Search
Program Calendar
Browse By Day
Browse By Time
Browse By Person
Browse By Room
Browse By Area of Study
Browse By Session Type
Browse By Discipline
Search Tips
AAS 2017 Print Program (coming soon)
Personal Schedule
Sign In
Session Submission Type: Organized Panel
Concomitant with the formation of major portions of Asian art collections in the West, a diverse range of individuals, groups, and institutions partook of the fin de siècle impulse to promote the field of Asian art evolved from ‘Oriental’ and decorative arts. This panel seeks to assess the ways in which the conceptual hierarchy, specificity, and sub–categories of Asian art (here, mainly refers to that of China, Japan, and Korea) took shape in accordance with the diverse value and market systems, aesthetic canons, and reorganization of power dynamics. Lara Netting examines the gendered understanding of collecting Chinese antiquities in the 1930s and the shift of focus from rare, exotic, and decorative to scientific, empirical, and objective. Seung Yeon Sang probes the Institute of Oriental Ceramics and its redefinition of “Asian ceramics” in the 1920s, motivated by concerns about Japan’s political and cultural standing vis-à-vis the Western colonial powers. Monika Bincsik discusses how American collectors such as Benjamin Altman (1840–1913) formed the core views about Japanese art that persist today in art institutions and scholarship. Charlotte Horlyck investigates the role of art collecting in the formation of Korea’s national and historical identity under Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945) and its impact on sales abroad. These four papers thus offer new modes of understanding biases, motives, and assessments of collecting “Asia art” in relation to the dichotomy between Western and “native” taste, Western and Japanese imperialism, and colonial modernity in East Asia.
Collecting the Arts of Goryeo - Charlotte Horlyck, SOAS, University of London
The Benjamin Altman Story: Collectors of Japanese Decorative Arts in New York at the Turn of the Twentieth Century - Monika Bincsik, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
East Meets West: The Institute of Oriental Ceramics (Tōyō tōji kenkyūjo) and the Oriental Ceramic Society - Seung Yeon Sang, Harvard Art Museums
Ladies' Homes and Men’s Rooms: Gender and the Global Mass Market for Chinese Antiquities in the 1930s - Lara Netting, City College of New York