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Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders

Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2021, vol. 21, no. 1, 58–74 https://doi.org/10.1080/14434318.2021.1934775 Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders Alex Burchmore Identity and materiality are intimately and inextricably intertwined. This bond is clear even in the everyday vocabulary of self: velvet skin, silken hair, pearly teeth, a complexion as dark as ebony or pale as porcelain. We signal our regard for an attractive physical quality by ascribing it objective materiality. These epithets for persons-as-objects imply a corresponding vocabulary of objects-as-persons, exem- plified by the anthropomorphism of ceramic terms: mouth, belly, foot, shoulder, lip, for example. Certain materials also lend themselves to cultural affiliation— Chinese porcelain, African ivory, American cotton, Australian ochre—often used to support essentialist assertions of identity. If specifically material qualities are emphasised, however, correspondence between objects and individuals can pro- vide a flexible model of identification in which such abstractions are replaced with a tangible, historically and geographically inflected specificity. Anne Anlin Cheng has provided a useful theoretical framework for this under- standing of racial and cultural identity, with the model of ‘ornamental person- hood’ outlined in Ornamentalism, her paradigm-shifting study of Asian femininity, in which she traces the complex relations http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art Taylor & Francis

Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders

Burchmore, Alex
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art , Volume 21 (1): 17 – Jan 2, 2021
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Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders

Abstract

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2021, vol. 21, no. 1, 58–74 https://doi.org/10.1080/14434318.2021.1934775 Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders Alex Burchmore Identity and materiality are intimately and inextricably intertwined. This bond is clear even in the everyday vocabulary of self: velvet skin, silken hair, pearly teeth, a complexion as dark as ebony or pale as porcelain. We signal our regard for an attractive physical...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2021 The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Inc
ISSN
2203-1871
eISSN
1443-4318
DOI
10.1080/14434318.2021.1934775
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2021, vol. 21, no. 1, 58–74 https://doi.org/10.1080/14434318.2021.1934775 Material Chineseness: Ink and Porcelain in Contemporary Art beyond National Borders Alex Burchmore Identity and materiality are intimately and inextricably intertwined. This bond is clear even in the everyday vocabulary of self: velvet skin, silken hair, pearly teeth, a complexion as dark as ebony or pale as porcelain. We signal our regard for an attractive physical quality by ascribing it objective materiality. These epithets for persons-as-objects imply a corresponding vocabulary of objects-as-persons, exem- plified by the anthropomorphism of ceramic terms: mouth, belly, foot, shoulder, lip, for example. Certain materials also lend themselves to cultural affiliation— Chinese porcelain, African ivory, American cotton, Australian ochre—often used to support essentialist assertions of identity. If specifically material qualities are emphasised, however, correspondence between objects and individuals can pro- vide a flexible model of identification in which such abstractions are replaced with a tangible, historically and geographically inflected specificity. Anne Anlin Cheng has provided a useful theoretical framework for this under- standing of racial and cultural identity, with the model of ‘ornamental person- hood’ outlined in Ornamentalism, her paradigm-shifting study of Asian femininity, in which she traces the complex relations

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Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2021

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