Art Is Not What You Think It Is

Art Is Not What You Think It Is utilizes original research to present a series of critical incursions into the current state of debate on the idea of art, making manifest what has been largely missing or unsaid in those discussions.

• Links museology, history, theory, and criticism to the realities of contemporary social conditions and shows how they have structurally functioned in a variety of contexts
• Deals with divisive and controversial problems such as blasphemy and idolatry, and the problem of artistic truth
• Addresses relations between European notions about art and artifice and those developed in other and especially indigenous cultural traditions

List of Figures vi

Preface: Art Is Not What You Think It Is viii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Art and/as Manifesto 1

First Incursion: Artistry and Authorship 19

Second Incursion: The Dangers of Art and the Trap of the Visual 33

Third Incursion: To See the Frame that Blinds Us 52

Fourth Incursion: Deconstructing the Agencies of Art 74

Fifth Incursion: Intersections of the Local and the Global 94

Sixth Incursion: Into the Breach of Art and Religion 121

Seventh Incursion: The Art of Commodifying Artistry 142

Index 165

“Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and researchers/faculty.” (Choice, 1 August 2012)

Donald Preziosi is Emeritus Professor of Art History and Critical Theory at UCLA, and Former Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. He trained in art history, classics, and linguistics at Harvard, and is the author and co-author of many books including The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (2009).

Claire Farago is Professor of Renaissance Art Theory and Criticism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is author and co-author of many books on art theory, historiography, and museums, and is an authority on the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. Her numerous publications include Re-Reading Leonardo: The Treatise on Painting across Europe 1550-1900 (2009).
Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago have previously collaborated as co-editors of Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum (2004).

Few phenomena in our lives are as inescapable as what we commonly refer to as art—yet few concepts are more elusive than the idea of art itself. So what does ‘art’ look like today? And what is its fate? Art Is Not What You Think It Is offers a series of critical incursions into the current state of debate on the idea of art—making manifest what has been largely missing or unsaid in those discussions.

Revealing how conventional thinking about art is largely based on misconceptions about its history, Preziosi and Farago call for a radical rethink of the subject and its relationship to a wide swath of today’s world—from religion and philosophy to culture and politics. The authors probe a variety of issues, including the dangers of art and trap of the visual; the frame that blinds us; deconstruction of the agencies of art; the intersections of the local and global; the breach of art and religion, and commodifying artistry. Provocative and groundbreaking, Art is Not What You Think It Is will reshape conventional assumptions about the nature, meaning, and ultimate fate of art in today’s world.

“Preziosi and Farago present us with an invaluable series of provocations aimed at traversing, motivating, and unsettling the discourse of art and its histories. ”
- Jae Emerling, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

“Art is Not What You Think is a groundbreaking book that provides a cutting-edge theoretical take on the conundrum of artistic authorship and meaning today.”
- Amelia Jones, McGill University