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Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory
In Art and Agency, Alfred Gell formulates an anthropological theory of visual art that focuses on the social context of art production, circulation, and reception. As a theory of the nexus of social relations involving works of art, this work suggests that in certain contexts, art-objects substitute for persons and thus mediate social agency. Diversely illustrated and based on European, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian sources, Art and Agency was completed just before Gell's death at the age of fifty-one in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigor, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation.
271 pages, Paperback
First published July 9, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 7, 2018
"It is not that I want to be more original than my colleagues who have applied the existing theory of art to exotic objects, I just want to be unoriginal in a new way."
This book was tooooo much. For me as a person who is not really into anthropology it was quite an issue. But honestly this book is quite amazing. Gell provides us with his theories, but more importantly, he gives us an empirical value by showing examples of how his theories can be applicable to the real world.
This book was tooooo much. For me as a person who is not really into anthropology it was quite an issue. But honestly this book is quite amazing. Gell provides us with his theories, but more importantly, he gives us an empirical value by showing examples of how his theories can be applicable to the real world.
December 29, 2012
a wonderful book! It approaches the art object through its role as a social agent, so as the category of the art object is widely broadened. An interesting book for anthropologists and art lovers.
February 16, 2025
Shocked and ashamed to say i understood and resonated with the anthropological jargon and insufferably loved myself for doing so
September 20, 2014
The book is a-historical study of how art’s agency be used to study the responses of people who treat works of art as living beings. It makes us reflect the importance of the object and how we interact with it. Ideas of the appearance of the inanimate as an animated, living being that defines living presence response, makes it resistent to any form of scientific explanation, and at the same time very unsettling. Highly recommended.
July 16, 2007
Gell's notion of art as a prosthetic extension of the body's sensory and instrumental capacity is applicable to many other interests such as the materialities of communication or ritual techniques.
June 26, 2013
Objects. Agency. Yes.
January 23, 2025
Qué movida
July 9, 2023
This book is bonkers. Crazy as a coconut.
It’s important to say that.
It’s also exciting and compelling and, sorry to say it, mind-blowing.
The core idea is that objects have agency, but what exactly did Gell mean by that? It seems to me that it could be very closely related to Object Oriented Ontology with it’s ‘lively’ objects and Morton’s ‘symbiotic real’. And also related to the recent repurposing of Animism, but Gell didn’t want (or need) to go in that direction.
Pay attention now. Listen to this. At one point he says that anthropology is about human relationships and that therefore, for an anthropological theory of art to work, we must see ‘art’ objects as ‘human’. I’m paraphrasing, but I kid you not. (By extension, he implies that everything should be given personhood) At other parts of the book his argument is more subtle, nuanced, philosophical and ambiguous, but at the heart is this deeply strange idea. I think it’s important not to take that strangeness away by giving it an academic carapace. It’s an odd idea. It doesn’t need scientific justification. Once you take it on board, it changes the way you look at art. Try it. Look at an art object as a living thing. It takes an act of imagination, but I promise you, it will transform your relationship with art.
The problem is that I sound like a crazy hippy when I talk about this. Is that bad?
Anyway, central to this idea (objects have agency) is another idea; the distributed person. Gell says that there is no core self, but that we are more accurately seen as the layers of an onion, each layer being one facet of us. This also seems related to Morton’s Object Oriented Ontology and the idea that the parts are more than the whole. Most mind-blowingly of all, Gell expands that distributed person so that it can incorporate images or representations of a person. That’s right! A photo of you IS you! In a sense. It’s one of the layers of your distributed personhood. This is a fundamental strategy of Gell’s; grouping things in different ways to create different objects or catagories. For example, he says that we should view the complete oeuvre of an artist as one unified object in the same way that we see a dinner set as a complete object.
Gell died before the book was completely finished and it does have an unfinished quality. For example, it ends abruptly without a proper concluding chapter. However, you suspect the rawness and informality would have been there in the writing even of he’d had a chance to do a second and third draft. He makes broad gestures and sweeping claims. He’s happy to casually demolish the entire history of asesthetics as a subject without much explanation because it suits his argument.
But, as well as being sad, it’s deeply frustrating that he wasn’t able to write more and that we can’t have these ideas expanded and developed.
It’s important to say that.
It’s also exciting and compelling and, sorry to say it, mind-blowing.
The core idea is that objects have agency, but what exactly did Gell mean by that? It seems to me that it could be very closely related to Object Oriented Ontology with it’s ‘lively’ objects and Morton’s ‘symbiotic real’. And also related to the recent repurposing of Animism, but Gell didn’t want (or need) to go in that direction.
Pay attention now. Listen to this. At one point he says that anthropology is about human relationships and that therefore, for an anthropological theory of art to work, we must see ‘art’ objects as ‘human’. I’m paraphrasing, but I kid you not. (By extension, he implies that everything should be given personhood) At other parts of the book his argument is more subtle, nuanced, philosophical and ambiguous, but at the heart is this deeply strange idea. I think it’s important not to take that strangeness away by giving it an academic carapace. It’s an odd idea. It doesn’t need scientific justification. Once you take it on board, it changes the way you look at art. Try it. Look at an art object as a living thing. It takes an act of imagination, but I promise you, it will transform your relationship with art.
The problem is that I sound like a crazy hippy when I talk about this. Is that bad?
Anyway, central to this idea (objects have agency) is another idea; the distributed person. Gell says that there is no core self, but that we are more accurately seen as the layers of an onion, each layer being one facet of us. This also seems related to Morton’s Object Oriented Ontology and the idea that the parts are more than the whole. Most mind-blowingly of all, Gell expands that distributed person so that it can incorporate images or representations of a person. That’s right! A photo of you IS you! In a sense. It’s one of the layers of your distributed personhood. This is a fundamental strategy of Gell’s; grouping things in different ways to create different objects or catagories. For example, he says that we should view the complete oeuvre of an artist as one unified object in the same way that we see a dinner set as a complete object.
Gell died before the book was completely finished and it does have an unfinished quality. For example, it ends abruptly without a proper concluding chapter. However, you suspect the rawness and informality would have been there in the writing even of he’d had a chance to do a second and third draft. He makes broad gestures and sweeping claims. He’s happy to casually demolish the entire history of asesthetics as a subject without much explanation because it suits his argument.
But, as well as being sad, it’s deeply frustrating that he wasn’t able to write more and that we can’t have these ideas expanded and developed.
February 24, 2024
Gell’s theory of art can completely renew the way you look at art and objects in general. You will never look at objects as “just” objects of which anything else beyond their physical properties and functionality belongs to the realm of the subjective meaning we give to them. They are much more than what we think. And you will never see art as something to judge aesthetically, they are extensions of people, cultures and ideas across time and space.
The first chapters are a must to understand the theory. The conclusion is fascinating, especially when he analyses Maori communal houses. The middle chapters can alienate some readers when he gets into explaining idols and then when he dissects what style means. He goes on to analyse examples from specific cultures and reaches some interesting conclusions. Especially in the part about idols, aside from the more technical parts, it is very helpful to develop a deeper understanding of why people all over the world practice rituals and social transactions around idols. He even apologizes for the density of certain parts.
In any case, if you persist, you will
find little nuggets of philosophical concepts that could really update your thinking. Highly
recommended, even though in physical form it is quite hard to get a hold of.
The first chapters are a must to understand the theory. The conclusion is fascinating, especially when he analyses Maori communal houses. The middle chapters can alienate some readers when he gets into explaining idols and then when he dissects what style means. He goes on to analyse examples from specific cultures and reaches some interesting conclusions. Especially in the part about idols, aside from the more technical parts, it is very helpful to develop a deeper understanding of why people all over the world practice rituals and social transactions around idols. He even apologizes for the density of certain parts.
In any case, if you persist, you will
find little nuggets of philosophical concepts that could really update your thinking. Highly
recommended, even though in physical form it is quite hard to get a hold of.
January 8, 2018
I definitely had a problem with the author judging works classified as "master artworks" in the same way as a religious statue or some piece of ceramics even. as an art historian (to-be) I simply have to protest to that. But nonetheless it was interesting to read about art monuments from another, in this case anthropological, point of view.
January 11, 2022
Particularly focussing on chapter 7 on the distributed person
November 1, 2022
Enchanted
Want to read
August 5, 2023ACADEMICS CITED BY IAN HODDER STUDIES IN HUMAN AND THING ENTANGLEMENT
December 25, 2025
Não conheço nem metade dos autores com quem ele dialoga, mas gosto das ideias dele. O exemplo do soldado com minas terrestres e da menina com a boneca me marcaram bastante
October 15, 2016
An amazing study that broadens the common understanding of the category of an 'art-object', as well as gives tools to think about art and agency politically. Sometimes it can be hard to get through certain parts, but it is totally worth it!
August 21, 2024
This heady book demands mental stamina, but it’s worth the push for those interested. Gell shows how art objects—alongside their makers, beholders, and constituents—participate as social agents in the minds and memories of societies.
March 22, 2011
Important book for archaeologists, I think. :)
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October 10, 2013701.03 G318 1998
January 23, 2014
This was one of the most innovative and useful books I used in my Master's thesis in Classical Archaeology. Fabulous!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews