98 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 17 NUMBER 2

work. In the end, it is this work—diverse, power-ful, and challenging—that makes the book soworthwhile. •

Note

1. Nemiroff's intimation that the current exhibition is"beyond" nationalism, however, deserves questioning.Land Spirit Power opened against the backdrop of apassionate debate over constitutional reformprompted in large part by issues of cultural distinct-iveness. The debate saw advocates of a renewed fed-eralism adopt a strategy of inclusion that linkedpreservation of the Canadian nation state with theaccomodation of cultural differences. The installationof a major exhibition of First Nations art in theNational Gallery at this historical moment suggestsnot so much a move beyond nationalism as a reformu-lation of national self-consciousness.

East Asian Art and American Culture: A Study InInternational Relations, WARREN I. COHEN. New

York: Columbia University Press. 1992. 264 pp.$32.50 (cloth).

HAIREN

University of Washington

One of great contributions of this book is tooutline how major East Asian collections (i.e.,Chinese and Japanese) have been developed inthe United States since the eighteenth century.1

There are three important periods indicated bythis book: 1784 to 1900, 1900 to the 1920s, andafter the 1920s.

During the first period, more and moreAmericans began to collect Chinese and Japaneseobjects, which resulted in the creation of anAmerican visual perception of East Asiancultures. The Boston Museum of Fine Artsbecame the first major museum to house EastAsian collections. The second period was thegolden age of East Asian art collecting in America.It was in this period that a network of major EastAsian art museums were established. With theBoston Museum of Fine Arts as the leader, theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York and theFreer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. playedthe most important roles in this network of col-lecting and exhibiting East Asian art, educatingAmerican audiences, and training curators andart historians of East Asia.

Finally, after the golden age had ended, a newage of East Asian art collecting in the United

States developed. Wars, depression, and chaos inChina and Japan "provided" many opportunitiesfor American collectors, dealers, museum cura-tors, etc. As a result, many "new" East Asian artmuseums were developed in this period, such asthe Fogg Museum at Harvard, the PhiladelphiaMuseum of Art, the University Museum ofPennsylvania, the Cleveland Museum of Art, theSeattle Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Gallery ofArt in Kansas City, the Asian Art Museum of SanFrancisco, etc.

When examining the development of EastAsian collections in the United States, I wouldlike to focus on two main issues: collecting andexhibiting. First, collecting, as a means of exercis-ing power, makes artifacts (including arts) travelfrom one culture (or society) to another. In thecase of collecting East Asian art, collectors notonly exercise their power economically, politi-cally, and culturally, but also control partially orfully the content (including the quantity and thequality) and the flow of East Asian art. Second,exhibiting, as the most important way of conduct-ing cultural understanding, carries messages ofobjects in a context constructed by its curators.Concerning with exhibitions, questions such aswho has the power of controlling the structure ofan exhibition, what is the main focus of an exhibi-tion, who is the main audience, what artisticmethods are used for reinforcing the "dramatic"effect of an exhibition, what kind of objects areused, etc. are all important. In addition, and evenmore importantly, collecting and exhibiting arenot separated from each other. It is impossible toreveal one without seriously considering theother. Collectors, dealers, museum curators, artcritics (including art historians and anthropolo-gists), as well as diplomats, politicians, strategicanalysts, and historians of international relationsconstitute a network of relationships withinwhich they are not just simply associated witheach other but, more importantly, control the fieldof arts, and dominate the knowledge of visual artsand the way in which arts are communicated.

In his book, Cohen pays great attention to theissue of collecting. He discusses the collecting ofJapanese and Chinese art by pioneers (Edward S.Morse, Sturgis Bigelow, Denman Ross, Charles G.Weld, J. P. Morgan), prominent collectors(Charles L. Freer, John C. Ferguson, AveryBrudge), curators (Ernest Fenollosa, OkakuraKazuko, John E. Lodge, Langdon Warner, RichardE. Fuller, Sherman Lee, Lawrence Sickman, AlanPriest), and dealers (Yamanaka, C. T. Loo).Furthermore, Cohen articulates the building ofcollections with the development of East Asian art

BOOK REVIEWS 99

museums. Without the collectors, it would havebeen impossible for American museums to buildwhat have become the finest East Asian collec-tions in the world. By the same token, museumsstimulate and determine the collecting of EastAsian art. Finally, Cohen, by looking at "the rela-tionship between art and politics, the importanceof art and culture in international relations," con-cludes that "collecting art from a foreign countryis an attribute of power" (p.204). The fact thatmore and more East Asian art could be found inthe United States was a result of the growingAmerican power in East Asia.

The issue of exhibiting East Asian art is alsodiscussed by Cohen. He discusses the most impor-tant and influential exhibitions: the early one inPhiladelphia by Nathan Dunn, the CentennialExhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, the ChicagoColumbian Exhibition of 1893, The Art Treasuresfrom. Japan in 1936, London International Exhibi-tion of Chinese Art in 1936, Japanese art travel-ling exhibition in Washington, D. C, New York,Seattle, Chicago, and Boston in 1953, the exhibi-tion of Chinese treasures from Taipei in 1961, andregular exhibitions by major East Asian art muse-ums. Although most of these exhibitions were con-ducted by American curators, some of them wereinfluenced by both the Japanese and the Chinese.In the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, for in-stance, the Japanese Government controlled theselection of displayed objects, and emphasized"the aesthetic rather than the commonplace, highculture rather than everyday life" (p.21). Art, forboth the Japanese and the Chinese, operates assymbol and propaganda. International fairs andoverseas art exhibitions, as Cohen argues, areperceived "as opportunities to enhance othermeans of obtaining political ends" (p.205). Unfor-tunately, Cohen did not focus on how an exhibi-tion was constructed. The significance of anexhibition is not what to present but how to do so.

One major weakness of this book is thatCohen's discussion of East Asian art and of itsrelationship to American culture is more from anAmerican's point of view and less from aChinese's or a Japanese's point of view. Withoutbalancing two sides of views or treating two sidesequally, his discussion on international relation-ships through arts is powerless. Both Japaneseand Chinese arts themselves are meaninglesswithout being put in a context in which theybridge the gap between the Americans and theJapanese and the Chinese. Collecting and exhibit-ing East Asian art by the Americans, as shown byCohen's book, undoubtedly influenced Americanculture. A remaining question, however, is

whether or not collecting and exhibiting of EastAsian art by the Americans also had impact onthe Japanese and the Chinese. The answer is yes.In China, for example, the museum movementstarting from the end of the 1920s, to a largeextent was a result of Western collecting ofChinese art. In contrast to museums in theUnited States, museums in China mainly focus onprotecting Chinese treasures from Western col-lecting and looting rather than on educatingChinese audiences about Chinese culture.

In general, despite these weaknesses, EastAsian Art and American Culture is one of the firstbooks on the American collecting of East Asianart. Not only does it outline the history of howEast Asian collections were developed in majorAmerican museums, but it also underscores theidea that East Asian material culture is one of theresources of contemporary American culture. •

Note

1. Thanks to Professor Miriam Kahn for her commentson an earlier draft of this essay.

Paracas Art and Architecture: Object and ContextIn South Coastal Peru. Edited by ANNE PAUL. iowaCity: University of Iowa Press, 1991.445 pp., map,figures, b/w illustrations, references, index.$29.95 (cloth).

KAREN WISE

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Paracas textiles were produced on the southcoast of Peru, mostly during the first millenniumB.C., and they have been of interest to collectors,museums, and researchers since their discoveryin the early part of this century. The artisticbeauty of the textiles has led to extensive lootingof Paracas sites over the years, much of it duringthe first half of this century. There are now collec-tions of Paracas textiles and pottery in museumsaround the world, often without good informationon archaeological context. In spite of the interestthat Paracas textiles have generated, we stillknow relatively little about the organization ofParacas society, including many aspects of theproduction and use of textiles.

This volume is a collection of articles on thematerial culture of Paracas, particularly the tex-