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August 25, 2008
Howard Morphy and Morgan Perkins, eds. The Anthropology of Art: A Reader Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 566 pp.; 239 b/w ills. Paper $49.95 (9781405105620)
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CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2008.88

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There are two kinds of anthropologists of art: (a) those who look deeply at the artifacts’ formal qualities (design, shape, iconic references . . .), and (b) those who look at how the artifacts are used (circulated, displayed, collected, narrated . . .). Let’s try again. There are two kinds of anthropologists of art: (i) those who focus on relatively autonomous material objects (on the analogy of painting and sculpture), and (ii) those who focus...