Objects of Knowledge. Reflections on Anthropological Ways of Seeing

text2

Two fundamentally opposing principles organize the layout. In the first room, a variety of similar objects are sorted according to typical anthropological categories such as form, function and geographic origin. The juxtaposition of a huge number of comparable objects creates fascinating insights into the unity and difference of global material culture. It reflects more broadly on theories about the tension between the unity of humankind and the varieties of cultural expressions. The second room shows a few select valuable objects. They stand alone and invite the visitor to engage with their power and to consume them in an aesthetic manner. At some distance from the art pieces the visitor encounters other matters, texts, and narratives. They contextualize these objects and elaborate their roles as ritual matters and commodities, stolen objects and memorabilia, identity markers and mediums of dispute.

text6

The exhibition takes up this spirit of cooperation between the University discipline and the Museum. It is organized as collaboration between the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig and the Institute of Anthropology of the University of Leipzig. It brings together different knowledge traditions and thus reflects current debates relevant to both academia and museums: the meaning of material culture; the link between art and ethnography; practices of collecting and displaying and global power relations.