Silent Music

What happens when an artwork puts its status as
object into question? This is a question that runs
deep in Chinese art and philosophy and stands in
some tension to the central presuppositions of
much, if not most, Western thought. To engage with
this question at the limits of European philosophy
and with special attention to China, this
team-taught, interdisciplinary class proposes to
draw on the work of sinologist François Jullien,
whose philosophy has recently received new
interest through new translations, books, and
special journal issues. The class consists, first,
of a close-reading of Jullien's The Great Image
Has No Form, or On the Nonobject Through Painting,
a book that we intend to read in its entirety, and
in detail. Exploring the ontology of the
"nonobject" in Chinese art and aesthetics, the
class considers, as a second major objective, the
relevance of such thought-which is deeply rooted
in Daoism and specifically chapter 41 of Lao Zi's
Dao De Jing-to contemporary art and music:
conceptual and minimalist art since the 1960s,
work by the Beijing-based artist Song Dong, silent
music in the experimental tradition of John Cage,
and more-including work made by students in the
class. Students are invited to submit, as the
final assignment for the class, a project at the
crossroads of the critical and the creative that
responds to the philosophical and artistic "detour
via China" (Jullien) that the class offers.