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Written from the perspective of a practising artist, this book proposes that, against a groundswell of historians, museums and commentators claiming to speak on behalf of art, it is artists alone who may define what art really is. Jelinek contends that while there are objects called 'art' in museums from deep into human history and from around the globe - from Hans Sloane's collection, which became the foundation of the British Museum, to Alfred Barr's inclusion of 'primitive art' within the walls of MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art - only those that have been made with the knowledge and discipline of art should rightly be termed as such. Policing the definition of art in this way is not to en...
Art is not political action. Art is not education. Art does not exist to make society stronger, or the world a better place. Art disrupts and resists the comfortable, the stiflingly familiar and the status quo, or it only serves to deaden a disenfranchised society further. So argues This Is Not Art, a radical and vigorous critique that debunks myths about art in order to celebrate its real and unique importance. With the postmodern deconstruction of now-outdated shibboleths such as 'genius', 'authenticity' and 'beauty', new and neoliberal myths about art have arisen to take their place: that art's value is primarily monetary as a prized and marketable commodity, or that art is important beca...
Art is not political action. Art is not education. Art does not exist to make the world a better place. Art disrupts and resists the status quo and if it fails in this prime objective it only serves to deaden a disenfranchised society further. So argues This Is Not Art, a radical and vigorous critique that debunks myths about art in order to celebrate it. With the postmodern deconstruction of now-outdated shibboleths, new and neo liberal myths about art have arisen to take their place: that art's value is primarily monetary, or that art is important because it ameliorates social problems. Highlighting the social mechanisms of legitimization and dissemination that exclude the genuinely disrup...
This book (vol. 1 of 2) not only enlarges understanding of Oceanic art history and Oceanic collections in important ways, but also enables new reflections upon museums and ways of undertaking work in and around them.
Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond provides a new look at the old anthropological concern with materiality and connectivity. It understands materiality not as defined property of some-thing, nor does it take connectivity as merely a relation between discrete entities. Somewhat akin to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it sees materiality and connectivity as two interrelated modes in which an entity is, or more precisely – is becoming, in the world. The question, thus, is how these two modes of becoming relate and fold into each other. Throughout the four-year research process that led to this book, the authors approached this question not just from a theo...
The sites from which postcolonial cultural articulations develop and the sites at which they are received have undergone profound transformations within the last decades. This book traces the accelerating emergence of cultural crossovers and overlaps in a global perspective and through a variety of disciplinary approaches. It starts from the premise that after the ‘spatial turn’ human action and cultural representations can no longer be grasped as firmly located in or clearly demarcated by territorial entities. The collection of essays investigates postcolonial articulations of various genres and media in their spatiality and locatedness while envisaging acts of location as dynamic cultu...
Do fictions depend upon imagination? Derek Matravers argues against the mainstream view that they do, and offers an original account of what it is to read, listen to, or watch a narrative. He downgrades the divide between fiction and non-fiction, largely dispenses with the imagination, and in doing so illuminates a succession of related issues.
This book analyses the partnership between applied theatre and sexual health communication in a theatre-making project in Nyanga, a township in South Africa. By examining the bridges and schisms between the two fields as they come together in the project, an alternative way of approaching sexual health communication is advocated. This alternative considers what it is that applied theatre does, and could become, in this context. Moments of value which lie around the margins of the practice emerge as opportunities that can be overlooked. These somewhat ephemeral, intangible moments, which appear on the edges, are described as ‘apertures of possibility’ and occur when one takes a step back and realises something unnoticed in the moment. This book offers an invitation to pause and notice the seemingly insignificant moments that often occurs tangentially to the practice. The book also calls for more outcry about sexual health and sexual violence, arguing for theatre-making as a route to multitudes of voices, nuanced understandings, and diverse spaces in which discussions of sexuality and sexual health are shared, felt, and experienced.
The first volume in the new ?Plural? series, this publication seeks to critically dissect the term ?activism?, which today seems to have become a catchword for any woman?s empowerment through the arts, and reveal the diversity of practices and realities that it comprises. Presenting a range of critical insights, perspectives, and practices from artists, activists, and academics, it reflects on the role of feminist interventions in the field of contemporary art, the public sphere, and politics. In the process, it touches upon broader questions of cultural difference, history, class, economic standing, ecological issues, and sexual orientation, as well as the ways in which these intersect.
Making a Good Life takes a timely look at the ideas and values that inform how people think about reproduction and assisted reproductive technologies. In an era of heightened scrutiny about parenting and reproduction, fears about environmental degradation, and the rise of the biotechnology industry, Katharine Dow delves into the reproductive ethics of those who do not have a personal stake in assisted reproductive technologies, but who are building lives inspired and influenced by environmentalism and concerns about the natural world's future. Moving away from experiences of infertility treatments tied to the clinic and laboratory, Dow instead explores reproduction and assisted reproductive ...