Page 154 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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It is important to note that “Westernness” and “Chineseness” were not contradictory

concepts in Loo’s dealing. In many cases, Loo stressed both an object’s affinities to the

West and its native context. This double emphasis can be explained in part by Loo’s

intention to attract different groups of clients. On the one hand, an object’s Chineseness

would appeal to knowledgeable collectors who looked for uniqueness, authenticity, and

purity that were associated with “the native”. On the other, Chinese art’s connections to

the West would be a hook for those collectors who were more experienced in Western

art.

Loo’s seemingly paradoxical paring of Chineseness and Westernness can also be

explained by the notion of “intimate distance” or “estranged intimacy” in Susan Stewart’s

discussion of the exotic object. She observes, “…on the one hand, the object must be

marked as exterior and foreign, on the other it must be marked as arising directly out of

an immediate experience of its possessor” (Steward 1993, 147). Loo’s promotion of

Greco-Buddhist art clearly illustrated this tantalizing distance. 324 On the one hand, Greco-

Buddhist art objects could be linked to their Greek ancestry. On the other hand, they were

not quite Greek. Their Chineseness was important to prove their exotic charm and

authenticity. The Northern Wei stele (MFA 23.120) that Loo sold to the MFA, for

instance, was valued as the combination of Western and Chinese styles (Fig. 14). The art

critic Martha Davidson in the Art News article, Great Chinese Sculpture in America,

commented on this stele, “…one based on the hieratic religious art rooted in Greco-

completed several contextual exhibits, including “four re-created Chinese rooms from
different periods” (Poster 2003, 15).
324 This also explains the popularity of “colon”s, wooden figures of Africans in Western
outfit in African art trade.