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Product Identifiers

PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated

ISBN-100198280149

ISBN-139780198280149

eBay Product ID (ePID)806328

Product Key Features

Number of Pages296 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameArt and Agency : an Anthropological Theory

Publication Year1998

SubjectAnthropology / Cultural & Social, History / General

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaArt, Social Science

AuthorAlfred Gell

FormatUk-Trade Paper

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight16.4 Oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceCollege Audience

LCCN97-051845

Dewey Edition21

ReviewsAn extraordinary achievement. Gell offers a profound new understanding of collective agency which completely reshapes the anthropology of art, redefines its objects of study, and inspires new conclusions., This book changes the very basis of the way art has been viewed in the human sciences. It presents what is the first fundamental theory for an anthropology of art. Its publication is a major event., "[This] is not only a contribution to anthropology but a subtle and original counterweight to the banalities of globalization theory."--Times Literary Supplement, This is a remarkable work ... witty, elegant, broad in its compass and scintillating in its detail. It is characteristically polemical ... alive with his sense of purpose and his quite original and captivating account of how we are captivated by relations between forms ... The book know what to do with the limits of form--one suddenly sees how anthropology might surpass itself.

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal701.03

Table Of ContentForeword1. The Problem Defined: The Need for an Anthropology of Art2. The Theory of the Art Nexus3. The Art Nexus and the Index4. The Involution of the Index in the Art Nexus5. The Origination of the Index6. The Critique of the Index7. The Distributed Person8. Style and Culture9. Conclusion: The Extended MindBibliographyIndex

SynopsisIn Art and Agency, Alfred Gell formulates an anthropological theory of visual art that focuses on the social context of art production, circulation, and reception. As a theory of the nexus of social relations involving works of art, this work suggests that in certain contexts, art-objects substitute for persons and thus mediate social agency. Diversely illustrated--and based on European, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian sources--Art and Agency was completed just before Gell's death at the age of fifty-one in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigor, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation., Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency, and he explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions--European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian. Art and Agency was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation., Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He argues that existing anthropological and aesthetic theories take an overwhelmingly passive point of view, and questions the criteria that accord art status only to a certain class of objects and not to others. The anthropology of art is here reformulated as the anthropology of a category of action: Gell shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency. He explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions--European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian. Art and Agency was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation.

LC Classification NumberN72.A56G45 1998