Thinking about artworlds in a global flow: Some major disparities in dealing with visual culture

Abstract

This article will argue that the differences between art history and the anthropology of art not just due to discipline-driven methodologies, though these are certainly a factor, but also occur because art historians and anthropologists are usually asking rather different questions, and finding the answers in quite different places within the culture. As a starting point I will demonstrate these differences of both approach and result, using two acclaimed studies by anthropologists of African expressive culture, one from the Congo (Zaire), the other from Sierra Leone. Although very different from each other, both downplay the importance of affect, and both assume aesthetic practice is transparent, i.e. that it directly reflects the meaning of life or human behavior. No art historian would make such a confident assumption.