‘China: the empire of things’: Jason Steuber and Nick Pearce, Original Intentions: Essays on the Production, Reproduction, and Interpretation in the Arts of China, Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press 2012

Abstract

Original Intentions: Essays on the Production, Reproduction, and Interpretation in the Arts of China is a collection of studies on the creation, circulation, and reception of three-dimensional objects from the Bronze Age to the modern times. This review concentrates on the volume’s methodological approach to and conceptual framing of issues like authenticity, and originality. The essay brings the volume and individual essays in relation to ongoing debates on materiality and making in the fields of Chinese and Western art, arguing for the possibility of a cross-cultural history of the material world.

Keywords

• materiality
• forgery
• authenticity
• Chinese art