By Andrew Chin and Zoey Zha
The March 28 opening of the Long Museum West Bund is the latest bold move by China’s biggest art collectors, Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei. In sixteen months, they completed their ambitious vision of “one city, two museums.”
“We got the idea at the beginning of 2013 after opening the Long Museum in Pudong,” explains Huang Jian, who acts as director curator of both museums. “We accepted the invitation to join the West Bund Culture Corridor as we felt the neighborhood would play an essential role in the museum.”
The newly opened Long Museum West Bund is the first salvo in the Xuhui Riverside’s transformation. Great efforts are being made to turn the industrial area into a cultural hub with Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneur Bundi Tek opening the Yuz Museum in May and Oriental Dreamworks embarking on their ambitious RMB20 billion Dream Center, slated to open in 2016.
With a construction area of 33,000 square meters – nearly half of that allocated to exhibition space – the Long Museum West Bund dwarfs its Pudong predecessor. The first and second floors are devoted to contemporary art while paintings from the 1910s to 1940s can be found in the basement.
“We managed to renovate this place into a modern museum while reserving some original features of its own,” Huang adds of the museum’s umbrella vault structure, designed by award-winning architect Liu Yichun of Atelier Deshaus.
Although opening two large museums in one city in such a short time may seem foolish, it matches the grand ambitions of Liu and Wang. In two decades, the couple has amassed one of China’s largest private art collections, reportedly spending RMB2 billion on art from 2010 to 2012 alone.
The two are living manifestations of the Mainland’s growing interest in contemporary art. Born into a working class Shanghai family in 1963, Liu went from a 14-year-old high school dropout helping his mom sell handbags on the street to a person valued at US$900 million by Forbes last October.
The savvy stockholder’s fortunes grew from his 1990 purchase of 100 shares in Yuyuan Gardens Shopping Mall for RMB100, which he sold for a near RMB1 million profit two years later.
Wang Hui - Landscape
With Wang’s keen artistic eye, the two were the first Mainland collectors to be included in ARTNews 200 Top Collectors. A 2009 exhibition at the National Museum of China featuring some of their ‘red classics’ inspired their ambitious goal of opening museums in their Shanghai home.
“The red classics will remain a feature of the Pudong location and we are planning to add more experimental exhibitions there,” explains Huang. “The grand space of the West Bund location is ideal for joint shows. The extra space also gives us an option to display work chronologically, allowing the audience to compare different types of art made in the same period.”
The Long Museum West Bund’s opening exhibition, Re-view, includes more than 300 pieces by over 200 artists that will be displayed in three sections emphasizing duality: Ancient/Contemporary, Chinese Paintings/Western Paintings and Cases/History.
Notable works by Qing Dynasty landscape painter Wang Hui and current Central Academy of Fine Arts president Xu Bing will be on display. Other artists featured include Pan Yuliang, the award-winning painter who was the first Mainland female artist to paint in a Western style, contemporary artist Liu Ye whose bright-hued paintings echo the kitsch aesthetic of Cultural Revolution era art and the controversial Gu Wenda.
The star of the show, however, is Su Shi’s ‘Gong Fu Tie.’ [see right] Described as one of the finest pieces of calligraphy, it was written by the Song Dynasty poet for close friend and fellow poet Guo Xiangzheng, also known as Gong Fu.
Liu purchased it at a Sotheby’s auction in New York last September for over RMB50 million. However, three Shanghai Museum researchers assert that it’s a forgery from the Qing Dynasty.
Sotheby’s has forcefully denied the claim, publishing a detailed analysis refuting all of the issues brought up by the researchers, while Huang is even-keeled about the affair.
“We’re inclined to believe its authenticity but we are open to opposing opinions,” he says. “It will be exhibited in a separate room as part of the highlights from our collection.”
Regardless, the Long Museum West Bund is the latest example of China’s museum boom. In the past two years, Shanghai has welcomed the Power Station of Art and China Art Palace, reportedly Asia’s largest museum. In 2012, 451 museums opened – in America, the average annual number of new museum openings is 20 – giving the Mainland a total of 3,866 museums.
While some analysts are worried that the city will suffer from museum overload, Huang would like to see more.
“Shanghai used to be the place where artists from all over the world proudly presented their work,” he says. “The term ‘haipai’ refers to different cultures merging and couldn’t be a more accurate description of this city. Its influence has weakened over time, so Shanghai calls for more private and public museums and galleries, alike.”
// Re-view runs from Mar 29-June 30, 9.30am-5pm, RMB50-80. Long Museum West Bund, 3398 Longteng Lu, by Fenggu Lu 龙腾路3398, 近丰谷路 (6422 7636, www.thelongmuseum.org)
0 User Comments