Art or Crafts? Western Imageries on the Authenticity of Art from Indigenous Cultures

Abstract

This article explores the aesthetic categories between the concepts of Arts and Crafts, in objects that pertain to non-Western cultures. Using the Venezuelan case as an example, the pre-Hispanic “art” will be compared with the “handicrafts” from Amerindian societies in which ancestral traditions and westernized life forms are interwoven. The differentiation in the judgement between one aesthetic and the other is due to the fact that the art of indigenous societies far from the westernized world is attributed an artistic authenticity, while the craftsmanship loses its authenticity when it is the product of a society that is in the process of miscegenation with the West . An attempt will therefore be made to propose interpretative alternatives taking into account the meanings that these objects have from the perspective of current indigenous societies.