The Social Lives of Chinese Objects

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-52133-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 2, 332 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 601 g

Reihe: European Studies in Asian Art and Archaeology

The Social Lives of Chinese Objects is the first anthology of texts to apply Arjun Appadurai’s well-known argument on the social life of things to the discussion of artefacts made in China. The essays in this book look at objects as “things-in-motion,” a status that brings attention to the history of transmissions ensuing after the time and conditions of their production. How does the identity of an object change as a consequence of geographical relocation and/ or temporal transference? How do the intentions of the individuals responsible for such transfers affect the later status and meaning of these objects? The materiality of the things analyzed in this book, and visualized by a rich array of illustrations, varies from bronze to lacquered wood, from clay to porcelain, and includes painting, imperial clothing, and war spoils. Metamorphoses of value, status, and function as well as the connections with the individuals who managed them, such as collectors, museum curators, worshipers, and soldiers are also considered as central to the discussion of their life. Presenting a broader and more contextual reading than that traditionally adopted by art-historical scholarship, the essays in this book take on a multidisciplinary approach that helps to expose crucial elements in the life of these Chinese things and brings to light the cumulative motives making them relevant and meaningful to our present time.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Bianchi, Alice

Jankowski, Lyce

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Materielle Kultur, Wirtschaftsethnologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Kunsttheorie, Kunstphilosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Physische Anthropologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Ethnographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

List of Figures, Chart and Tables

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Alice Bianchi and Lyce Jankowski

Part 1: Reconsidering Object Categories

1 The Afterlife of Mingqi: Relational Meaning in Underground Tombs

Bonnie Cheng

2 From Ritual to Colonial Fantasies. Chinese Ritual Objects as Part of Western Collections of Asian Art in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Michaela Pejcochova

3 Contemporary Art and Colonial Collecting: Huang Yong Ping’s Reinstallation of J.J.M. de Groot’s Panthéon Chinois from the Lyon Musée des Confluences

Francesca Dal Lago

Part 2: Questioning the Narratives of Objects Biographies

4 Materiality as Objecthood in a Buddhist Clay Tablet: From Calligraphic Style to an Imaginary Encounter with Dunhuang

Foong Ping

5 Chinese Zodiac: The Social Life of the Yuanming Yuan’s Circle of Animals Fountain Heads

Ines Eben von Racknitz

Part 3: Opening New Perspectives

6 Reevaluating Chinese Landscape Iconography: Painting and Poetry of Meditation during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

Cédric Laurent

7 A World Dotted with Kingfisher Blue: Feather Tributes and the Qing Court

Wang Lianming

8 Portraits on China: Porcelain Portraits and Photoceramics from China in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Lee Wing Ki

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Alice Bianchi, Ph.D. (2014), Inalco, is Associate Professor of Chinese Art History at the Université Paris Cité. She has published several articles on Chinese art, including “Picturing Disaster in Late Imperial China: The Liumin tu Tradition and Its Transformations” (Journal of Oriental Studies, 2021)

Lyce Jankowski, Ph.D. (2012), Paris-Sorbonne University, is Curator of Extra-European art at the Royal Museum of Mariemont. She authored Les Amis des monnaies – La sociabilité savante des collectionneurs et numismates chinois de la fin des Qing, (2018).