Art Is Not What You Think It Is utilizes original research to present a series of critical incursions into the current state of debate on the idea of art, making manifest what has been largely missing or unsaid in those discussions.

• Links museology, history, theory, and criticism to the realities of contemporary social conditions and shows how they have structurally functioned in a variety of contexts
• Deals with divisive and controversial problems such as blasphemy and idolatry, and the problem of artistic truth
• Addresses relations between European notions about art and artifice and those developed in other and especially indigenous cultural traditions