Page 22 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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American stores, museums, and homes often resulted in the radical recontextualization of

these objects (Clifford 1987, 215). Being in contact with both worlds, Loo was able to act

as a mediator in these complex socio-political and cultural changes; he was not a passive

transmitter of knowledge, but rather a cultural broker, who “interprets, modifies, or

comments on the knowledge which is being communicated” (Steiner 1994, 155). The

recontextualization of Chinese objects is also a complex process of identity negotiation.

Loo constantly shifted his own position as well as the identity of his collection between

“Chinese”, “European”, and “American”, between “ancient” and “modern”.

This dissertation also attempts to bring together an object’s cultural, political, aesthetic,

and economic values. In many aspects, this dissertation is inspired and informed by

Warren Cohen’s groundbreaking book, East Asian Art and American Culture: A Study in

International Relations, in which art is viewed primarily from cultural and political

perspectives. Yet attention to the object is also of paramount concern to this dissertation.

Most of the objects examined here are bronzes, jades, sculptures, paintings, and ceramics

currently in American museums and private collections. Special attention is given to the

dynamics between the determinants of an object’s value. In Georg Simmel’s view, value

“is never an inherent property of objects, but is a judgment made about them by subjects”

(Appadurai 1986, 3, originally from Simmel 1978). It is important to note that many

objects Loo handled were not only emblems of beauty and culture, but also commodities

at certain points in their social life. In this light, Loo offers an extreme and complex case

to further our understanding of the connection between the cultural, aesthetic, and

commercial value of an object in a cross-cultural context. Loo’s role is not unlike that of