This book brings together ancient works from all over the Arctic region, including major sites in Russia and Alaska. It includes both utilitarian and decorative items, among them amulets, funerary offerings, and ceremonial masks, plus a selection of 19th-century masks from the modern Yup’ik that showcases the persistence of these cultural traditions. In his groundbreaking 1973 book Eskimo Realities, Edmund Carpenter distinguished their ideas of art from those derived from the European artistic canon. The renowned specialist in the Arctic and a founder of visual anthropology showed that Eskimo concepts are rooted in the creative process itself, focusing more on the interaction between artist and material than on the finished product. Over 30 years later, Upside Down invites the reader to explore Carpenter’s discoveries through these rare objects and essays by him and other scholars in the field.
Originally published in French to accompany Upside Down: Les Arctiques at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris.
Details: Hardcover 232 pages 10 x 9 1/2 inches Published in 2011
