the representational and expressive techniques he employs, providing insights into how art can be an effective means of communicating cross-culturally.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on the work of Narritjin Maymuru, a renowned Yolngu artist from Arnhem Land in Northern Australia. Paintings by Narritjin exist from soon after the establishment of the mission station of Yirrkala in 1935, until his death in 1981. His corpus provides a rich opportunity to examine the oeuvre of Australian Aboriginal artist and analyse the techniques of representation he employed in conveying and expressing meanings and concepts through his artwork. Yolngu works of art whether produced for internal contexts — such as a circumcision ceremony or a mortuary ritual — or for sale to outsiders, have the same range of meanings and significance to the artist. To Yolngu art has been a means of acting in diverse and partially overlapping worlds.
In the spirit of Yolngu artists’ cross-cultural engagement I will position Narritjin Maymuru’s in a comparative framework which combines perspectives for anthropology and art history. I will show ways in which synergies can be found between the modes of representation Narritjin employs and techniques that art historians identify in western art forms - e.g. figure ground reversal, shimmer, depth - and evaluative criteria that can be applied - e.g. that a work is resolved, expressive, balanced and so on. My aim is not to write about influence, since Yolngu art is a relatively autonomous tradition, but to consider at the extent to which one can suggest generalisations about artistic practice that show how art can be an effective means of communicating cross-culturally.