Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Seeing the Unseen: Arts of Power Associations on the Senufo-Mande Cultural Frontier

Seeing the Unseen: Arts of Power Associations on the Senufo-Mande Cultural Frontier

Gagliardi, Susan Elizabeth

Paperback

Series: African Expressive Cultures

Art Criticism & TheoryAfrican Art

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0253064287
ISBN13: 9780253064288
Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr
Published: Jan 3 2023
Pages: 342
Weight: 1.65
Height: 0.90 Width: 8.40 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

How do arts convey the existence of potent knowledge without revealing details of that knowledge?

In Seeing the Unseen, art historian Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi examines tensions between the seen and unseen that makers, patrons, and audiences of arts in western West Africa negotiate through objects, assemblages, and performances. Gagliardi examines how ambiguity anchors design of the arts, and she shows that attempts to determine exact meanings miss the point. Specialists across western West Africa construct assemblages, installations, and buildings that hint at the possibility of revelation, but full disclosure remains unattainable. Specific activities and contexts integral to the design and use of the works often leave no visible trace.

Through attention to many ways of seeing and knowing, Seeing the Unseen opens new possibilities for the study of so-called historical or classical arts of Africa grounded in the specificity of individual works, their making, and their reception. It also prompts us to reflect on how we know and what it means to know in any context.

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