Abstract
The subject of everyday or “mundane” artistic expression in Native American material culture does not always take into account the idea that aesthetic design can have explicit practical as well as decorative function. This article explores this idea through objects from the Floridian archaeological collections at the British Museum.
Highlights
The subject of everyday or “mundane” artistic expression in Native American material culture does not always take into account the idea that aesthetic design can have explicit practical as well as decorative function
In 2000 Denis Dutton deconstructed the idea that non-European indigenous peoples; what he described as “small-scale nonliterate societies” (2000: 217), “Don’t have our concept of art”
Dutton’s article critiques the notion that aesthetics and functionality are disconnected elements of design. This is an issue which has repeatedly featured during my ethnographic fieldwork with Native American artists, who expect that non-Natives such as myself will not understand the relationship between their artworks: consciously conceived, designed, created and sold within the context of the contemporary art market, and ancestral practical objects, such as delicately carved fish-hooks from the North Pacific (Fig. 1) scarred by halibut teeth from their use as fishing equipment; the “mundane artistic objects” of Dutton’s conception
Summary
The subject of everyday or “mundane” artistic expression in Native American material culture does not always take into account the idea that aesthetic design can have explicit practical as well as decorative function. This is an issue which has repeatedly featured during my ethnographic fieldwork with Native American artists, who expect that non-Natives such as myself will not understand the relationship between their artworks: consciously conceived, designed, created and sold within the context of the contemporary art market, and ancestral practical objects, such as delicately carved fish-hooks from the North Pacific (Fig. 1) scarred by halibut teeth from their use as fishing equipment; the “mundane artistic objects” of Dutton’s conception.
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