Javier Ruiz

My anthropological research so far has investigated the sculpture industry in the Apuan Alps and its relation to claims of artistic value. For centuries, this Italian district has specialized in extracting, marketing, and processing marble into luxury commodities. Ahead of many other parts of this economy (including design and architecture), art manufacturing has dominated local identity and commercial strategies. 

My thesis studied the Apuan industry in the context of transnational artmaking processes. It maintained that production reveals aspects of these economic activities that cannot be fully studied from the side of circulation alone. For example, while a sculpture’s making can be fundamental to our appreciation, we often rely on highly restricted information, sometimes misleading, in order to respond as spectators. In foregrounding production, this dissertation hoped not only to improve our understanding of sculpture-making itself but also to explain why it is often mystified. My treatment of the topic referred to debates in the anthropology of art and those more traditionally engaged by scholars of economy and labour, such as technology, practical rationality, and alienation. Methodologically, the analysis combined in-person and remote fieldwork with a critical approach to historical evidence. As an international art centre since the Florentine Renaissance, the Apuan Alps presented an ideal location for such inquiry.