Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), proposed by the American philosopher Graham Harman, is a rising school of thought that attracts great attentions of scholars from miscellaneous disciplines in English academia. However, Object, the core concept of OOO, has been constantly misunderstood and misused. This thesis aims to clarify the connotation of Harman’s concept of Object and applies its principles to art criticism.

The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part briefly examines the theme of thing and object, dating back to Kant. The second part focuses on the phenomenological tradition regarding thing, which exerts foundational impact on Harman. Several key concepts of Harman are closely studied in the third part, including real object, sensual object, relation, causation, allure, and black noise. Finally, it comes to an interpretation of Rhythm 0, a six-hour work of performance art by Serbian artist Marina Abramovi? in 1974. This OOO-inspired art criticism is trying to answer questions concerned with individual objects, reality itself, and causation, and proposing an ethics toward the world of objects.