Paper short abstract:

What different types of evidence do anthropology and art history bring to bear on similar questions concerning art and material culture? How do they deal with the absence or inadequacy of evidence?

Paper long abstract:

Richard Fardon joined SOAS thirty years ago as a social anthropologist with particular interest in West Africa. In addition to more theoretical works in anthropology and biography, his writings on West Africa have addressed, often collaboratively with colleagues from other disciplines, various artistic forms: literature, film, masquerade, figure sculpture, and ritual among them. He has been struck by the different types of evidence the disciplines bring to bear on rather similar questions, and how in particular they both deal with the absence or inadequacy of evidence, and attempt to communicate these deficiencies to those who hold objects (museums, individuals, and the interconnected institutions of the art market).