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Art as a Mode of Action

Some Problems with Gell's Art and Agency

The Australian National University, howard.morphy{at}anu.edu.au

This article is a dialogue with the theoretical arguments of Alfred Gell's book Art and Agency. While strongly supporting an action-oriented perspective on art it is argued that Gell's argument deflects attention away from human agency by attributing agency to the objects themselves. It is argued that the very properties of art that Gell excludes from his definition of art objects and largely from his analyses — aesthetics and semantics — are integral to understanding art as a way of acting in the world and to understanding the impact that art works have on people.

Key Words: aesthetics • agency • anthropological theory • art • theory of action • Yolngu

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 14, No. 1, 5-27 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1359183508100006


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