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The Number One Fake Museum Under Heaven and the Malleable Authenticity of Artifacts in China's Museum Boom.

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Titel: The Number One Fake Museum Under Heaven and the Malleable Authenticity of Artifacts in China's Museum Boom.
Autoren: Lee, Leksa1 leel@denison.edu
Quelle: Critical Asian Studies. Dec2025, Vol. 57 Issue 4, p706-729. 24p.
Schlagwörter: *MATERIAL culture, *MUSEUM management, *SOCIETIES, *SCHOLARS
Geografische Kategorien: CHINA
Abstract: In 2013, a local museum in a village in eastern China was found to be filled with 40,000 fake objects and it became a laughingstock online. Yet the curator, who was also the village Communist Party Secretary, insisted his artifacts were real. He claimed object authenticity is subjective, or malleable, and this made him difficult to challenge. Observers online warned that the scandal pointed to problems in contemporary China's boom in museum construction and in society writ large. This paper examines the material and structural means by which artifacts are made real in China today by tracing this museum's downfall alongside the painstaking creation of a more conventional museum by an exhibit design firm. This juxtaposition shows that notions of authenticity are changing in the context of China's museum boom, yet there are limits to this change, which industry participants keenly police. Studies of authenticity in China find that "real" and "fake" are global hegemonic discourses that must be deconstructed and reexamined. Yet this paper suggests that scholars should direct attention to moments when authenticity comes to matter, how, and for whom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Datenbank: Academic Search Index
Beschreibung
Abstract:In 2013, a local museum in a village in eastern China was found to be filled with 40,000 fake objects and it became a laughingstock online. Yet the curator, who was also the village Communist Party Secretary, insisted his artifacts were real. He claimed object authenticity is subjective, or malleable, and this made him difficult to challenge. Observers online warned that the scandal pointed to problems in contemporary China's boom in museum construction and in society writ large. This paper examines the material and structural means by which artifacts are made real in China today by tracing this museum's downfall alongside the painstaking creation of a more conventional museum by an exhibit design firm. This juxtaposition shows that notions of authenticity are changing in the context of China's museum boom, yet there are limits to this change, which industry participants keenly police. Studies of authenticity in China find that "real" and "fake" are global hegemonic discourses that must be deconstructed and reexamined. Yet this paper suggests that scholars should direct attention to moments when authenticity comes to matter, how, and for whom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:14672715
DOI:10.1080/14672715.2025.2548245