F E I Y A     Z H A N G


Philosophy

Art Works
The Story of Rabbit
The Shiniest Thing
The Londoner
The Outsider
Time to Leave


About
CV
Papers

Original, Yet Reproduced: Conferralism on Original Artworks


When sculptor Auguste Rodin died in 1917, he donated his sculptures, plaster casts, and copyrights to the French Government. This led to the founding of the Musée Rodin, opened in Paris in 1919, to exhibit and continue to produce his original cast sculptures. The French law considers twelve productions of a sculpture original editions, and if any sculptures are produced beyond the twelve, they are considered mere reproductions. At the time the Musée Rodin first opened, many of Rodin’s works had not yet reached this limit. The museum continued casting ‘original’ sculptures from Rodin’s works and molds until they reached twelve copies. 

In what sense are the Rodin’s sculptures that were produced by the museum after Rodin died ‘original’? The existing literature in aesthetics typically treats originality in two main ways. One conception holds that an artwork is original insofar as it is perceptually distinct from its predecessors in art history. The other focuses on the artwork’s production history, requiring that it not be a forgery. 

However, neither of these notions can explain why Rodin’s sculptures count as originals rather than mere reproductions. There is scarcely any perceptible difference among the casts, and their different production histories did nothing to undermine their status as originals. A new conception of originality is therefore needed to account for such cases.

I argue that the notion of originality at stake concerns the elevation of an artwork’s artistic status: originals are more worthy of appreciation, interpretation, criticism, and collection than reproductions that share a similar appearance  and history of production. I further contend that this new notion of originality is best explained by Ásta’s conferralism, a metaphysical framework that explains social properties, according to which the existence and attribution of originality depend on people’s attitudes. This account extends naturally to art forms that permit multiple copies, such as prints, photographs, NFT art, and video art. 
Presentations
‘Original, Yet Reproduced: Conferralism on Original Artworks’,  Southwestern Graduate Aesthetics Conference, University of Arizona, November 23rd, 2025