Since the beginning of his career, at the start of this decade, New York–based Portuguese artist Ricardo Valentim has explored representations of the “other.” A former student of anthropology, Valentim examines the artifacts through which collective identity manifests itself, calling attention to their symbolic character. For example, Pocket Watch, 2006—which consists of the title object displayed against a piece of wood—alludes to a story well known among anthropologists: A native of the Amazon, given a pocket watch as a gift by an anthropologist, hung it on the wall of his hut; when