The Lives of Chinese Objects

Tythacott (museology, U. of Manchester) follows a group of images she calls the Puto Five through a succession of exhibitionary realms from the temple in China where they were worshiped for centuries by devout pilgrims, through the temple to industry that was the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, evolutionary museum displays of the late 19th century where they signified stages of racial development, and the 1930s when they were objects of Oriental art, to their latest appearance in the Buddhism section of the World Cultures gallery in 2005. Her main focus is on the meanings of the lives of the figures, but she also looks at them back-stage, between shows, in the quiet storerooms of the museums. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Louise Tythacott is the Pratapaditya Pal Senior Lecturer in Curating and Museology of Asian Art at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has worked in the museum sector for over a decade, latterly as the Head of Ethnology at the National Museums Liverpool (1996–2003), where she curated the Asia section of the World Cultures Gallery, which opened in 2005.