This article proposes a critical revision of the anthropological studies on art as well as of selected art studies related to anthropology. Recovering key aspects of Western categorizations of non-western expressive forms, this article maps the persistence of ontological presuppositions (such as the notion of object and of the individual creator) that hinders the understanding of ethnographic complexities. This study also aims to offer alternatives to a reflection on other people’s expressive forms that goes beyond the notion of art, taking into account recent anthropological reflections on the problems of comparison and translation.
Art; Anthropology; Object; Image; Comparison