ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the shift from understanding art in terms of representation to address it in terms of action. It begins with the much-debated distinction between “art” and “artifact” in the anthropological literature of the last few decades. The chapter moves to Alfred Gell’s proposal for an approach to art based on action, looking at both its advantages and drawbacks. It looks at the wider context of theories of action in both art and anthropology, showing how notions of encounter, event, or device may be more appropriate than “agency” in order to describe the shift away from representation in art. Playing with the idea of an exhibition on traps, Gell brought the argument of appropriation to its last consequences, and precisely because of that, it opened a path to move well beyond it.
