Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-7162246
Yu-jen Liu
abstract:This article explores how the category “Chinese art” was articulated and consolidated in the early twentieth century by focusing on Stephen Bushell’s Chinese Art, the first book in English defined in terms of this category. Bushell’s monograph highlights the intercultural character of the category, which was transformed in its content and cultural significance, when ostensibly the same authentic knowledge, articulated in verbal and visual representations, was moved from China to Europe and back again. The article starts by examining how Bushell’s insider knowledge of Chinese art was transformed to fit the institutional setting of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It then explores how the authoritative knowledge of Chinese art communicated in Bushell’s book was appropriated in China by the journal Guocui xuebao 國粹學報 (Journal of National Essence) in the context of attempts to revive national culture. Both cases involved hitherto unnoticed repetitions of text and images. By analyzing the mechanism informing these repetitions, this article reveals the entangled history behind the distinctive articulations of “Chinese art” in Britain and in China. Moreover, the analysis shows how the same elements, whether words or pictures, acquired a substantially different significance as they moved between cultures. This is exemplified by the formulation of the newly emergent classifying category Zhongguo meishupin 中國美術品 (“Chinese art objects”) in Guocui xuebao.
{"title":"Stealing Words, Transplanting Images: Stephen Bushell and the Intercultural Articulation of “Chinese Art” in the Early Twentieth Century","authors":"Yu-jen Liu","doi":"10.1215/00666637-7162246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-7162246","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article explores how the category “Chinese art” was articulated and consolidated in the early twentieth century by focusing on Stephen Bushell’s Chinese Art, the first book in English defined in terms of this category. Bushell’s monograph highlights the intercultural character of the category, which was transformed in its content and cultural significance, when ostensibly the same authentic knowledge, articulated in verbal and visual representations, was moved from China to Europe and back again. The article starts by examining how Bushell’s insider knowledge of Chinese art was transformed to fit the institutional setting of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It then explores how the authoritative knowledge of Chinese art communicated in Bushell’s book was appropriated in China by the journal Guocui xuebao 國粹學報 (Journal of National Essence) in the context of attempts to revive national culture. Both cases involved hitherto unnoticed repetitions of text and images. By analyzing the mechanism informing these repetitions, this article reveals the entangled history behind the distinctive articulations of “Chinese art” in Britain and in China. Moreover, the analysis shows how the same elements, whether words or pictures, acquired a substantially different significance as they moved between cultures. This is exemplified by the formulation of the newly emergent classifying category Zhongguo meishupin 中國美術品 (“Chinese art objects”) in Guocui xuebao.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"68 1","pages":"191 - 214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43395221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4342384
K. Kersey
abstract:This article advocates for a reevaluation of the origins of "collage" in global modernity. It does so by scrutinizing the materiality, historicization, and emergence of a medieval Japanese manuscript known as the Anthology of the Thirty-Six Poets. Rediscovered in 1896, well into Japan's modern era, the voluminous manuscript is replete with stunning examples of papers pasted together in the year 1112—precisely eight centuries before the celebrated Cubist innovations of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The stakes of the comparison are raised, however, by the fact that twentieth-century art historians and critics repeatedly cast the Anthology as the ultimate exemplar of an autochthonous, purely Japanese aesthetic. For some, the medieval Anthology was evidence of a proleptic modernity that challenged the purported innovativeness of North Atlantic modern art. Here I trace the trajectory and test the cogency of this provocative parallel.
{"title":"In Defiance of Collage: Assembling Modernity, ca. 1112 ce","authors":"K. Kersey","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4342384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4342384","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article advocates for a reevaluation of the origins of \"collage\" in global modernity. It does so by scrutinizing the materiality, historicization, and emergence of a medieval Japanese manuscript known as the Anthology of the Thirty-Six Poets. Rediscovered in 1896, well into Japan's modern era, the voluminous manuscript is replete with stunning examples of papers pasted together in the year 1112—precisely eight centuries before the celebrated Cubist innovations of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The stakes of the comparison are raised, however, by the fact that twentieth-century art historians and critics repeatedly cast the Anthology as the ultimate exemplar of an autochthonous, purely Japanese aesthetic. For some, the medieval Anthology was evidence of a proleptic modernity that challenged the purported innovativeness of North Atlantic modern art. Here I trace the trajectory and test the cogency of this provocative parallel.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"68 1","pages":"1 - 32"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48802999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4342402
Burglind Jungmann
abstract:Facts about Sin Saimdang, the most famous female artist in Korean history, are scattered and none of the remaining works attributed to her can be confirmed as authentic. Since her death every century has contributed new ideas about the painter and her oeuvre. By discussing texts from the sixteenth century through the twentieth, this article investigates how concepts of "feminine space"—in the sense of ideas of femininity in an artist's oeuvre and in the physical, economic, and social spaces of women—changed and created a phantom of an artist whose personality and artwork have disappeared due to the continuous reconstruction and manipulation of (art) history.
{"title":"Changing Notions of \"Feminine Spaces\" in Chosŏn-Dynasty Korea: The Forged Image of Sin Saimdang (1504–1551)","authors":"Burglind Jungmann","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4342402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4342402","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Facts about Sin Saimdang, the most famous female artist in Korean history, are scattered and none of the remaining works attributed to her can be confirmed as authentic. Since her death every century has contributed new ideas about the painter and her oeuvre. By discussing texts from the sixteenth century through the twentieth, this article investigates how concepts of \"feminine space\"—in the sense of ideas of femininity in an artist's oeuvre and in the physical, economic, and social spaces of women—changed and created a phantom of an artist whose personality and artwork have disappeared due to the continuous reconstruction and manipulation of (art) history.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"68 1","pages":"47 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44205897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4342411
Li-kuei Chien
abstract:Twin gate towers (que) were a characteristic feature of urban and palatial architecture in Chinese cities from the Warring States period onward. Although they initially served the practical military purpose of strengthening the defensive characteristics of gates in the city walls, they rapidly acquired symbolic significance through their association with political power. This article examines the development of twin towers from the Warring States period to the Eastern Han dynasty, showing how their ability to define political or sacred space was adapted to a variety of different social, political, and religious contexts, from city walls and palaces to imperial shrines and tombs. After the First Qin Emperor and Emperor Wu of the Han erected twin towers at the palaces they built in their pursuit of immortality, twin towers also became signifiers of the celestial realm. Finally, in the Eastern Han dynasty, the newly prominent merchant and local gentry classes who rose to assume political and administrative roles in the government adopted the architectural vocabulary of twin towers by constructing smaller-scale stone mimics at their own family tombs, appropriating the imperial prestige of this form to flaunt their social and financial success and construct their own identities as local elites. By examining this long historical development, I show how a functional element of urban architecture could acquire new symbolic meanings as different social and political actors adapted it to serve a wide variety of ends.
{"title":"Gateways to Power and Paradise: Twin Towers in Early Chinese Architecture","authors":"Li-kuei Chien","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4342411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4342411","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Twin gate towers (que) were a characteristic feature of urban and palatial architecture in Chinese cities from the Warring States period onward. Although they initially served the practical military purpose of strengthening the defensive characteristics of gates in the city walls, they rapidly acquired symbolic significance through their association with political power. This article examines the development of twin towers from the Warring States period to the Eastern Han dynasty, showing how their ability to define political or sacred space was adapted to a variety of different social, political, and religious contexts, from city walls and palaces to imperial shrines and tombs. After the First Qin Emperor and Emperor Wu of the Han erected twin towers at the palaces they built in their pursuit of immortality, twin towers also became signifiers of the celestial realm. Finally, in the Eastern Han dynasty, the newly prominent merchant and local gentry classes who rose to assume political and administrative roles in the government adopted the architectural vocabulary of twin towers by constructing smaller-scale stone mimics at their own family tombs, appropriating the imperial prestige of this form to flaunt their social and financial success and construct their own identities as local elites. By examining this long historical development, I show how a functional element of urban architecture could acquire new symbolic meanings as different social and political actors adapted it to serve a wide variety of ends.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"68 1","pages":"67 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48283353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4342393
Pushkar Sohoni
abstract:The independent Maratha kingdom of Chhatrapati Shivaji was founded in the mid-seventeenth century, when the sultanates of the Deccan were defending against the expansionist Mughal empire. The Mughals slowly anchored themselves in the Deccan, and the kingdom of the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar was finally subdued in 1636, a decade after the death of Malik Ambar. Over the next half century, as the Adil Shahs of Bijapur and the Qutb Shahs of Golconda found themselves in a weakened position against the Mughals, the Marathas were consolidating their gains with building campaigns. It is not surprising that the architectural expression of the early Maratha kingdom had the same artisanal qualities and visual vocabulary as the sultanates of the Deccan, given that most of the Maratha elite families, including Shivaji's grandparents, had served at sultanate courts. Examples of nonmilitary architecture in the form of memorials demonstrate the deep connections between the architecture of the Deccan sultanates and that of the early Marathas.
{"title":"Imbrication and Implication: Early Maratha Architecture and the Deccan Sultanates","authors":"Pushkar Sohoni","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4342393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4342393","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:The independent Maratha kingdom of Chhatrapati Shivaji was founded in the mid-seventeenth century, when the sultanates of the Deccan were defending against the expansionist Mughal empire. The Mughals slowly anchored themselves in the Deccan, and the kingdom of the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar was finally subdued in 1636, a decade after the death of Malik Ambar. Over the next half century, as the Adil Shahs of Bijapur and the Qutb Shahs of Golconda found themselves in a weakened position against the Mughals, the Marathas were consolidating their gains with building campaigns. It is not surprising that the architectural expression of the early Maratha kingdom had the same artisanal qualities and visual vocabulary as the sultanates of the Deccan, given that most of the Maratha elite families, including Shivaji's grandparents, had served at sultanate courts. Examples of nonmilitary architecture in the form of memorials demonstrate the deep connections between the architecture of the Deccan sultanates and that of the early Marathas.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"68 1","pages":"33 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42812735","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-04-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4342420
Phillip E. Bloom
abstract:Drawing on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuejing) and repentance liturgies such as Zongmi's Manual for Cultivating Realization in the Place of Practice of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuejing daochang xiuzheng yi), this essay examines the visual program of the Southern Song–dynasty Cave of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuedong) at Baodingshan, Dazu. It argues that the cave serves not as an arena for ritual practice per se but instead presents an idealized representation of such a site. In particular, this essay focuses on the conceptual function of the sculpture of the kneeling bodhisattva in the middle of the cave, a figure that finds no exact counterpart in scriptural sources. Investigating the significance of such figures that mediate between worshippers and their deities in various media in the Song, this essay contends that the kneeling bodhisattva not only enacts perpetual reverence on behalf of absent worshippers but also solicits spectatorial self-identification, enabling viewers to imagine themselves into the representational world of scriptural narrative and liturgical practice constructed in the cave. This essay then interrogates the triangular relationship between illusion, matter, and the mind that is thematized in the cave and in liturgies like that by Zongmi. Engaging with Hans Belting's recent work on image anthropology, this essay concludes by suggesting that the cave, its source texts, and related repentance rituals collectively insist on the fundamental irrelevance of all media save the mind itself. Such a notion points to the need to develop a specifically Buddhist theory of images, media, and minds.
{"title":"The Mediating Mind: Image, Text, and Ritual in the Cave of Perfect Enlightenment at Baodingshan, Dazu","authors":"Phillip E. Bloom","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4342420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4342420","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Drawing on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuejing) and repentance liturgies such as Zongmi's Manual for Cultivating Realization in the Place of Practice of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuejing daochang xiuzheng yi), this essay examines the visual program of the Southern Song–dynasty Cave of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuedong) at Baodingshan, Dazu. It argues that the cave serves not as an arena for ritual practice per se but instead presents an idealized representation of such a site. In particular, this essay focuses on the conceptual function of the sculpture of the kneeling bodhisattva in the middle of the cave, a figure that finds no exact counterpart in scriptural sources. Investigating the significance of such figures that mediate between worshippers and their deities in various media in the Song, this essay contends that the kneeling bodhisattva not only enacts perpetual reverence on behalf of absent worshippers but also solicits spectatorial self-identification, enabling viewers to imagine themselves into the representational world of scriptural narrative and liturgical practice constructed in the cave. This essay then interrogates the triangular relationship between illusion, matter, and the mind that is thematized in the cave and in liturgies like that by Zongmi. Engaging with Hans Belting's recent work on image anthropology, this essay concludes by suggesting that the cave, its source texts, and related repentance rituals collectively insist on the fundamental irrelevance of all media save the mind itself. Such a notion points to the need to develop a specifically Buddhist theory of images, media, and minds.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"68 1","pages":"109 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42189053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4229728
K. Li
abstract:In approximately 300 bce, a new method was developed in the design and manufacturing technologies of the bronze mirror production industry in China that changed the ways in which producers cast mirrors. This article utilizes four mirrors as examples to illustrate this method, and hypothesizes an invention termed the component-model method of mirror manufacturing. Multiple transfers were performed on models and molds applied at different stages of the production process. The method was devised to satisfy the burgeoning needs of a growing number of consumers while catering to the requirements of the diverse decorative patterns on different mirrors.
{"title":"The Component-Model Method of Mirror Manufacture in 300 BCE China","authors":"K. Li","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4229728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4229728","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:In approximately 300 bce, a new method was developed in the design and manufacturing technologies of the bronze mirror production industry in China that changed the ways in which producers cast mirrors. This article utilizes four mirrors as examples to illustrate this method, and hypothesizes an invention termed the component-model method of mirror manufacturing. Multiple transfers were performed on models and molds applied at different stages of the production process. The method was devised to satisfy the burgeoning needs of a growing number of consumers while catering to the requirements of the diverse decorative patterns on different mirrors.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"67 1","pages":"257 - 276"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41701996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4229719
Florina H. Capistrano-Baker
abstract:The commercial success of American merchant houses in Canton (present-day Guangzhou, China) and Manila (Philippines) brought extraordinary wealth to New England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, along with sophisticated tastes for Asian luxury goods. Among the least studied objects from this period are export paintings of Asian inhabitants, costumes, and occupations by Chinese and Filipino artists that are now in various American and Asian collections. It is my contention that many export watercolors attributed to Filipino artists are, in fact, Chinese copies based on Philippine originals. I examine the interregional connections between Manila and Canton that inform this intriguing phenomenon. Various collecting histories in Asia and America are investigated in light of the politics of constructing and transforming identities of self and others through travel souvenirs and trophies of trade.
{"title":"Trophies of Trade: Collecting Nineteenth-Century Sino-Filipino Export Paintings","authors":"Florina H. Capistrano-Baker","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4229719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4229719","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:The commercial success of American merchant houses in Canton (present-day Guangzhou, China) and Manila (Philippines) brought extraordinary wealth to New England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, along with sophisticated tastes for Asian luxury goods. Among the least studied objects from this period are export paintings of Asian inhabitants, costumes, and occupations by Chinese and Filipino artists that are now in various American and Asian collections. It is my contention that many export watercolors attributed to Filipino artists are, in fact, Chinese copies based on Philippine originals. I examine the interregional connections between Manila and Canton that inform this intriguing phenomenon. Various collecting histories in Asia and America are investigated in light of the politics of constructing and transforming identities of self and others through travel souvenirs and trophies of trade.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"67 1","pages":"237 - 256"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49425113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4229692
Rob Linrothe
abstract:This essay argues that the design strategies of the murals in the Akaniṣṭha Shrine, the top-floor shrine at Tāranātha's Takden Phuntsokling, were intended to provoke in the viewer a type of absorption compatible with Tibetan Buddhist values. This would have been in line with contemporaneous recognition of the potential for consecrated works of art to provide direct contact with the deity depicted. By eliminating framing and boundaries between scenes, minimizing inscriptions, employing the gaze to foster internal and external coherence, and using detailing, highlighting, and a painterly illusion of proximity, the murals invite the beholder to engage with an aesthetic of presence.
{"title":"\"Utterly False, Utterly Undeniable\": Visual Strategies in the Akaniṣṭha Shrine Murals of Takden Phuntsokling Monastery","authors":"Rob Linrothe","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4229692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4229692","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This essay argues that the design strategies of the murals in the Akaniṣṭha Shrine, the top-floor shrine at Tāranātha's Takden Phuntsokling, were intended to provoke in the viewer a type of absorption compatible with Tibetan Buddhist values. This would have been in line with contemporaneous recognition of the potential for consecrated works of art to provide direct contact with the deity depicted. By eliminating framing and boundaries between scenes, minimizing inscriptions, employing the gaze to foster internal and external coherence, and using detailing, highlighting, and a painterly illusion of proximity, the murals invite the beholder to engage with an aesthetic of presence.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"67 1","pages":"143 - 187"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49626723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-10-01DOI: 10.1215/00666637-4229710
Ignacio Adriasola
abstract:This essay addresses three key moments in the history of Japan's representation at the Venice Biennale: the introduction of "Japanese art" in the early stages of the exposition's development, in the late nineteenth century; Japan's official participation in the postwar Biennale, starting in 1952 and through the end of the 1960s; and the Japanese pavilion's program during the Biennale's so-called experimental period in the decade following the student demonstrations of 1968. While seemingly distinct, these three episodes evince a structural continuity: the demand for and performance of cultural difference within the space of the exhibition. This essay argues that Japan's (self-)representation of cultural alterity was mediated by the idea of pluralism promoted by the exhibition. Such representation was functional to the Biennale's mandate as well as to Japan's shifting world-historical aspirations. In the postwar period, Japanese artists and critics—including some individuals directly involved in the planning of Japan's submissions—came to diagnose what they saw as the limitations of the Biennale-Pavilion system. In doing so, they intuited a fundamental problem with the discourse of world in art as articulated in this exposition. This was, namely, the "pseudo-objectivity" of the international: the discourse of heterogeneity found in the Venice Biennale concealed inequalities based on the power differentials of the hegemonic world-system.
{"title":"Japan's Venice: The Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and the \"Pseudo-Objectivity\" of the International","authors":"Ignacio Adriasola","doi":"10.1215/00666637-4229710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00666637-4229710","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This essay addresses three key moments in the history of Japan's representation at the Venice Biennale: the introduction of \"Japanese art\" in the early stages of the exposition's development, in the late nineteenth century; Japan's official participation in the postwar Biennale, starting in 1952 and through the end of the 1960s; and the Japanese pavilion's program during the Biennale's so-called experimental period in the decade following the student demonstrations of 1968. While seemingly distinct, these three episodes evince a structural continuity: the demand for and performance of cultural difference within the space of the exhibition. This essay argues that Japan's (self-)representation of cultural alterity was mediated by the idea of pluralism promoted by the exhibition. Such representation was functional to the Biennale's mandate as well as to Japan's shifting world-historical aspirations. In the postwar period, Japanese artists and critics—including some individuals directly involved in the planning of Japan's submissions—came to diagnose what they saw as the limitations of the Biennale-Pavilion system. In doing so, they intuited a fundamental problem with the discourse of world in art as articulated in this exposition. This was, namely, the \"pseudo-objectivity\" of the international: the discourse of heterogeneity found in the Venice Biennale concealed inequalities based on the power differentials of the hegemonic world-system.","PeriodicalId":41400,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVES OF ASIAN ART","volume":"67 1","pages":"209 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2017-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47425495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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