Material Innovations

“A piece of furniture, tableware or the like, made at a much earlier period than the present.”

Another definition:

Antique: a collectible object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has a high value because of its considerable age.

Wikipedia says, “objects at least 100 years old.” Considerable age is then at least 100 years old.

Thats fine.  I can accept that definition based on time, but this definition has little to do with the authenticity of an object.  A basis which can be seen as misleading in the antique world.  If time, and time alone, defines an object as antique, how does origin or more specifically, provenance, factor into this discussion?

Authentic: of undisputed origin; genuine.

Origin: the beginning of something’s existence.

Provenance: referring to the specific place, or sometimes the race or people, from which something is derived or by whom it was invented or constructed.

If location and process are truer definitions of authenticity, then the porcelain wares of Jingdezhen, China could be recognized as the finest examples of the authentic object, regardless of the time they have been created.

Jingdezhen, a province of Jiangxi China, as it’s slogan signs state, the “Harmonious Porcelain Metropolis”, has been a provenance of fine porcelain pottery for over 2000 years.  This is due to one of it’s major industrial mining materials kaolinite.  A mineral that is used mostly in porcelain manufacturing.  The name kaolinite - later kaolin, is derived from Chinese: Gaoling or Kao-ling (“High Hill”) which is in the city of Jingdezhen.

As a process, forcing the petrification of clay into stone to make ceramic pots, the porcelain artisans of Jingdezhen, also pioneered high-fire kiln techniques.  Firing a kiln at a higher temperature, reveals the beautiful qualities intrinsic to porcelain such as translucency, referring to them as objects of purity.

If the age of a pot is the only defining aspect of an objects value, then what does that say about the actual material and labor that makes a pot?  As these two things are based in physical reality, don’t they read as more viable conditions of what an object really is?  Could not skill, something learned that has been passed down from generation to generation, be a more viable quality of which to measure authenticity in terms of age?  Traditional skill, as exercised and recorded in the making of a certain type of object – as something taught and studied, is the quintessential definition of developed time, is it not?

Contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, an artist who, as he states, is not a ceramicist, but rather, does ceramics, challenges this notion of authenticity in his art works.  His porcelain work, some of which are high-end purposefully made counterfeits of Ming and Qing dynasty blue-and-white pottery, are made and created in Jingdezhen folowing a tradition that has been established for centuries.  What defines them as counterfeits is the fact that they are made in the present.

Ai Weiwei creates and fires in Jingdezhen at a ceramic studio he has dubbed Lao Wei Tang, run by a gentleman also called Weiwei.  Liu Weiwei, or as Ai refers to him, “Old Wei”, runs a kiln that makes only two types of work.  Ai’s ceramic work and counterfeits of Ming and Qing pottery for sale at auction houses in Beijing.  According to Philip Tanari in his essay about Ai Weiwei’s ceramic work, Postures in Clay: The Vessels of Ai Weiwei, “the only reason the entire art of traditional Chinese ceramics has been kept alive is the healthy market that exists for counterfeit replicas of classical works.”

Here in lies the problem of authenticity of the porcelain wares made in current Jingdezhen China.  There is a need of sustaining a particular culture that is met by continuing the manufacture of objects that defined China’s past identity.  As objects, these contemporary porcelain pots are deemed fake as they are not made in the time frame which defined the particular culture and society of China’s past.  What is being held onto by the outside world, is what the object symbolizes.  A cultural identity that transcends time, as formalized though the beauty of the porcelain pot, is still being considered, created, and cherished with each contemporary replica skillfully produced in the city of Jingdezhen.

Ai Weiwei, Blue-and-White Moonflask, 1996; replica in style of Qing dynasty, Qianlong reign era (1736–95); porcelain, glaze and cobalt brushwork, 20 7/8" x 14 1/2" x 3". Courtesy private collection, USA. Photo by: Jake Stangel