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Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life

Michael M. J. Fischer

Culture, humanities & social science

Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life

By Michael M. J. Fischer, professor of anthropology and of science and technology studies

Duke University Press · 2023

In this book, Fischer calls for a new anthropology of the arts that attends to the materialities and technologies of the world as it exists today. He examines the work of key Southeast and East Asian artists within the crucibles of unequal access, geopolitics, reverberating past traumas, and emergent socialities. Throughout Indonesia, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, Fischer argues that these artists' theoretical discourses should be privileged over those of the curators, historians, critics, and other gatekeepers who protect and claim art worlds for themselves.

From Summer 2023 recommended reading from MIT (MIT News). Cover image via Open Library.