Art Is Not What You Think It Is

Donald Preziosi is Emeritus Professor of Art History and Critical Theory at UCLA, and Former Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. He trained in art history, classics, and linguistics at Harvard, and is the author and co-author of many books including The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (2009). Claire Farago is Professor of Renaissance Art Theory and Criticism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is author and co-author of many books on art theory, historiography, and museums, and is an authority on the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. Her numerous publications include Re-Reading Leonardo: The Treatise on Painting across Europe 1550-1900 (2009). Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago have previously collaborated as co-editors of Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum (2004).

List of Figures vi Preface: Art Is Not What You Think It Is viii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Art and/as Manifesto 1

First Incursion: Artistry and Authorship 19

Second Incursion: The Dangers of Art and the Trap of the Visual 33

Third Incursion: To See the Frame that Blinds Us 52

Fourth Incursion: Deconstructing the Agencies of Art 74

Fifth Incursion: Intersections of the Local and the Global 94

Sixth Incursion: Into the Breach of Art and Religion 121

Seventh Incursion: The Art of Commodifying Artistry 142

Index 165