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Global Objects: Toward a Connected Art History
A bold reorientation of art history that bridges the divide between fine art and material culture through an examination of objects and their uses
Art history is often viewed through cultural or national lenses that define some works as fine art while relegating others to the category of craft. Global Objects points the way to an interconnected history of art, examining a broad array of functional aesthetic objects that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries and challenging preconceived ideas about what is and is not art.
Avoiding traditional binaries such as East versus West and fine art versus decorative art, Edward Cooke looks at the production, consumption, and circulation of objects made from clay, fiber, wood, and nonferrous base metals. Carefully considering the materials and process of making, and connecting process to product and people, he demonstrates how objects act on those who look at, use, and acquire them. He reveals how objects retain aspects of their local fabrication while absorbing additional meanings in subtle and unexpected ways as they move through space and time. In emphasizing multiple centers of art production amid constantly changing contexts, Cooke moves beyond regional histories driven by geography, nation-state, time period, or medium.
Beautifully illustrated, Global Objects traces the social lives of objects from creation to purchase, and from use to experienced meaning, charting exciting new directions in art history.
Art history is often viewed through cultural or national lenses that define some works as fine art while relegating others to the category of craft. Global Objects points the way to an interconnected history of art, examining a broad array of functional aesthetic objects that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries and challenging preconceived ideas about what is and is not art.
Avoiding traditional binaries such as East versus West and fine art versus decorative art, Edward Cooke looks at the production, consumption, and circulation of objects made from clay, fiber, wood, and nonferrous base metals. Carefully considering the materials and process of making, and connecting process to product and people, he demonstrates how objects act on those who look at, use, and acquire them. He reveals how objects retain aspects of their local fabrication while absorbing additional meanings in subtle and unexpected ways as they move through space and time. In emphasizing multiple centers of art production amid constantly changing contexts, Cooke moves beyond regional histories driven by geography, nation-state, time period, or medium.
Beautifully illustrated, Global Objects traces the social lives of objects from creation to purchase, and from use to experienced meaning, charting exciting new directions in art history.
- GenresNonfictionArt
336 pages, Paperback
Published October 4, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 17, 2024
Can a book be too interesting? I was both excited to glean all the information I could, and yet I struggled to get through each page because the content was such an embarrassment of riches.
“Global Objects” follows the premise that we need a way to examine art beyond categorizing it by artist or region. Influences that make up a work of art are too complex to pin things down in such a simplistic ethnocentric manner.
We always risk the danger of bias. By highlighting the properties of one work are we saying that other works are inferior? Does Florentine art identified as “progress,” make contemporary works from Siena inconsequential? Is the copy of a bust of Augustus from the provinces now transformed by local conditions, less of a work of art than the Roman original, or is it a wholly unique creation?
Another problem brought up by the book is the false hierarchy of media. Easel painting, for example, so highly prized in Western traditions, cannot even be found in other parts of the world.
Other topics include the view of “acculturation”, where societies adopt a style in order to emulate a dominant culture vs. “appropriation” where a dominant culture “borrows” the visual details of others in a statement of superiority or in a condescending manner as if material cultures are by rights there for the taking.
So what approaches might we instead take when looking at art? Each chapter suggests something different. To start with we should consider things as objects before we look at them as art. How are these things made and what are they made from? How do things get from their point of creation to their eventual owners? How things are used, whether in keeping with their original intent or have they been turned into something new?
The book also examines the transitions of styles which evolve through the Immigration of skilled workers or through an exposure to new objects.
And what of the origins of collections? Were they chosen as memory items (like souvenirs or loot) or in an acquisition symbolic of power (taking another cultures valuables in order to show yourself as master.)
You get all this, and other fascinating ideas, making “Global Objects” a fabulous and important book. Yet it’s a bit overwhelming, with a lot to digest, so don’t expect an easy read.
“Global Objects” follows the premise that we need a way to examine art beyond categorizing it by artist or region. Influences that make up a work of art are too complex to pin things down in such a simplistic ethnocentric manner.
We always risk the danger of bias. By highlighting the properties of one work are we saying that other works are inferior? Does Florentine art identified as “progress,” make contemporary works from Siena inconsequential? Is the copy of a bust of Augustus from the provinces now transformed by local conditions, less of a work of art than the Roman original, or is it a wholly unique creation?
Another problem brought up by the book is the false hierarchy of media. Easel painting, for example, so highly prized in Western traditions, cannot even be found in other parts of the world.
Other topics include the view of “acculturation”, where societies adopt a style in order to emulate a dominant culture vs. “appropriation” where a dominant culture “borrows” the visual details of others in a statement of superiority or in a condescending manner as if material cultures are by rights there for the taking.
So what approaches might we instead take when looking at art? Each chapter suggests something different. To start with we should consider things as objects before we look at them as art. How are these things made and what are they made from? How do things get from their point of creation to their eventual owners? How things are used, whether in keeping with their original intent or have they been turned into something new?
The book also examines the transitions of styles which evolve through the Immigration of skilled workers or through an exposure to new objects.
And what of the origins of collections? Were they chosen as memory items (like souvenirs or loot) or in an acquisition symbolic of power (taking another cultures valuables in order to show yourself as master.)
You get all this, and other fascinating ideas, making “Global Objects” a fabulous and important book. Yet it’s a bit overwhelming, with a lot to digest, so don’t expect an easy read.
August 24, 2025
high 3/low 4. the book is a good, broad overview that effectively introduces the reader to cooke's approach to object-oriented art history. his underlying philosophy is compelling and thought-provoking but there are unfortunately long swathes of the book that just read like laundry lists
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews