Tucked away by the banks of the Huangpu River minutes from Lujiazui’s bustling center, the Aurora Museum is an under-heralded cultural jewel. Home to Aurora Group chairman’s Chen Yung-Tai’s awe-inspiring collection of Chinese antiquities amassed over four decades, it’s celebrating its one year anniversary. With plans to open a contemporary art museum in the building within the next four years, Making of a Museum is the start of a dialogue about its future.
“The Aurora Museum is an experiment,” declares curator Davide Quadrio. “We’re trying to find a way to position the direction of the contemporary museum. Instead of waiting for the space to be ready, we’ve started to think how the ancient collection can be a starting point for contemporary art.”
Entering the museum, that intent is made clear. A beautifully restored fifth century statue of a bixie, a divine winged beast, is placed across ‘Unicorn.’ The 2013 piece was crafted by Qiu Zhijie, who Quadrio praises as “an amazing master who is the only person in the world who can do such a big piece with moreno glass.”
The juxtaposition of the ancient monument reserved for the entrances of emperors’ tombs and Qiu’s piece debuted at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, with the Guardian listing The Unicorn and the Dragon as one of its highlight exhibitions. “It’s actually the symbol of the museum,” Quadrio adds. “It has that Western-Eastern, contemporary-antique feel that comes together.”
Six other Chinese contemporary artists representing four different generations have contributed pieces spanning ceramics to video work. Rather than creating an exhibition within an exhibition, Quadrio praises renowned architect Ando Tadaō’s design of the museum space for allowing “individual pieces to breathe.”
“Each of the objects are placed in a usable space that make it their own exhibitions that complement the museum and create a little dialogue about its architecture, lighting and the surrounding objects,” he explains. “It gives a different trajectory to the experience of the museum.”
With the 14 contemporary pieces interspersed across the museum’s six floors, Making of a Museum is full of striking contrasts. The floor devoted to ancient pottery figures from the Eastern Zhou Period to the Tang Dynasty houses Qiu Zhijie’s ‘The Meeting of Two Worlds.’ What appears at first glance as an ancient map is actually a clever documentation of historical Western misinterpretations of Eastern culture.
Walking up the spiral staircase from the floor devoted to blue and white porcelain from the Yan to Qing Dynasty sits Liu Jianhua’s ‘Discard.’ Underneath a picturesque view of Shanghai’s evolving modern skyline, broken pieces of ceramics merge into spray painted white objects of modern waste like Nokia block cellphones and Ultraman figures, with Quadrio noting, “all the artifacts in the museum really are ornaments locked in the past.”
“The museum is quite forward looking,” says Liu. “When I started to prepare my works, I reconsidered their connection to tradition. To learn something from what we have already known so well is a subject every artist should encounter and consider.”
Running until March 31, Making of a Museum also includes a Museum Management International Forum scheduled next month, with experts from prestigious institutions like the Guggenheim New York discussing the Aurora Museum’s future developments.
While ground has yet to be broken for the new contemporary museum, the Aurora Museum remains a must-see due to its permanent collection of precious antiques like the full-body jade suit sewn with gold wire from the Han Dynasty (206BCE-220CE), a jade humanoid figure from the Hongshan era (40th-31st BCE)and Buddhist relics from the Northern Wei to the late Ming Dynasty.
Already a favorite among scholars around the world, the museum has made it a goal to educate the public on the principles of antiquarianism. It has partnered with the Peking University of Archaeology and Museology in its research, interspersing its pieces with detailed explanations, such as identifying how the dragon motif on blue and white porcelain evolved through the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
It houses a library full of cultural heritage literature in different languages, while its children’s program teaching kids the stories behind the antiquities is a hit with families. Public talks are held monthly featuring topics ranging from the latest discoveries in archaeology to the history of tea. Liu Jianhua will discuss his work on March 8.
“We have achieved a lot in our research and want to share that to the public and help them understand antiques,” explains academic associate Diana Chai. “The younger generation pays more attention to contemporary art, but if you make this bridge for them, it’s much easier to promote this ancient culture.”
// Making of a Museum runs until Mar 31, Tues-Sun, 10am-5pm, RMB60 (Closed Feb 14-27). Aurora Museum.
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