PAMELA G. SMART

Email: psmart@binghamton.edu

(PhD Rice University 1997) Assistant Professor of Anthropology with interests in anthropology of artworlds; museums studies, cultural formations of modernity and postmodernity, symbolic economies of exchange and political economies of collecting, patronage and philanthropy under globalization, cultures of expertise, gender.

I am currently working on two projects, both concerned centrally with the character of the aesthetic as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and the methodological problem of analyzing it ethnographically. These projects are pursued through the institutional form of the art museum, examining the ways in which aesthetic dispositions are produced through the exhibitionary, managerial, and performative practices of museum personnel.

The first of these two projects, Sacred Modern: The Aesthetic Project of The Menil Collection , investigates the Menil Collection, in terms of its particular historical roots, and its distinctive institutional expression. The Menil Collection, I argue, is underpinned by a complex set of commitments that the museum is called upon to advance. It is predicated on establishing an engagement with its works that is acutely aesthetic rather than pedagogical in character, eschewing the usual rendering of art as history. It is the character of this aesthetic, the processes by which it is produced, and the sensibilities that it is meant to generate that are the primary focus of this ethnographic study. It is also centrally engaged with anthropological enquiry into the mutually constitutive character of relationships between persons and objects, and the ways in which material worlds might be mobilized in the service of the sacred.

The other project that I am pursuing, Aesthetic Currency: Franchising the Guggenheim extends the methodological preoccupations of the Sacred Modern project, and draws out institutional questions in relation to the international ambitions of the Guggenheim Museum. This project pursues three key lines of inquiry. The first, concerns the identification or formulation of an aesthetic that has currency transnationally, and the second, reciprocally, concerns the creation of a transnational public for a museum that must at the same time address local political and cultural imperatives. Thirdly, and most importantly perhaps, is the methodological problem of analyzing an institution that is so resolutely future oriented, in marked contrast to the usual understanding of museums as anchored in the past.

Publications

forthcoming, “Introduction: The Aesthetic and Philosophical Project of Jean and Dominique de Menil “ in The Menil Collection, A History, Josef Helfenstein, ed. The Menil Collection Press, 2007.

“Possession: Intimate Artifice at The Menil Collection,” Modernism/Modernity 13.1 Spring (2006): 19-39.

“Crafting Aura: Art Museums, Audiences, and Engagement,” Visual Anthropology Review 16.2 Fall-Winter (2000-2001): 2-24.

“Art of Transport, “ Southern Review 33.3 (2000): 292-307.

Courses for the Spring 2008 Semester: ANTH 227, ANTH 480O/527

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