藝術人類學與當代藝術

Anthropology of Contemporary Art

學期

114-2

學分

3 學分

當期課號

133306

永久課號

HSVC30004

開課單位

視覺文化研究所

授課教師

謝一誼

校區

陽明

類別

選修

上課時間表

節	週四
7 15:30–16:20	藝術人類學與當代藝術 YX322 3 節連堂
8 16:30–17:20
9 17:30–18:20

* 根據陽明交大上課時間表所列

概述

In recent years the art world has witnessed a surge of interests in collaborative art practices, by which artists working side by side with not merely fellow artists but also anthropologists, community organizers, or even physicists and biologists—those considered outside the conventional space of galleries and museums. This course introduces students to a series of discussion surrounding this new paradigm of art practices, with which cultural theorists and art practioners welcome innovative collaboration as a way to challenge the boundary between art and society. We begin by reading analyses of collaborative art practices inspired by the global-art-history turn in the field, followed by the scholarship in anthropology that experiments on a new form of art and cultural theories pertaining to affective investment beyond an art-as-the-gift paradigm. We read and discuss how in different cultural and historical contexts art practices are launched in relation to other social segments inside and outside of museums. How do we evaluate the classic ethos of “art for art’s sake” from a perspective of global art history? How do we conceptualize aesthetic concepts in a post-sublime context where minor affects—such as boredom, cuteness, alienation, relationality and response—permeate contemporary art criticism? How do we consider the production of pleasure by artists whose works embrace popular culture beyond the traditional realm of high culture? How shall we navigate and envision the horizon for art practices today? Embarking on this journey of the anthropology of contemporary art, students will be encouraged to reconsider the nature and subject of art practices and art works. Students without prior training in Anthropology are encouraged to discuss their learning strategies with the instructor. In the spirit of collaborative learning, the instructor will adjust her lectures in relation to each student’s background and interests. Complimentary lectures and class discussions on the key concepts included in the readings will be provided from the perspective of the history of anthropology.

評分方式

ASSIGNMENTS: 1. Mid-term paper: Due on the 10th week. A reflection paper based on a subject of your choice, which should also include discussions on the readings assigned for the first half of the term. 3000 words, 12 ft, 1.5 line spacing, font in either Times New Roman or Garamond. Accepting papers written in Chinese. Students should meet with the instructor about the paper. 2. Final paper due a week after the last session. Topic of your own choice but must be related to at least one session-theme covered in the syllabus. Final essay has to address at least two assigned readings and can be developed from your midterm paper. 7000 words, same format requirement as the midterm. Accepting papers written in Chinese. EVALUATION: Participation: 20% Midterm essay: 30 % Final essay: 50%

週次計畫

週次	主題
第 1 週	Introduction We will go through the syllabus carefully together and introduce the main themes of the readings. How has anthropology traditionally considered art from an approach of symbolism and sociality? How has the structuralist and post-structuralist emphasis on agency shifted the paradigm? Reading: • Arnd Schneider & Christopher Wright. ‘Ch.1 Ways of Working’ in Anthropology and Art Practice, edited by Arnd Schneider & Christopher Wright. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013, 1-24.
第 2 週	Conjunctions and Agency of Art Reading: • Thomas, Nicholas. ‘Foreword’ in Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford U.P., 1998, pp. vii-xiii. • Gell, Alfred. ‘Chapter 1& 2,’ Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford U.P., 1998, pp.1-11.
第 3 週	Coevalness - Time and the Other Reading: • Fabian, Johannes. ‘Ch.1: Time and the Emerging Other’ Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object, Columbia U.P., 2002, pp. 1-36. Extended Reading: • Fabian, Johannes. ‘Ch.2, Our Time, Their Time, No Time: Coevalness Denied,’ Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object, Columbia U.P., 2002, pp. 37-70. • Flynn, Alex. ‘Global South: Occupation//Participation//Knowledge.’ An Anthropology of Contemporary Art: Practices, Markets, and Collectors. Bloomsbury, 2018, 179-195.
第 4 週	Semantics of Collaborative Art Practice How have the politics of art shifted from the Cold War ideology to community-oriented collaboration beyond the Euro-American world? How has the post-war art theories evolved from the Frankfurt school critical theory to contemporary art criticism? Reading: • Kester, Grant. ‘chapter 1,’ The One and The Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context. Duke U.P., 2011, pp. 19-65. Extended Reading: • Kester, Grant. ‘Introduction,’ The One and The Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context. Duke U.P., 2011, pp.1-17.
第 5 週	Image and Medium This week we discuss Philippe Descola—one of the leading anthropologists of our time—who has developed a program of an anthropology of figuration to consider the work of art as potential agents of intentionality. Placing Descola’s idea in contrast to Alfred Gell’s focus on iconicity (Week 2), we will get a glimpse of how contemporary French anthropology treats art from a non-binary view in a post-structuralist context, and in relation to their opposition to the Nature-Culture divide. Reading: • Descola, Philippe. ‘Chapter 1.1, The Making of Images,’ An Anthropology of Contemporary Art: Practices, Markets, and Collectors. Bloomsbury, 2018, 25-40. • Favero, Paolo S. H.. ‘Chapter 1.2, To Swallow or to get Swallowed, this is the Question: On Viewing, Viewers, and Frames in the Context of “New” Images,’ An Anthropology of Contemporary Art: Practices, Markets, and Collectors. Bloomsbury, 2018, pp. 41-56
第 6 週	From Visual Anthropology to Multimodal Anthropology (Spring break NO CLASS, museum visit) Closely related to public anthropology, multimodal anthropology encourages students and researchers to mobilize cross-disciplinary and multi-sensorial modes of knowledge production. This includes utilizing forms of photo-essays, filmmaking, curation, exhibition making, walking, or food into one’s project. In lieu of this mode of accessing anthropology of art through multi-sensorial, aesthetic, or bodily practices, students attend an exhibition of public art during the week—of their own choice. As this week’s assignment is closely related to the discussions from week 1 to week 4, students should reflect on their comprehension of those readings during the exhibition visit. We will discuss the exhibition visit in the meeting of week 7 and relate students’ observations back to this week’s reading. Students are encouraged to incorporate the works encountered in the exhibition into their midterm or term paper. Reading: • Collins, Samuel Gerald, Durlington, Matthew, and Gill, Harjant. ‘Multimodal Anthropologies: Multimodality: An Invitation,’ American Anthropologist, Vol. 119, No.1, 2017, pp. 142-153.
第 7 週	Appropriation and Decolonial Approaches Reading: • Thomas, Nicholas. ‘Appropriation/Appreciation: Settler Modernism in Australia and New Zealand.’ The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture, 2011, pp. 139-164.
第 8 週	Ethnographic Method Unbound How does the anthropological method respond to knowledge production? What innovative ways are used for art, science, and anthropology to collaborate with each other? • Cox, Rupert & Carlyle, Angus. ‘Skylarks: An Exploration of a Collaboration Between Art, Anthropology and Science,” in Anthropology and Art Practice. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, pp. 157-164. • Rabinow, Paul. ‘Part 1: Men of Knowledge in Search of Salvation,’ in The Accompaniment: Assembling the Contemporary. Chicago U.P., 2011, pp.5-12.
第 9 週	Food Art and Curatorial Guest Speaker (virtual): Dr. Francis Maravillas (Programme Leader, BA (Hons) Art Histories and Curatorial Practices: Asia and the World, Snr Lecturer. La Salle College of Arts, Singapore) Reading: • Maravillas, Francis. ‘The Unexpected Guest: Food and Hospitality in Contemporary Asian Art’ in Caroline Turner and Michelle Antoinette (eds) Contemporary Asian Art and Exhibitions: Connectivities and World-Making, ANU P., 2014, pp. 159-177. • Dohmen, Renate. ‘Towards A Cosmopolitan Criticality? Relational Aesthetics, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Transnational Encounters with PAD THAI,’ Open Arts Journal, Issue 1, pp. 35-46, Summer 2013.
第 10 週	Community-based art practices How do anthropologists work with art groups in community-based projects? How does the collaboration challenge the disciplinary boundary? Reading: • Grant H. Kester, ‘chapter 2, The Genius of the Place, section 1-4,’ The One and The Many. Duke U.P., pp. 67-100. Extended Reading: • Grant H. Kester, ‘chapter 2, The Genius of the Place, section 5-9,’ The One and The Many. Duke U.P., pp. 100-154. #Midterm paper due
第 11 週	Disjuncture and Differences in Cultural Economy How has disjuncture emerged against the backdrop of joyous economy? How has the cultural industry affected art circulation and artists? Reading: • Appadurai, Arjun. ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.’ Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 7, 1990, pp. 295-310. • Hsieh, I-Yi. ‘Art malls and popular collecting in post-socialist China,’ Researching Art Markets: Past, Present and Tools for the Future, edited by Elisabetta Lazzaro, Nathalie Moureau, and Adriana Turpin. Routledge, 2020, pp. 51-62. Extended Reading: • Hutter, Michael. The Rise of Joyous Economy: Artistic Invention and Economic Growth from Brunelleschi to Murakami. Routledge, 2015.
第 12 週	Our Aesthetic Categories Reading: • Ngai, Sianne. ‘Introduction’ to Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, and Interesting. Harvard U.P., 2015, pp. 1-52. Extended Reading: • Ngai, Sianne. ‘Ch.1, The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde,’ Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, and Interesting. Harvard U.P., 2015, pp. 53-109. • Ngai, Sianne. Ch.2 Merely Interesting, Ch.3 The Zany Science.’ Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, and Interesting. Harvard U.P., 2015, pp. 110-173.
第 13 週	The Care Turn in Contemporary Art Guest Speaker (virtual): Dr. Elke Krasny (Professor for Art and Education and Head of the Art and Education Program at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) Reading: • Krasny, Elke and Perry, Lara. ‘Introduction’ to Curating with Care, edited by Elke Krasny and Lara Perry. Routledge, 2018, pp.1-10. • Kokoli, Alexandra. ‘Caring, Aftercare, and the Work of Transmission: Learning from Greenham Common.’ Curating with Care, edited by Elke Krasny and Lara Perry. Routledge, 2018, pp. 117-130.
第 14 週	Curatorial Practices Towards A New Asian Art History Exhibition visit to MoCA Taipei with curator Dr. Feng-Yi Chu (Independent curator) Reading: • Antoinette, Michelle. ‘Introduction Part 2 – Asian Present and Resonant: Themes of Connectivity and World-making in Contemporary Asian Art,’ Contemporary Asian Art and Exhibitions, 2014, pp. 23-46. • Turner, Caroline. ‘Critical Themes, Geopolitical Changes and Global Contexts in Contemporary Asian Art,’ Contemporary Asian Art and Exhibitions, 2014, pp. 1-22.
第 15 週	Student Presentations Students presenting their final paper project.
第 16 週	Individual Meetings Students schedule individual meetings, of 20-30 mins, with the instructor, in which their term paper and future study plans are the center of discussion.