1 December 2011

Frameworks for Interpretation

Cultural Anthropology, Material Culture and Art History
II: Artefact as art
Gell, Vogels Net: Traps as Artworks and Artworks as Traps
Art and Agency, 1998
At the root is the question of how to treat non-Western objects can they be seen as art
if it is a purely Western construct?
Primitivism in 20th Century Art held in 1994 at MoMA, NY place primitive art in a
Western art narrative co-opted by Western artists as inspiration for their own work,
suggests a purer relationship with their work than that contaminated by the Western
world
o Contrast with Orientalism: people are corrupted by the luxury and indolence of
the Orient
o We were made superior to both the noble savage and the oriental however you
construct the Other, Western society is deemed to come up on top
o Primitivism show was accused of colonialism and de-contextualization
1995 exhibition, Africa: Art of a Continent at the Royal Academy how could you
proclaim to display an entire continent in one exhibition?
o Curated by artist whose interest in these objects was entirely aesthetic
o Not inserted into Western art narrative, but they were shown as nothing more than
beautiful things no notion of the culture that created them, why or how they
were created
o Rather than validation coming by use value, their value came from curatorship of
an artists eye
Anthropologists have been very wary of art historians excursions into non-Western
world
Gell trying to bring anthropology into line with ideas of art
o Western notions about what makes a work of art: Aesthetic qualities, notion of
creator, viewing context
o All too easy to exclude art based on Western notions of what art is
o One way of leveling the playing field is to deny that there is a special quality such
as art democratization of production
Gell concentrates on the installation of the Zande hunting net, three ways of defining
what art is:
o Aesthetic: an internal argument, something inherent in work of art, ultimately
determined by the appearance of the object
Work of art fits series of expectations of what a work of art is selffulfilling
Question of subjectivity of the viewer
What about 20th century conceptualism? (How a work of art looks has
nothing to do with whether its a work of art)
o Interpretative: determined by context in which it appears; how it fits within a
system of ideas of an art historical tradition making explicit the ideas that
underlie the aesthetic definitions

o Art is anything that is taken to be art by the art world (curators, museums, art
historians) anything that is determined to be art by being in an art setting
Fits with Modernist concepts of art, away from aesthetic definition of art
Note that he uses language of art criticism and appreciation rather than art
history
How do these definitions work w/ non-Western art?
o The first two definitions simply co-opt non-Western art into a Western tradition
they provide a cultural context for non-Western art to be assimilated
Gell points out a paradox in the second definition: if art has to fit within a tradition of artmaking, then the Zande hunting net cannot be art
o There must be a get-out clause within this definition that allows non-Western
objects to be art even if it doesnt fit the tradition
o It is this paradox that Gell wants to solve
Gell is against the idea of simply looking for a definition within a particular culture
simply imposes Western ideas again, we begin looking for the wise men within
societies to tell us what makes something art and what makes something not-art
o So much depends on how you choose your wise men
o Returns us to the elite determining meaning
The technical expertise required for production of art interest in materiality of culture
o The skill thats gone into making this is what gives it its power
Traps: net represents enchantment of technology; both trap and artwork ensnare people
through their conceptual and artifactual complexity
Traps act as substitutes for humans the abduction of agency agency is transferred to
object and it takes on something of its creator
Places objects in the midst of a set of social relationships which is the stuff of
anthropology
Artworks demonstrate their own capacity in a midst of sets of social relationships
The Art Nexus chart, divided into Agent and Patient
o Four categories: Artist, Index (art object), Prototype (referent, what is being
depicted), Recipient (patron or audience)
o Divides it into two sides
o Agent: when each of these four categories has a capacity to act on the others
o Patient: passive relationships
A lot of his language comes from semiotics (such as Pierce)
o Icon: direct relationship to what is depicted
o Index: more discursive relationship, causal links between image and what is being
represented
Ex. Smoke as index of fire
o Symbol: the relationship to what it represents is entirely arbitrary
Trying to create relationships b/t works of art not simply a question of artistic
influence, trying to establish what it is that leads from the creation of one work of art to
another work of art
o A way to map out all the elements involved in creating a work of art
Agency of art is not really about the absence of human agent art cannot really work by
itself, but it works through its position in social relationships
What does this mean for questions of authorship?

o Where does the author fit back in with Gells ideas about agency? Seems that
agency brings author back in in a more nuanced way
o Intentions are recoverable through exploring the social relations