Cultura y arte: Hacia una teoría antropológica del arte(facto)

This article presents an anthropological examination of the link between art and culture. What is “art” and what is “culture”? How do the production, circulation and reception of the “work of art” take place? How important are the formal, functional and semantic dimensions in art? How to classify the arts? How does art become linked with the intellect and the feelings, with religion, festival, politics, social organization, technology, property, and heritage? To answer these and similar questions, this paper reviews much of what has been written on the subject to present it in the form of an original line of argument. Beginning with a discussion on three levels on the concept of “culture”, in which “artifacts” have a prominent role, and continues with an examination of the concept of “art”, stating on one hand, the futility of our current concept for transcultural application and, on the other hand, the possibility of providing it with anthropological value if it is included within a theory of man-made objects. Plotted these coordinates of culture and art(ifact), the relationship between the two termsis analyzed in different contexts.