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Proceeding of the 34th World Congress of Art History Sino-German Museum Forum

Meng Schmidt-Yin

Private Art Museums for Contemporary Art in China – As an Archive and Experimental Space

Today, I will be talking to you about private art museums for contemporary art in the People´s Republic of China, which was founded in 1949. While the history of Chinese museums, in comparison to European museums, is – at a little over 100 years – very brief anyway, this particular type – private museums for contemporary art – has been established for a mere 20 years.

The Temple of Confucius was built in 478 B. C., two years after the death of Confucius. The temple conveyed the meaning and some functions of a museum, namely collection, preservation and research.[1] However, the definition of a museum did not exist in China at that time. In the middle of the 19th century, there were some museums which had been built by European Jesuits.

The first museum built in China by the Chinese is located in Jiangsu province and is called the Nantong Museum. It was founded in 1905 by Zhang Jian, an academic.[2] He was inspired by his trip to Japan, where he visited a great number of museums and exhibition houses. The government at that time did not support Zhang´s request. In order to foster the education of the entire population, Zhang started to build a private museum at his own expense. He first founded two companies, and with their profits he financed the Nantong museum. The way of running the museum was similar to that used in current modern private art museums in new China.

At present, museums and art museums in China have a clear division of tasks. Museums collect, exhibit and research classic artefacts, documents and arts, while the art museums place their emphasis on modern art. Today, I am going to discuss the new development in the field of Chinese art museums — private art museums for Contemporary Art.

The word ‘private’ did not exist before the Chinese Economic Reform in 1978, which is also known as ‘Reform and Opening up’. Before that time, ‘state-owned assets’ were the only economic form available to the Chinese people. They could not imagine any other economic forms, especially privatisation. That means that private museums could not have existed before 1978. The opening up of China to the private sector is occurring in the context of globalisation, by which trade restrictions are swept aside and the international system is becoming characterised by new, flexible economic entities and interconnected capital markets. In many societies these developments influence both the way art is dealt with and what value is attached to it. The dividing lines between art, trade and capital blur increasingly. Around the globe, new museums are constructed, reflecting the economic force of their respective region. Additionally, as globalisation and economic boom led to an increasing urbanisation of China from the 1990s onwards, it saw the emergence of new social classes who are interested in art and museums. The expansion of city life into further regions of the country has accelerated in the past ten years.

In the 1980s, there were some family collections in Shanghai, which are seen as the predecessor of private museums[3]. Such kinds of collections mainly displayed classical or traditional pieces. They were rather small and normally did not have regular opening times.

The first proper private art museum was built in Beijing in 1992. It is called the Yan Huang Art Museum, which was founded by an artist through the donation of his own art and collections. However, my emphasis in the field of private art museums is on those institutions which collect and exhibit Chinese contemporary art, which is an essential supplement to state art museums, for state art museums do not exhibit contemporary art because of the political implications that they frequently carry. This kind of art museum was first built in 1998. The Upriver Gallery was the first foundation of this kind. However, it no longer exists. The founders were mostly estate agents, who had become wealthy as a result of the urbanisation in China in the past 30 years.

Since 1998, many private art museums have been founded. Although most of these have since closed down, this feverish activity has not stopped; on the contrary, it has intensified. The reason why most founders are estate agents could be that:

The estate agents could buy the plot from the state at much lower prices if they built a non-profit institution like a private art museum on the plot. The estate agents could realise more profit.

The art museum in a residential area is a very positive cultural sign, which makes estates much more expensive.

These two intentions can be seen as a gift wrapping that is no longer functional after the gift has been opened, although it is pretty.

Of course, there are also many rich people who truly love art and want to develop art museums in China. Among these are also people who want to be a part of the elite in a society which collects culture and arts, for whoever collects art or culture, is considered sophisticated or at least tasteful. Especially in China, after their economic success, the wealthy cannot be satisfied by just being rich, for being rich can be easily confused with being an upstart. So they need the label of culture while they indulge in this area via their financial means.

Collecting and exhibiting art is a status symbol in every society. It is one of the fastest ways to become part of the elite. They began to express a cultivated lifestyle through a spontaneous and sudden "love for the arts".[4]

Chinese Contemporary Art

Chinese contemporary art dominates the collections and exhibits in most of these newly founded private art museums. In China it has existed since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s, but has only been collected on a global scale since 2002. What can be described as an ongoing institutionalisation of Chinese contemporary art reflects central tendencies in the social development of the 21st century, which is characterised by an accelerated growth of urbanisation and globalisation.

Contemporary art does not mean an exact artistic style or form. It is much more the meaning of a period. All styles, forms, materials and subject matter used during a period belong to contemporary art. In general, the period after the end of the Second World War in 1945 is considered contemporary. However, contemporary art does not only refer to the time when the subject is created. The Documenta Kassel in 2007 emphasised the current feature of contemporary art. Contemporary art is not only art which was created yesterday, but also art which influences current society.[5]

Due to its special history, Chinese contemporary art has a differently defined period. It began in 1978 after the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which lasted ten years long from 1966 to 1976. During those ten years, art served the people as a propaganda tool. The creation of art at that time was intended to have a purpose.

After the Cultural Revolution, when Scar Art first arose, it reminded many of China´s national scars. There were some other unofficial associations like “Anonymous” or “Starts”, which petitioned for the freedom of art.

During the period from 1985 to 1989, plenty of western modern literature, philosophy and arts were translated and imported into China. Based on that, young artists created a great number of pure and philosophical works of art. Although Chinese contemporary art arose after the Second World War, its origin lies in modern Western art.

In 1989, “the modern art exhibition” opened in the National Art Museum, but due to a gunshot incident three hours after the opening, the exhibition had to be closed for two days. The shot was conducted by an artist on her own installation called “Dialogue”. After the reopening, an anonymous letter was sent to the National Art Museum, claiming that there was a bomb hidden in the museum. So the exhibition had to be closed again. Furthermore, the exhibition lasted only two weeks.[6] After this, official art museums and similar institutions no longer exhibited such types of experimental contemporary art. For a long time, contemporary artists were excluded from official institutions. They could only exhibit their works in private spaces. Therefore, such artists also became known as “Underground Artists”.

This period of exclusion lasted three years. Due to the further development of art, art historian LÜ Peng tried to combine contemporary art with the market. He first organized the Guangzhou Biennial Art Fair in 1992. This event was an attempt to allow Chinese contemporary art gain access to the museum system. [7]

After the Biennial the climate in the art scene changed. For example, independent curators became more important and the officials of state art institutions lost authority. The art market gradually solidified through the efforts of artists and investors. Artists were no longer limited to studios and exhibition spaces. Their works entered markets, galleries and art museums.

The horizon of artists became wider and more international. After the Venice exhibition “Passage to the East” in 1993, Chinese artists began to attend international biennials, triennials, Documenta and festivals. Contemporary artists became increasingly independent. They were free from the Chinese official art system. This is also one of the important requirements for the foundation of private art museums.[8]

Collections

The idea of art and market in the 90s was controversial. Some academics thought that art should be “pure”. On the one hand, the union of art and market revived Chinese contemporary art, but on the other hand it made art commercial, industrial and even cut and dry.

Exhibiting artists do not want to change their styles, for they are successful with them. They repeat old ideas and stop creating new work. Even more unknown artists simulate such styles to be collected. Chinese contemporary art has become more famous, which has resulted in the construction of many galleries and art museums. Unfortunately, the collections of those institutions are very limited in their scope. This problem should be solved with current art museums.

There are three reasons why most private art museums collect contemporary art:

1. Classical artefacts and paintings must compete against a growing number of counterfeits. Sometimes they cannot even be recognised by experts. It is a big risk to collect such art. Contemporary artists, on the contrary, are mostly alive. They can easily check the originality of their arts. It is safer to buy contemporary art.

2. The price is another reason. Classical art is much more expensive than contemporary pieces.

3. For an “express collection”, contemporary art is a convenient choice. The collector can ask artists to create works especially for their collection.[9]

Even so, most private art museums do not have sizeable collections. Concerning the method of collecting, I would like to mention two critical points. The first is what I would dub ‘passive collection’. Normally, there is at first a systematic collection, and then a museum is built to exhibit the collection. However, in contemporary China, things work differently. The houses or buildings are already constructed, and then someone decides which collection could be displayed in the building. Some museums ask for domestic works of art after they have constructed the building. I would call this kind of collection “passive collection”, which means to collect for the sake of collection.

The second point I call ‘mass collection’, a phenomenon that can be traced back to the 2000s, starting at the 2000 Shanghai Biennial. This means more or less that art creation for museums and their collections has become a kind of contract work. The ‘mass collection’ of Chinese contemporary art is creating an ‘art industry’. Many newly created paintings from famous artists are actually from their studios, which were constructed after they became famous. The art historian LAN Qingwei wrote in his book „The Rules of Art Museums“: „...the Art Museums collected important artists in the art history, but not the art history, -itself.“[10] The scores of private art museums that have sprung up seemingly overnight are closely tied with this development. While typically the transformation of a private collection into an art museum is a long process, under the current societal conditions in China this is happening much more quickly. While the collection of contemporary art did not begin until the mid- and late 1980s, the first private museum of modern art had already opened its doors by 1998.

On the one hand, private art museums can be seen as an important complement to public art museums. On the other hand, there are apprehensions that such museums may become mere shop windows for products of the ’art industry’.

The Future of Private Art Museums

Private art museums must find solutions to develop themselves. As essential supplements to state art museums, private art museums not only place their emphasis on the archives of contemporary art like most traditional art museums, but also on research into the probable development of art museums in the 21st. century. Compared to the state museums, private art museums are flexible regarding the organisation of exhibitions. It is beneficial to observe the constructions of contemporary art and to put it in the right order. Of course, the condition is that art museums be of the highest professional level. Furthermore, the exploration of the exhibition and future development of contemporary art is also an art form of omnipresent value. This exploration has a deep impact on the quality of museum science by forcing museums to go along with the current time and situation and forcing audiences to participate at museums.

Using the example of the Today Art Museum Beijing, I would like, by way of conclusion, to take you along two lines of future development of art museums. These are “collection” and “art museums in the time of digitalization”.

1. Due to an inadequate way of collecting, art museums are like exhibition houses. A special exhibition is one possible solution for the incomplete collections of museums. Contemporary star artists, who are firstly valued by foreign collectors and stand out in international exhibitions, are just one of the phenomena in the contemporary art scene in China. They are not the only standard for Chinese contemporary art. As Chinese state art museums do not place their emphasis on contemporary art, private art museums bear this responsibility of locating undiscovered Chinese contemporary artists in a scholarly fashion; these artists are important, but almost forgotten in art history. In this regard, the Today Art Museum Beijing embarked on an important project. In 2015, there was a big exhibition with the Chinese contemporary artist LÜ Shengzhong in the museum, whose work is indeed important in the history of Chinese contemporary art, but is undervalued in the current art market. The Today Art Museum organised a big exhibition, accompanied by academic events, so that LÜ could be rediscovered. Director GAO Peng of Today Art Museum pays attention to current national artists while he expands the museum in the time of digitalisation. Parallel to the exhibition, he arranges events to make contemporary art popular to the audience. This is one of the most important purposes of art museums.

2. The other solution is to consider the art museum as an experimental art space. The Today Art Museum is a pioneer in the area of exploring the possibilities of contemporary art. As time goes by, art and modern technology have combined. The art museum is not only a traditional institution that contains collection, exhibition and education. It is also becoming a communication platform. The new approach to art, combining both the perspectives of the artists and the audience, is possible on this platform. In this regard, art museums are losing their role as an educator, but are becoming a catalyst of thinking and creation. The audience no longer receives information passively, but rather participates in the museums actively. “Future of Today” is a new creation of the Today Art Museum which uses modern electronic network technology to explore the possibility of contemporary art in museum displays. Simultaneously, the museum provides audiences a chance to participate and interact with the museum. This is both an attempt at exploring exhibition displays and at exploring public education and mediation.

Although Chinese private art museums are feeling the burden of an inadequate cultural policy, their optimistic spirit of exploration is full of infinite possibilities. If private museums could receive, for example, tax incentives or tax-free donations from the Chinese government, these private museums could develop in a much more professional manner.

Literature:

LU Xin, Zhongguo meishuguanxue gailun, Shanghai, 2008 (卢炘, 中国美术馆学概论,上海书画出版社, 上海2008)

LU Hong, Chinese Contemporary Art 1978-2008, Hunan, 2013 (鲁虹, 中国当代艺术三十年 1978-2008, 湖南美术出版社, 湖南2013)

LAN Qingwei, The Rules of Art Museums, Guilin, 2016 (蓝庆伟, 美术馆的秩序, 广西师范大学出版社, 桂林 2016)

LÜ Jimin, Zhongguo bowuguan shilun, Beijing, 2004 (吕济民, 中国博物馆史论, 紫禁城出版社, 北京2004)

Edited by Christian Posthofen (Franz Schultheis, Erwin Single, Stephan Egger und Thomas Mazzurana), Kunst und Kapital, Köln 2015

Articles from Internet:

The Hardship of Chinese private Museums (私立博物馆的中国困境)

Kassel Documenta, wann ein Kunstwerk entstanden ist? Wichtig ist doch nur, dass es uns heute aktuell erscheint.” Buergel Kurator Documenta Kassel 2007, “Warum sollte es darauf ankommen

Lü Peng: Guangzhou Biennial Art Fair in 1992(吕澎,广州双年展(油画部分))

The ideal and the reality of private Art Museums, (民营美术馆的理想与现实)

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[1] LU Xin, Zhongguo meishuguanxue gailun, Shanghai 2008, P. 43. (卢炘，中国美术馆学概论，上海书画出版社，上海2008)

[2] LÜ Jimin, Zhongguo bowuguan shilun, Beijing, 2004, P. 176. (吕济民, 中国博物馆史论, 紫禁城出版社, 北京2004 )

[3] The Hardship of Chinese private Museums (私立博物馆的中国困境):

[4] Edited by Christian Posthofen (Franz Schultheis, Erwin Single, Stephan Egger und Thomas Mazzurana), Kunst und Kapital, Köln 2015, P. 96.

[5] Kassel Documenta, wann ein Kunstwerk entstanden ist? Wichtig ist doch nur, dass es uns heute aktuell erscheint.” Buergel Kurator Documenta Kassel 2007, “Warum sollte es darauf ankommen

[6] LU Hong, Chinese Contemporary Art 1978-2008 P. 124-125. (鲁虹, 中国当代艺术三十年 1978-2008, 湖南美术出版社, 湖南2013)

[7] LÜ Peng: Guangzhou Biennial Art Fair in 1992 (吕澎，广州双年展油画部分)

[8] Ibid.

[9] The ideal and the reality of private Art Museums (民营美术馆的理想与现实)

[10] LAN Qingwei, The Rules of Art Museums, Guilin, 2016, P. 176. (蓝庆伟, 美术馆的秩序, 广西师范大学出版社, 桂林 2016)

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