Doing Home Works
Extended exhibitions, ethnographic tools, and the role of the researcher
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11417686 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sidsel Nelund (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 753-767 |
| Publication date | 2013-11-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Arts (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-0046 • E-ISSN: 1992-6049 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02560046.2013.867595 |
| OpenAlex | W2030405607 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 15 |
Since Hal Foster introduced ‘the ethnographic turn of contemporary art’ in the mid-1990s, the exchange between contemporary art and ethnography has continued to expand. Much of the debate considers the artistic incorporations of ethnography, but little has been discussed about the ethnographic practices of art researchers. The latter's relevance derives from current changes in the art world. Art objects and exhibition formats take new shapes and circulate internationally, creating situations of translocality in contemporary art. This inevitably raises a crucial ethnographic question: How can one engage thoroughly with artworks and exhibitions from different cultural contexts, without losing the complexity of the local discourses inherent in them? This article answers that question by drawing on three ethnographic tools: 1) the multi-sited ethnographic approach (George Marcus); 2) the pairing of aesthetic analysis of artworks and ethnographic fieldwork (Georgina Born); and 3) the use of generative ethnographic stories as a writing tool (Helen Verran). The latter two, especially, are then employed in analysing the Beirut-based extended exhibition, ‘Home Works: A Forum on Cultural Practices’. The analysis shows that adding ethnographic tools to the aesthetic analysis of international exhibitions allows for the complexity of local discourses, enhances attentive art writing, and urges engaged art research
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Contemporary art · Ethnography · Exhibition · Performance art · Political science · Relevance (law · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Participatory Visual Research Methods
Science in action
Writing Culture
One Place after Another
Science and an African Logic
Ethnography in/of the World System
Ethnographic Stories as Generalizations that Intervene
Between Art and Anthropology
Translocality
The Postcolonial Constellation
When Anthropology Meets Contemporary Art
Collaboration Today and the Re-Imagination of the Classic Scene of Fieldwork Encounter
Situated Knowledges
The Social and the Aesthetic
| Citations per year | 0.08 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2014 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |