Full Description
Why do contemporary art curators define their work as ethnography? How can curation illuminate the practice of contemporary anthropology? Does anthropology risk disappearing as a specific discipline within the general model of the curatorial? The Anthropologist as Curator collects together the research of international scholars working at the intersection of anthropology and contemporary art in order to explore these questions. The essays in the book challenge what it means to do ethnographic work, as well as the very definition of the discipline of anthropology in confrontation with the model of the curatorial. The contributors examine these ideas from a variety of angles, and the book includes perspectives from anthropologists who have set up their own exhibitions; those who have conducted fieldwork on the arts, including participatory practices, digital images and sound; and contributors who are currently working in a curatorial capacity at a museum.With case studies from the USA, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, India and Japan, the book represents an international perspective and is relevant to students and scholars of anthropology, contemporary art, museum studies, curatorial studies and heritage studies.
Contents
List of FiguresContributor biographies1. Introduction: Anthropology and Curation through the Looking Glass, Roger Sansi (University of Barcelona, Spain)2. Curatorial Designs in the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Today: Act II, Tarek Elhaik (University of California, Davis, USA) and George Marcus (University of California, Irvine, USA)3. The Recursivity of the Curatorial, Jonas Tinius (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , Germany) and Sharon Macdonald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)4. Whose Stories about Africa? Reflexivity and Public Dialogue at the Royal Ontario Museum, Silvia Forni (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto and University of Toronto, Canada)5. Facing the Curatorial Turn: Anthropological Ethnography, Exhibitions, and Collecting Practices, Ivan Bargna (The University of Milano-Bicocca and Bocconi University, Italy)6. Anecdote-ing as a Curatorial Tactic for the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective, Ethnographic Terminalia 7. Coming Together Differently: Art, Anthropology and the Curatorial Space, Judith Winter (Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, UK) 8. From of, to With, to and? Curation and Collaboration in Inter-disciplinary Exhibition Making, Jen Clarke (Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, UK) 9. Curating the Intermural Graffiti in the Museum 2008-2018, Rafael Schacter (University College London, UK)10. The Curator, the Anthropologist: 'Presentialism' and Open-ended Enquiry in Process, Alex Flynn (Durham, UK) 11. Between Automation and Agency. Curatorial Challenges in New Terrains of Digital/Visual Research, Eva Theunissen (University of Antwerp, Belgium) and Paolo S. H. Favero (University of Antwerp, Belgium) 12. Anthropological Sound Curation. From Listening to Curating. Noel Lobley (University of Virginia, USA)BibliographyIndex
