http://blog.asia.si.edu/from-the-collections/ancient-near-east/nomads-and-networks-in-the-field-the-parachute-edition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nomads-and-networks-in-the-field-the-parachute-edition art outside the box Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= http://blog.asia.si.edu/from-the-collections/ancient-near-east/nomads-and-networks-in-the-field-the-parachute-edition/#comment-7037 Claudia (Waldo) Mon, 17 Sep 2012 23:53:39 +0000 http://blog.asia.si.edu/?p=3758#comment-7037 Yes, Dave! Said more elegantly then I can. The site, the artifacts, the mundane, and the trifles of material items from parachutes to broken pots.

]]> http://blog.asia.si.edu/from-the-collections/ancient-near-east/nomads-and-networks-in-the-field-the-parachute-edition/#comment-6994 David Peterson Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:15:00 +0000 http://blog.asia.si.edu/?p=3758#comment-6994 This is very interesting discussion that brings to mind Alfred Gell’s argument that it is a very thin and sometimes nonexistent line that separates art from utilitarian objects. Claudia Chang reminds us that this line is crossed in the life of the object in which the quotidian becomes a thing of aesthetic beauty, and that when archaeology is brought into the mix, the stages in the life of the object have great time depth, wildly different sociocultural contexts, and are marked by remarkable juxtapositions of what in the first instance are unrelated things — an ancient habitation, archaeological recovery, and the parachute. Trash becomes treasure and in art as in science, meaning is situated in the moment of encounter.

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