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Another private museum has opened in Shanghai. The Powerlong Art Museum opened its doors to the public with two inaugural shows, showcasing works from the collections of Xu Jiankang and Hoi Kin Hong. Image from Powerlong Group’s WeChat feed.
The Powerlong Art Museum opened in Qibao, a township in the Minhang district of Shanghai, on November 18, 2017. Launched by the the conglomerate Powerlong Group—which has holdings in real estate, hospitality, battery development and more—and backed by collector and the holding company’s founder Xu Jiankang, Powerlong Art Museum houses 23,000 square meters of display space in ten exhibition halls accessed via a spiral ramp similar to the one found in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The institution’s programming includes presentations of Chinese ink works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Works by Chinese contemporary artists will also be showcased.
Three hundred paintings selected from Xu’s collection are on show in one of the museum’s two inaugural exhibitions, “Powerlong Museum Inaugural Exhibition – Tracing the Past and Shaping the Future.” Curated by Wu Congrong, the presentation showcases works by 80 Chinese modern and contemporary artists, including the gunpowder “painter” Cai Guo-Qiang; Zhang Wang, who is primarily known for his sculptures of scholar’s rocks; the ink painter Wu Yiming; and more. A particular draw is Qi Baishi’s 12-panel Zhichitianya Landscape Album (1931), which was acquired by the Powerlong Group in 2016 for RMB 195.5 million (USD 30 million) at auction.
The second inaugural show is “Shucanglou Collection Exhibition – From Streams to a Sea,” which features modern and contemporary paintings and calligraphy works collected by Hoi Kin Hong, chairman of the board of executive directors of Powerlong Group.
Powerlong Art Museum is the second museum that the conglomerate has built. The first is located in Qingdao, a city on China’s eastern coast that faces the Yellow Sea. The company also operates Xu Gallery in Shanghai, located across from Powerlong Art Museum, and a painting academy. The holding company has plans to establish art centers in Xiamen and Hangzhou as well.
Sophie von Wunster is an editorial intern of ArtAsiaPacific.
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