Art history - week 8 - 1/04/2019

READINGS
From these two reading, I have noticed that my opinion is quite a bias or non-conforming. Or I find myself finding it quite hard to care, due to the fact I think everyone is valid with there own opinion and I think it's ok to have different opinions. Which is bad because this class isn't about my opinion I don't have a degree, therefore my opinion does not matters. It only matters if I have evidence, research and quotes to back my opinion up. So treading these articles and papers have made me realise this, and now that it has come to a clear reasons behind why I struggle to read them, I think it is important to be able to stand the middle ground when it comes to Art History to have a large understanding when it comes to the argument at hand. So know when I read these reading I have learnt to leave my opinion aside and stand the third ground to further understand the argument and be able to analyse it and discuss it better in class. 

I think all the articles that were given to us were very interesting, and have all valid points. Though the writing style, I do not agree with as it is quite not straight to the point sometimes in the Alfred Gell, Art and Agency. I think it drags along a bit too much and doesn't further investigate what each thing means and how it is in context. Also, there is intensive language so when reading it there is a lot of looking up words to understand the paper which did put me off a bit but I do think the argument is still valid in a modern context. Also very relevant to what we are doing in class so it did help when it came to thinking about things we had discussed or learnt in class as it further developed on the idea of Mario art and, museum art. 

Marcel Mauss and the psychology of gift-giving, was very interesting as a class discussion and it was the paper that made me realise I was being a bit bias with my opinion. As I believe there is no need for gift giving, just being with people is enough. Though it doesn't matter what I think, because I don't have research to back up my opinion on this. This paper also discusses about the Psychology of it which was very interesting as it does also talk about the religious aspect of it which is very relevant as to what we are learning in class and I would have liked to learn more about that in the paper but it didn't discuss it much or further elaborate on it. 

Alfred Gell, Art and Agency

• culture appropriation  
• Art comes from people, there is not just Western or non-Western 
• 'art object'
• objects have agent
• social context, social approach
• social process exchange, politics, religion and kinship 
• doesn't end at the person, or person ends at the object
• primary and secondary objects work by distributed personhood
• "Primary agents are “intentional beings who are categorically distinguished from ‘mere’ things or artefacts”  " Gell (1998) 
• "Secondary agents are “artefacts, dolls, cars, works of art, etc. through which primary agents distribute their agency in the causal milieu, and thus render their agency effective”" Gell (1998) 
• "An anthropological theory of art should not elucidate western vs. non-western aesthetic systems" Gell (1998)

Marcel Mauss and the psychology of gift-giving

• gifts are never free. 
• gifts almost without exception give rise to reciprocal exchange or at least the expectation 
• gift engages the honour of both the giver and receiver
• spiritual artefact
• The gift is irreversibly tied to the giver – in Mauss’ words, “the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them.”
• a gift is so tightly linked with the giver and receiver, the act of giving implies an important social bond, obligating the receiver to reciprocate with a return gift
• Polynesian culture, for example, failure to reciprocate the gift-giving is said to result in a loss of one’s spiritual authority.
• a gift is forever bound to the giver. It never fully changes ownership – it is almost as though it is only given on loan, hence the difficulty of selling, or even giving away, something that was gifted. 
• to create a bigger bond between to people giver and receiver