Museum Fever Breaks Out in China

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS THE LAST IN A SERIES OF COLUMNS FEATURING UNPUBLISHED TEXTS BY JONATHAN NAPACK, A FORMER CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TO ARTASIAPACIFIC. THE ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN IN 2004 AND APPEARS WITH PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR’S ESTATE.

One thing you can say about the Chinese—they never do things by halves. Only 10 years ago the government vilified avant-garde art as “spiritual pollution.” But recent years have seen an abrupt turn, with contemporary art exhibitions at state-run museums, government-supported biennials in Shanghai and Beijing and official participation at the Venice Biennale in 2003 (cancelled due to SARS).

Now things are shifting into overdrive. Beijing mayor Wang Qishan has decided to build 20 museums in Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics, according to representatives from the mayor’s office. He has yet, though, to decide what those museums will be, although he expressed an interest in officially recognizing the 798 Factory art community as one of them.

How that will work is open to question, since 798 includes studios, apartments, bars, restaurants and galleries, all in the same massive complex, a former munitions factory built by East German “experts” in the 1950s. The mayor has slapped a de facto preservation order on the site, enraging the landlord, the Seven Stars Group, which had been forced to take on the property as part of the central government’s ongoing restructuring of state-owned enterprises.

Seven Stars intended to demolish the site and build an “electronics city”—a plan rumored to have been approved at as high a level as the State Council. Thwarted at present, Seven Stars has announced it will accept as new tenants only those “unrelated to culture” (despite the fact that few non-cultural enterprises would want to move into a derelict arms factory)—a move with no other motive than spite.

That hasn’t stopped several American investors, including architect Robert Mangurian, from spending USD 1.2 million on an architecture school planned to open in 798 later this year. The first Dashanzi International Arts Festival, initiated by avant-garde icon Huang Rui and organized with the active support of Chaoyang district (encompassing virtually all the wealthy, internationalized east side neighborhoods of Beijing) will launch in April. It includes an Armin Linke show funded by the Italian Embassy and a retrospective of French filmmaker Chris Marker. Also opening is the first China International Gallery Exhibition (CIGE), which has attracted major galleries from other countries in the region.

Shanghai, of course, is not far behind. Its officials plan to open 100 museums in the next decade! They have held talks with the Guggenheim Foundation again, after a previous attempt to bring the global franchise to Shanghai failed. This time, however, the Guggenheim has a stronger bargaining position, given that it has already broken ground on a NTD 12.4 billion (USD 73 million) museum, designed by Zaha Hadid, in Taichung, Taiwan and is negotiating with Hong Kong developer Cheung Kong, who will build a museum in the new West Kowloon Reclamation development thanks to a government contract.

Shanghai’s achievements so far have been modest. This December, the Duolun Museum opened in the Hongkou district. Unlike other government institutions showing contemporary art, Duolun is entirely devoted to it—and the real thing, too, not a kitschy ink-wash painting in sight. The curator is the ubiquitous Gu Zhenqing, who opened with a wide-ranging survey, “Second-Hand Reality,” which included many video works. On the other hand, the Museum of Chinese Sex Culture has closed, but founder Liu Dalin moved it to Tongli, a picturesque canal town 80 kilometers away; Tongli has invested RMB 1 million ($120,000) in renovating a girl’s school for the museum’s new home.

It’s not clear what these hundreds of new “museums” will display, although it should be noted that the word used in official pronouncements is bowuguan, a much broader term than meishuguan, which refers specifically to art museums. One example of the diversity of projects underway, however, can be seen in Nantong, an industrial satellite north of Shanghai, where a Museum of the Abacus has just opened. Perhaps it will be of some use in the final tally.

Robert Mangurian’s Beijing Architecture Studio Enterprise (BASE) opened in 2005. The Guggenheim has yet to establish a branch in East Asia, although it recently agreed to establish a branch in Abu Dhabi; France’s Centre Pompidou is currently negotiating an outpost in Shanghai. The Duolun Museum has recently weathered controversy with the complete turnover of its core curatorial staff. Private money has backed a number of recent institutions in China, including the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing and the Zendai Museum in Shanghai.

Jonathan Napack (1967-2007) was a contributing editor to ArtAsiaPacific and Art Advisor Asia to Art Basel art fair. He published widely in publications including the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal and New York Observer.