by Professor Nicholas Thomas: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University
of Cambridge
Tuesday 13 October 2015 - 5:30 pm - 6:45 pm
Kenneth Clark
Lecture Theatre,
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London
WC2R 0RN, UK, WC2R 0RN
Open to all, free admission
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, studies of ‘primitive’ and
‘tribal’ arts were closely identified with museums and collecting; when the
field re-emerged in the early 1970s it was inspired by ethnography and new
theorisations of symbolic systems but relatively unconnected with the vast
collections of Oceania, African and native American art in the galleries and
stores of ethnography museums in Europe and elsewhere. The lecture reflects on
the constitution of collections, and in particular on the artefact, proposing
that the museum, in dialogue with contemporary art, again has the capacity to
constitute a ‘method’, to empower interpretations of art objects and
cross-cultural art histories.
Nicholas Thomas has written extensively on
art, empire, and Pacific history, and curated exhibitions in Australia, New
Zealand, and the UK, many in collaboration with contemporary artists. His early
book, Entangled Objects (1991) influentially contributed to a revival of
material culture studies; with Peter Brunt and other colleagues, he co-authored
Art in Oceania: a new history (2012), which was awarded the Art Book Prize.
Since 2006, he has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
in Cambridge, which was shortlisted for the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year Prize
in 2013.
See full details here.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.