This book explores the roles of contemporary urban shrines and their visual traditions in Benin City. It focuses on the charismatic priests and priestesses who are possessed by a pantheon of deities, the communities of devotees, and the artists who make artifacts for their shrines. The visual arts are part of a wider configuration of practices that include song, dance, possession and healing. These practices provide the means for exploring the relationships of the visual to both the verbal and performance arts that feature at these shrines. The analysis in this book raises fundamental questions about how the art of Benin, and non-Western art histories more generally, are understood. The book throws critical light on the taken-for-granted assumptions which underpin current interpretations and presents an original and revisionist account of Benin art history.

In the early twentieth century, a group of elite East coast women turned to the American Southwest in search of an alternative to European-derived concepts of culture. In "Culture in the Marketplace" Molly H. Mullin provides a detailed narrative of the growing influence that this network of women had on the Native American art market--as well as the influence these activities had on them--in order to investigate the social construction of value and the history of American concepts of culture.
Drawing on fiction, memoirs, journalistic accounts, and extensive interviews with artists, collectors, and dealers, Mullin shows how anthropological notions of culture were used to valorize Indian art and create a Southwest Indian art market. By turning their attention to Indian affairs and art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she argues, these women escaped the gender restrictions of their eastern communities and found ways of bridging public and private spheres of influence. Tourism, in turn, became a means of furthering this cultural colonization. Mullin traces the development of aesthetic worth as it was influenced not only by politics and profit but also by gender, class, and regional identities, revealing how notions of "culture" and "authenticity" are fundamentally social ones. She also shows how many of the institutions that the early patrons helped to establish continue to play an important role in the contemporary market for American Indian art.
This book will appeal to audiences in cultural anthropology, art history, American studies, women's studies, and cultural history.

"Benos-Amos opens for the reader richly detailed adn nuanced vistas into the intellectual and cultural history of one of the major kingdoms of precolonial West Africa." African Studies Review

"The wealth of historiographic resources, the command of relevant literature, the ethnographic research and prudent use of oral traditions give this work a high degree of... intellectual excitement.... a landmark in the field." Warren d Azevedo

Making use of archival and oral resources in this extensively researched book, Paula Girshick Ben-Amos questions to what extent art operates as political strategy. How do objects acquire political meaning? How does the use of art enhance and embody power and authority?"

A Pre-Columbian art lover and noted curator journey into a fine art collection, describing the rich cultural context and artistic merits of each work. Along with 150 full-colour glossy illustrations of the terracotta, earthenware, stone, silver and copper objects, the acclaimed author, explorer and filmmaker Hugh Thomson gives a detailed, exciting narrative, based upon extensive research, of the role art played in the conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortes and of Peru by Francisco Pizarro. It is rare that a collector takes such a personal, descriptive part in publishing his treasure trove, but in this lavishly illustrated book, Stuart Handler describes why he gathered Pre-Columbian art, what attracted him to the individual pieces, and, from his forty-five years of building art collections in various media and genres, what artistic attributes make these objects outstanding works of art.

Although Franz Boas--one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century--is best known for his voluminous writings on cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology, he is also recognized for breaking new ground in the study of so-called primitive art. His writings on art have major historical value because they embody a profound change in art history. Nineteenth-century scholars assumed that all art lay on a continuum from primitive to advanced: artworks of all nonliterate peoples were therefore examples of early stages of development. But Boas's case studies from his own fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest demonstrated different tenets: the variety of history, the influence of diffusion, the symbolic and stylistic variation in art styles found among groups and sometimes within one group, and the role of imagination and creativity on the part of the artist. This volume presents Boas's most significant writings on art (dated 1889-1916), many originally published in obscure sources now difficult to locate. The original illustrations and an extensive, combined bibliography are included. Aldona Jonaitis's careful compilation of articles and the thorough historical and theoretical framework in which she casts them in her introductory and concluding essays make this volume a valuable reference for students of art history and Northwest anthropology, and a special delight for admirers of Boas.

In this thought-provoking book, preeminent scholar Stephen Houston turns his attention to the crucial role of young males in Classic Maya society, drawing on evidence from art, writing, and material culture. The Gifted Passage establishes that adolescent men in Maya art were the subjects and makers of hieroglyphics, painted ceramics, and murals, in works that helped to shape and reflect masculinity in Maya civilization. The political volatility of the Classic Maya period gave male adolescents valuable status as potential heirs, and many of the most precious surviving ceramics likely celebrated their coming-of-age rituals. The ardent hope was that youths would grow into effective kings and noblemen, capable of leadership in battle and service in royal courts. Aiming to shift mainstream conceptions of the Maya, Houston argues that adolescent men were not simply present in images and texts, but central to both.

Miniatures - canoes, houses and totems, and human figurines - have been produced on the Northwest Coast since at least the sixteenth century. What has motivated Indigenous artists to produce these tiny artworks? Through case studies and conversations with artists themselves, So Much More Than Art convincingly dismisses the persistent understanding that miniatures are simply children's toys or tourist trinkets. Jack Davy's highly original exploration of this intricate pursuit demonstrates the importance of miniaturization as a technique for communicating complex cultural ideas between generations and communities, as well as across the divide that separates Indigenous and settler societies.

Following India's independence in 1947, Indian artists creating modern works of art sought to maintain a local idiom, an "Indianness" representative of their newly independent nation, while connecting to modernism, an aesthetic then understood as both universal and presumptively Western. These artists depicted India's precolonial past while embracing aspects of modernism's pursuit of the new, and they challenged the West's dismissal of non-Western places and cultures as sources of primitivist imagery but not of modernist artworks. In "Art for a Modern India," Rebecca M. Brown explores the emergence of a self-conscious Indian modernism--in painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, film, and photography--in the years between independence and 1980, by which time the Indian art scene had changed significantly and postcolonial discourse had begun to complicate mid-century ideas of nationalism.

Through close analyses of specific objects of art and design, Brown describes how Indian artists engaged with questions of authenticity, iconicity, narrative, urbanization, and science and technology. She explains how the filmmaker Satyajit Ray presented the rural Indian village as a socially complex space rather than as the idealized site of "authentic India" in his acclaimed "Apu Trilogy," how the painter Bhupen Khakhar reworked Indian folk idioms and borrowed iconic images from calendar prints in his paintings of urban dwellers, and how Indian architects developed a revivalist style of bold architectural gestures anchored in India's past as they planned the Ashok Hotel and the Vigyan Bhavan Conference Center, both in New Delhi. Discussing these and other works of art and design, Brown chronicles the mid-twentieth-century trajectory of India's modern visual culture.

Drawing attention to the ways in which creative practices are essential to the health, well-being, and healing of Indigenous peoples, The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being addresses the effects of artistic endeavour on the "good life", or mino-pimatisiwin in Cree, which can be described as the balanced interconnection of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being. In this interdisciplinary collection, Indigenous knowledges inform an approach to health as a wider set of relations that are central to well-being, wherein artistic expression furthers cultural continuity and resilience, community connection, and kinship to push back against forces of fracture and disruption imposed by colonialism. The need for healing-not only individuals but health systems and practices-is clear, especially as the trauma of colonialism is continually revealed and perpetuated within health systems. The field of Indigenous health has recently begun to recognize the fundamental connection between creative expression and well-being. This book brings together scholarship by humanities scholars, social scientists, artists, and those holding experiential knowledge from across Turtle Island to add urgently needed perspectives to this conversation. Contributors embrace a diverse range of research methods, including community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous youth, artists, Elders, and language keepers. The Arts of Indigenous Health and Well-Being demonstrates the healing possibilities of Indigenous works of art, literature, film, and music from a diversity of Indigenous peoples and arts traditions. This book will resonate with health practitioners, community members, and any who recognize the power of art as a window, an entryway to access a healthy and good life.

Facing the monumental issues of our time.In a 2012 performance piece, Rebecca Belmore transformed an oak tree surrounded by monuments to colonialism in Toronto's Queens Park into a temporary "non-monument" to the Earth.For more than 30 years, she has given voice in her art to social and political issues, making her one of the most important contemporary artists working today.Employing a language that is both poetic and provocative, Belmore's art has tackled subjects such as water and land rights, women's lives and dignity, and state violence against Indigenous people. Writes Wanda Nanibush, "by capturing the universal truths of empathy, hope and transformation, her work positions the viewer as a witness and encourages us all to face what is monumental."Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental presents 28 of her most famous works, including Fountain, her entry to the 2005 Venice Biennale, and At Pelican Falls, her moving tribute to residential school survivors, as well as numerous new and in-progress works. The book also includes an essay by Wanda Nanibush, Curator of Indigenous Art at the AGO, that examines the intersection of art and politics. It will accompany an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario scheduled from 12 July to 21 October 2018.Rebecca Belmore is one of Canada's most distinguished artists. She has won the Hnatyshyn Award (2009), the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2013), and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2016). A member of Lac Seul First Nation, she was the first Aboriginal woman to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale. She has also participated in more than 60 one-person and group exhibitions around the world.

Critically acclaimed Rita Letendre is one of the most eminent living abstract artists. Her painting career began in Montreal in the 1950s, when she associated with Quebec's Automatistes and Plasticiens. Often the sole female artist in their group shows, she broke away from their approach to painting. Seeking to express the full energy of life and harness in her powerful gestures an intense spiritual force, Letendre worked with oils, pastels, and acrylics, using her hands, palette knife, brushes and uniquely the airbrush.Born of Abenaki and Quebecois parents, Letendre lived in Quebec until 1969, when she moved to Toronto. She has received the Order of Canada, completed commissions across Canada and the United States, and participated in national and international exhibitions. Rita Letendre: Fire & Light features thirty large-scale paintings and an essay by Wanda Nanibush, curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art at the AGO.

Artist. Activist. Curator. Joane Cardinal-Schubert was a phenomenal talent. Her work recognizes the social and political ramifications of lived Indigenous experience, exposing truths about history, culture, and the contemporary world. She was a teacher and mentor, supporting those who struggle against the legacies of colonial history. She was an activist for Indigenous sovereignty, advocating for voices that go unheard. Despite significant personal and professional successes and monumental contributions to the Calgary artistic community, Cardinal-Shubert remains under-recognized by a broad audience. This richly illustrated, intensely personal book celebrates her story with intimacy and insight. Combining personal recollection with art history, academic reading with anecdote and story, The Writing on the Wall is a crucial contribution to Indigenous and Canadian art history. Cardinal-Shubert's work leads the conversation, embracing the places where the personal, the political, and the artistic meet.

Making a foundational contribution to Mesoamerican studies, this book explores Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptures, as well as indigenous and colonial Spanish texts, to offer the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art. Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptural works, as well as indigenous and Spanish sixteenth-century texts, were filled with images of foodstuffs and food processing and consumption. Both gods and humans were depicted feasting, and food and eating clearly played a pervasive, integral role in Aztec rituals. Basic foods were transformed into sacred elements within particular rituals, while food in turn gave meaning to the ritual performance. This pioneering book offers the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art. Elizabeth Moran asserts that while feasting and consumption are often seen as a secondary aspect of ritual performance, a close examination of images of food rites in Aztec ceremonies demonstrates that the presence-or, in some cases, the absence-of food in the rituals gave them significance. She traces the ritual use of food from the beginning of Aztec mythic history through contact with Europeans, demonstrating how food and ritual activity, the everyday and the sacred, blended in ceremonies that ranged from observances of births, marriages, and deaths to sacrificial offerings of human hearts and blood to feed the gods and maintain the cosmic order. Moran also briefly considers continuities in the use of pre-Hispanic foods in the daily life and ritual practices of contemporary Mexico. Bringing together two domains that have previously been studied in isolation, Sacred Consumption promises to be a foundational work in Mesoamerican studies.

Don Smith - or Lelooska, as he was usually called - was a prominent Native American artist and storyteller in the Pacific Northwest. Born in 1933 of "mixed blood" Cherokee heritage, he was adopted as an adult by the prestigious Kwakiutl Sewid clan and had relationships with elders from a wide range of tribal backgrounds. Initially producing curio items for sale to tourists and regalia for Oregon Indians, Lelooska emerged in the late 1950s as one of a handful of artists who proved crucial to the renaissance of Northwest Coast Indian art. He also developed into a supreme performer and educator, staging shows of dances, songs, and storytelling. During the peak years, from the 1970s to the early 1990s, the family shows with Lelooska as the centerpiece attracted as many as 30,000 people annually. In this book, historian and family friend Chris Friday shares and annotates interviews that he conducted with Lelooska, between 1993 and ending shortly before the artist's death, in 1996. This is the story of a man who reached, quite literally, a million or more people in his lifetime and whose life was at once exceptional and emblematic.

Moteuczoma, the last king who ruled the Aztec Empire, was rarely seen or heard by his subjects, yet his presence was felt throughout the capital city of Tenochtitlan, where his deeds were recorded in hieroglyphic inscriptions on monuments and his command was expressed in highly refined ritual performances. What did Moteuczoma’s “fame” mean in the Aztec world? How was it created and maintained? In this innovative study, Patrick Hajovsky investigates the king’s inscribed and spoken name, showing how it distinguished his aura from those of his constituencies, especially other Aztec nobles, warriors, and merchants, who also vied for their own grandeur and fame. While Tenochtitlan reached its greatest size and complexity under Moteuczoma, the “Great Speaker” innovated upon fame by tying his very name to the Aztec royal office. As Moteuczoma’s fame transcends Aztec visual and oral culture, Hajovsky brings together a vast body of evidence, including Nahuatl language and poetry, indigenous pictorial manuscripts and written narratives, and archaeological and sculptural artifacts. The kaleidoscopic assortment of sources casts Moteuczoma as a divine king who, while inheriting the fame of past rulers, saw his own reputation become entwined with imperial politics, ideological narratives, and eternal gods. Hajovsky also reflects on posthumous narratives about Moteuczoma, which created a very different sense of his fame as a conquered subject. These contrasting aspects of fame offer important new insights into the politics of personhood and portraiture across Aztec and colonial-period sources.