Patterns: Toward an Ontology of Shang wen

Patterns: Toward an Ontology of Shang wen

The nature of Shang visual culture has been contested for over a hundred years. As Kesner noted thirty years ago, the central debates largely boiled down to a disagreement over whether Shang art was representational or not. Largely at an impasse since that time, most art historians and archaeologists have moved on to other topics, leaving the nature of Shang visual culture as an unresolved (and possibly unresolvable) mystery. But what if, instead of querying the nature of Shang representation, we questioned the concept of representation itself? What if, instead of asking what or whether Shang designs mean, we asked how? Following in the path of Willard Peterson, Jessica Rawson, Pauline Yu and Lothar von Falkenhausen, this talk will explore the ontology of Shang representation, or perhaps better, relationality.