Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory

by Alfred Gell

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198280149
• ISBN13: 9780198280149
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.2"