The topic of the lecture today is “art museum as an organism”, which mainly involves the following issues:

1.The consciousness of the art museum as an organism, centering on four aspects.

2.The structure of the art museum as an organism, exploring the possibility of self-growth and self-coordination of the art museum itself.

3.The academic ability of the art museum as an organism, primarily focusing on two aspects.

4.The operation of the art museum as an organism, mainly discussing the commonly concerned fund-raising.

Before starting, I want to explain the term “organism” briefly. When using “organism” such a biological term to define the art museum, a social organization and institution, I intend to emphasize, in the sociological sense, the self-generation and self-development, self-changing and self-growth, self-replication and self-extension, as well as various possibilities of the art museum. Just as Isozaki Arata, the architect of CAFA Art Museum, gave the building a meaning when he designed it, emphasizing it as an organic architecture. For me, I regard the building of the art museum as an organic cultural institution.

1. The consciousness of the art museum as an organism

I have written an article entitled “Four Talks on the Consciousness of the Art Museum”, which discusses the consciousness of the art museum from four aspects.

The first one is self-consciousness. As an art museum, what is its primary orientation? What is its subject image? Or what is the unique, clear, and distinct image that distinguishes it from others? It is necessary that an art museum has the ability of self-awareness, self-independence, and self-reliance. Particularly in the routine curating work, the art museum is required to have the ability to curate exhibitions independently, because which reflects its academic position and strength. The curating issue mostly involves how the art museum utilizes and integrates various resources in its operation, including its own talent, product, and local resources, etc., to organize relevant exhibition independently. On the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Guangdong Museum of Art in 2007, I published four books, and one of which called Consciousness: Curatorial and Academic Conceptions of the Guangdong Museum of Art, containing a fine selection of a dozen exhibitions and academic activities curated by the art museum on its own from 1997 to 2007 since its opening,  which not only contributed to the building of the current academic image of the Guangdong Museum of Art, but also reflected its self-consciousness in curating. 

Nowadays, many Chinese art museums in China, I think, should attach great importance to the concept of self-curating. Each of our art museums may and should make meaningful exhibitions, especially how to hold in-depth exhibitions with local cultural resources. It then concerns the relationship between regionalism and integrity, that is, while organizing some personalized and oriented exhibitions in the local area, or establishing their own featured collections, how the uniqueness of each art museum can be recognized and valued in the structural system of major art museums in China? How can their exhibitions, collections, as well as the created image form a corresponding relationship with each other or a kind of recognition? I think we may all encounter this problem in the future, so I raise the question and hope that we can face it together and think about how to solve this problem. Theoretically, no matter it is a regional museum or a national museum, it should construct its own cultural characteristics.

As far as reality is concerned, for example, art museums are facing the same group of artists, same modern and contemporary art phenomena and collections, how do they create their own style in such a broad context? To determine their academic image or professional brand? In my opinion, the most important and possible thing among them is how to carry out the conservation, collection, and research of different local culture consciously, which is also a means to establish their own distinctive image. However, it may also result in similar exhibitions. For example, both the Guangdong Museum of Art and Guangzhou Art Museum belong to Guangdong province, and especially they are situated in the same city and face the same situation of Guangdong’s culture and art, the same batch of artists and artworks. In this case, how to have their own more independent academic stance? More constructive academic position? More unique entry point and ways of doing things? And, how does that produce other possibilities? These were real challenges I thought and faced when I went to the Guangdong Museum of Art in 1996. Guangzhou Art Museum was founded in 1959, and by the mid-1990s, it had acquired a high number of classic works by masters, especially the ancient collections. At the same time, this art museum began to collect a number of works of “Lingnan School”, and it also held a large scale of the collection of masters from Guangdong, such as Huang Xinbo and Liao Bingxiong. For the newly established Guangdong Museum of Art, we could not compete with it in the above aspects, so we start to work from what we could do well, which is the perspective of our own art history.

For example, when the Guangdong Museum of Art planned to collect Liao Bingxiong’s works, Guangzhou Art Museum had already built an exclusive gallery for him, and almost all his excellent works and representative works of different periods were kept in Guangzhou Art Museum. Facing this reality, where do we start with his collection? How does it make a sense? During a conversation with him, we found that he had lived in Hong Kong for a while, that is, from 1947 to 1947, two years, when he drew editorial cartoon almost every day. The most exciting thing was that he just uncovered the cartoons that have not been found before, and he prepared to present them to Guangzhou Art Museum. Then I suggested to him that these works completed in Hong Kong should be given to the Guangdong Museum of Art, of course, some special ones can be sent to Guangzhou Art Museum, given that the most complete part must be put in the Guangdong Museum of Art. In the future, those who want to study his works of the Hong Kong period have to contact with the Guangdong Museum of Art. In this way, there would be two significant institutions which collect and study Liao Bingxiong’ works, not just limited to one. He agreed with my suggestion, and we acquired his collection. So, we have a complete collection of Mr. Liao Bingxiong’s distinctive editorial cartoons created in the Hong Kong period, and he also gave some works of his other periods. Therefore, Liao Bingxiong’s collection can be found in two art museums in the same city with different features.

From the above example, it also can be seen that the Guangdong Museum of Art has established its principle of the collection since the early days – collecting works and artists that can have constitutive significance to art history, which remains the orientation of the art museum today. For the Guangdong Museum of Art, the first thing it faces is an orderly collection of art history, artists, and works in Guangdong’s area. We no longer focus on works of masters, as Guangzhou Art Museum already has a systematic collection of famous artists and works, and we set out to rediscover and study some artists that are forgotten by history, such as Zhao Shou, Liang Xihong, tan Huamu, and so on. People may be not familiar with these figures, but for the art circle in Guangdong, they were very influential in Chinese modern art history and were submerged in history for various reasons. To excavate, sort out, and study their things is necessary for reviewing the art history of a region.

Take an international experience of mine when I visited a major art museum in Fukuoka. This art museum has two exhibition halls, one of which did a proper sorting out and display of the painting history in Fukuoka area and Japan, enabling the viewer to have a general understanding of Fukuoka’s art history. The other exhibition hall presented an extensive collection of the world’s great masters, but unfortunately, only a few of them were masterpieces, and most of them were of average quality. From a professional point of view, Fukuoka has done well in displaying Japanese works and can offer an excellent visual presentation of the regional culture. However, it is hard for its collection of international art to reach a top-class level, as the works are generally not very outstanding, which is also the case in non-Western countries around the world. From the real situation, just in these two galleries of different professional displaying level: the international gallery was very crowded, yet the Japanese gallery was less visited. Here involves another issue, that is the public’s social demand for multi-culture.

Another important point about “self-curating” is our attitude towards exchange exhibitions. Due to our limited curating ability and practical needs, most of the time, we do exchange exhibitions. At present, there are many very important exchange exhibitions, especially the outstanding ones. When doing the exchange show, my personal experience, firstly, is to make a judgment – which are excellent exhibitions, which are average exhibitions, and which one is worth doing. When we take on an exhibition, we can learn about the exhibition through various channels, and try our best to understand it comprehensively so as to have a good idea of it. For example, CAFA Art Museum has just held an exhibition of Tony Cragg, who is a very famous British sculptor. When I learned that he would come to talk about the exhibition, all I knew about him was the contemporary works that won him the Turner Prize in the early days. However, when I got his catalogue, I was surprised that his later-style creation changed a lot, which, frankly speaking, I could not recognize too much. However, I decided to do this exchange exhibition after conducting a comprehensive study on his works. As I just said, the first step is to make a judgment, good or bad, to do or not to do. Secondly, after making the decision, we should have our own position. After a thorough understanding of an exhibition, we should begin to make requests. As an art museum, it is not excessive to raise a claim, no matter what kind of significant figures or masters we are dealing with. When Tony talked with us, along with his agent and the British Council, I found that his later works might take up too much of the whole exhibition. So, I requested at the time to decide what percentage of the exhibition should be early works, and the later works should be reduced. Through negotiations, he accepted my request. I give this example is to explain that when undertaking an exchange exhibition, how our art museum dealt with an international and passive exhibition by taking the initiative and doing it actively and constructively. We tried to excavate the meanings of the exhibition in other aspects, including the extension of other works, a series of projects such as public activities and academic activities. In a word, when we change the passive into the active, there will naturally be many ideas generated to re-construct the exhibition.

The second one is historical consciousness. The art museum, as a cultural institution, must get down to think and make judgments at the cultural level. The so-called approach of historiography is that there must exist a view of history, an ability to judge history, or at least a consciousness. Personally, I often use the word “consciousness”, because I think it is hard to tell what abilities we possess, yet we should have such consciousness, including the consciousness of acting on our own, emphasizing that we should be self-reliant. While speaking of historiography, it refers to the view of history we should have, a historical understanding or such a starting point of such history.

The historical consciousness mainly contains four aspects: firstly, some things need us to take a step back to see, and some objects need us to watch and think in a calm state. Secondly, when we make a judgment, that is, when we make a judgment on history at the moment, we are already constructing a kind of current history – all history is contemporary. When we confront contemporary artists and art phenomenon, if we have such a historical consciousness and build it into a current knowledge system, we can generally distinguish the starting point of an exhibition and its historical value. For example, in 1969, Harald Szeemann, the originator of the concept of “curator”, organized a sensational exhibition in New York, USA, “When Attitudes Become Form: Works-Processes-Concepts-Situations-Information”. Looking back at the participating artists and works at that time, it can be said that none of them were particularly excellent, but the organization of the whole show, as well as the questions raised and challenged in the historical situation then was quite targeted. In other words, this exhibition was based on the knowledge structure of that time, or on the node of the forefront of knowledge at that time to ask questions. I think it was in this sense that this exhibition had become an exhibition not to be ignored in the history of the modern and contemporary exhibition. It also related to the third aspect of historical consciousness to be discussed below.

The third aspect of historical consciousness is that we should have a positive attitude to intervene in reality and the present, and we should pay attention to the relationship of constructing atmosphere with contemporary history. As for art museums, they should have the passion and a sense of responsibility for the collection and curation of contemporary art. I think this issue is generally ignored at present, and I put it forward here in the hope of attracting everyone’s attention. The fourth aspect of historical consciousness underlines more a kind of theory and knowledge, in short, it is to establish a judging mechanism. 

When it comes to the subject consciousness and subject construction of the art museum, I have a deep feeling that there is still a long way for us to become an international art museum in this respect. Sometimes, when I touch the history and exhibition history of some international art museums, I feel that Western art history, exceptionally modern and contemporary art history, is more presented as an exhibition history or art museum history, which is very unique and exciting. Currently, many phenomena of international art history are constructed by art museums through exhibitions and various academic activities. While China in this area has a long way to go, some Western art historians basically have a background of working in the art museum. In history, the art historians we are very familiar with, such as Winkelmann, Riegl, and Barr, who had a profound influence on the historical writing of modern art history and himself was the first director of MoMA. Recently, I met Zhang Hongxing, director of the Oriental Department of the V&A Museum, who graduated from the Nanjing University of the Arts and went to study a PhD in the UK, and he is doing very well at the V& Museum. He gave four lectures on museums and art history studies at CAFA. One point he mentioned is that many British art historians come from the V&A Museum. In China, in this respect, we have tremendous work to do and many lessons to make up. The first one is the lack of historical awareness.

From the perspective of the historical consciousness of the art museum, we can take a fresh look at the ways adopted and problems encountered in the First Guangzhou Triennial in 2002. The planning idea of this art triennial was to comprehensively review the development of Chinese contemporary art in the 1990s from an academic point of view and to display a number of meaningful experimental artworks created during this decade. One of the purposes of the exhibition was to sort out a period of history that had just past through the exhibition, that is, take a step back and observe, or re-interpret it. Therefore, the theme was “Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000)”. It showed our attitude towards history, including how to interpret, how to observe, and how to construct this period of history, and it even set up an additional section or structure titled “Experimentation Continues” to present a group of artists who have been vigorously promoting experimental art after the ten years passed. I think this may be a more constructive way of intervention, as well as the theoretical expression formed on the basis of this exhibition. Especially, the editing of this exhibition’s catalogue invited more than a dozen Chinese and foreign critics to give a theoretical description of various aspects of Chinese art history in the 1990s. It enabled the exhibition had both a practical visual presentation and a theoretical entry point, yet generally emphasizing the description. Now, it seems that this exhibition catalogue has become an essential reference for the study of experimental art in China in the 1990s.

The third one is the culture-caring consciousness of the art museum collection. This aspect mainly talks about collection. A critical point about art museum collection is the issue of cultural concern, specifically the relationship between regional culture and overall culture, which not only refers to the relationship within a cultural context but also involves “filling the gap of culture and history”. In terms of the collection, to give an example, it is very important to acquire classic works, which is often widely concerned and yearned for. However, it is also of great importance to collect works that are relevant to the existing collection and can reflect the integrality of culture and history, including the collection for the wholeness of an individual artist, the collection that can form the regional culture and historical context, and the collection that can contribute to the construction of an overall culture and historical sequence in a larger sense. For a relatively important artist, I personally think that, in the process of the negotiation, the art museum should collect the artist’s representative works of different periods and pay attention to the early, late works, particularly the objects that count for the artist, including various materials, such as letters, tools, publications, and so on, which should be considered in the collection, rather than just focusing on works.

For example, we may be familiar with the exhibition “Humanism in China”, which has been on tour in many places at home and abroad. This exhibition presented about 300 photographers, almost all of whom are prominent photographers since the new China. The 601 works on display were selected from nearly 100,000 negatives, with the starting point of whether they had recorded various social phenomena over the 50 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Then we collected all 601 works that have been exhibited in this exhibition, which is of great significance to the collection of the Guangdong Museum of Art. One side, it opened up a series of collection of photography as an art form in the art museum. On the other side, and most importantly, this collection has a profound cultural concern, just as the subject indicated in the preface, it represents the humanized and personalized China. It also means that our collection policy pays attention to the particular humanism of Chinese people, as well as an expression of the public, as a whole, in the process of pursuing personalization. 

Let us take a look at the First Guangzhou Triennial from the culture-caring consciousness of the collection. This exhibition established the position of the art-collecting of contemporary art for the Guangdong Museum of Art. Although this art museum has been collecting the works of young contemporary artists since 1998, a real sense of contemporary art collection started from the First Guangzhou Triennial in 2002. Almost every work exhibited in this exhibition is historically important. In addition to those collected by galleries and foreign institutions, more than 80% of the exhibits are owned by the Guangdong Museum of Art, which has determined the critical position of the Guangdong Museum of Art in Chinese contemporary art collection.

In this way, the culture-caring consciousness of the Guangdong Museum of Art’s collection has contributed to a distinctive and relatively comprehensive collection in the art museum, through the focus on regional art phenomenon, the extraordinary collection of essential artists, the emphasis on new art forms such as photography, and the intervention and collection of contemporary art, and so on. Also, these rich collections have one thing in common, that is, possessing cultural and historical concerns.

Let me talk about another case regarding the collection, an essential oil painting by Li Shutong that has been discovered recently by CAFA Art Museum. I want to talk about the research issues of this collection. Last year, we found this work in the storeroom of the CAFA Art Museum. As there was no signature on the work, and the records on the collection register often had been modified, no clear documents could prove that it is Li Shutong’s work. However, according to our own working experience, we believe that it is his work. Centering on this primary starting point, we consulted a large number of literatures, including relevant catalogues. According to the literature we have, the image most closely related to this work was first published in the first issue of the journal of “Aesthetic Education”. As people know, “Aesthetic Education” was founded by Feng Zikai, Liu Zhiping and Wu Mengfei, three of Li Shutong’s most outstanding students, and they also established the Shanghai Normal College. The pictures published on the first issue of the journal of “Aesthetic Education” contains much crucial information, such as Li Shutong created the oil painting; and this work was kept in the collection of Shanghai Normal College; Li Shutong also wrote the characters "Mei Yu" on the cover of the journal. These were the earliest information about this piece of work. Later, in 1959, for the second time, there appeared the significant information about this work, that is, Wu Mengfei published an article in the magazine “Art Research” of CAFA Art Museum then, and he mentioned this work and illustrated it. Then, from the 1970s, among plenty of studies on Li Shutong, many documents have referred to this work as Li Shutong’s representative work. During our research, many interesting clues were uncovered, and we found out that this work’s circulation information was very suspicious. First of all, it belonged to the Shanghai Normal College, and somehow it was transferred to the hands of Xia Mianzun, a friend and colleague of Li Shutong. After Xia’s death, this work came to Mr. Ye Shengtao. Ye Shengtao had mentioned in the preface for Liu Haisu’s collection of essays: on August 30, 1959, this work was given to CAFA Art Museum, but the academy could not find it for a long time until last year.

After we collected and researched the specific documentation mentioned above, we held a meeting inviting experts from all over the country for verification in March. As a result, experts generally believed that Li Shutong created this work. However, when we invited Mr. Ye Shengtao’s grandson to the demonstration meeting, he said, as soon as he saw the work, that it was not the painting he had seen in his grandfather’s house when he was a child. According to his descriptions, he was about 8 or 9 years old at that time, and the work was hung high, flat and long, but not nearly square like now. He also pointed out that what he saw was a female nude lying down, not sitting down. Ye Shengtao’s grandson’s words made us reconsider whether this work is really authentic. The next day, we invited Xia Mianzun’s granddaughter, who is 11 years older than Ye Shengtao’s grandson, to the art museum for confirmation. She recalled that the painting hung in his grandfather’s house at that time should be the painting at the museum now, as she had a deep impression of the character’s eyes and the gesture of the hands. She could not remember whether it was naked or half-naked and because the place where the picture was hung was in dim light, not to mention that it was naked, a little girl would usually slip away without looking closely. I guess that boys are also embarrassed to look or imagine the whole picture through a small part, so it should be completely naked. Meanwhile, as the painting was hung in a higher place, it may appear taller, particularly for a little child, and prolate when looking up from below.

After the meeting, we conducted a scientific examination on this painting, including X-ray. The X-ray showed that the spray in the vase on the round table had been modified and that there were more leaves than we have seen today. Also, according to the X-ray analysis of Li Shutong’s painting features, we determined that Li Shutong himself made the modification of the spray in the process of painting, and preliminarily eliminated the doubt of the experts that later generations may have made the alteration. We continue to conduct suchlike studies on this work, and around the discovery of Li Shutong’s work, we will hold an essential exhibition in December this year, together with a self-portrait created during his stay in Japan from 1906 to 1911. This case is a typical example of explaining how we made in-depth research on the collection and organized relevant exhibitions and academic studies based on the research results. It is also the principle that Western art museums always adhere to, that is, the exhibition is a visual presentation of academic thinking and research, rather than a simple display of works.

The fourth point is the issue of public awareness. In recent years, we have talked a lot about public awareness of the art museum, especially public education and public service. Since last year, art museums have been open to the public for free, which reflects the elevation of the government’s service awareness to the social public and enables art museums to serve the public more openly. It requires the managers of art museums to have a higher understanding of the specific work and make great efforts to serve the public, magnify the characteristics of the art museum as a socially public institution, and present the nature of the art museum’s service space, public space, and open space. In particular, what we need to think deeply and face is what kind of cultural policy should be carried out in the service, public, and open space of the art museum. How to present the possibilities of multiple cultures? How to enable the public to get real involvement, communication, and participation, instead of just providing simple services, for instance, free access to exhibitions or interest classes. 

As an institution of knowledge dissemination, the art museum should first have a concept of the democratization of knowledge and emphasize the expression of public’s opinions of the art museum as well as the collision and exchange of their subject consciousness here. As managers of the art museum, how do we offer such opportunity? How do we consciously work on the democratization of knowledge? We should not force the public to walk into the art museum passively, or provide the so-called public service from a commanding position, but let them to take the initiative to participate in a more equal and active way, even to collide with each other with sharp ideas, through carrying out some forums, public talks, and so on. In a word, we should be more open to the public.

Secondly, as an institution of building the height of knowledge, what can the art museum render to the public to improve their level of knowledge? When we open the art museum to the public, what can they be exposed to in this open space? What can they gain here? Moreover, what can they participate in? Then, it continues to cultivate the public’s interests, improve their aesthetic ability, change the knowledge structure, and accumulate culture. I notice that, since art museums opened free to the public, they have not provided more cultured exhibitions or related activities to let the public get profound enlightenment and thoughts, that is to say, our public consciousness has not undergone fundamental changes with the arrival of the new transition period, which needs our high attention and deep reflection.

Thirdly, for public awareness, it needs to consider how to make more people approach artworks and spiritual products in their best state. Several points should be taken seriously in this regard. In the first place, art museums must study the best state of the public and how to maintain their best state in visiting art museums. If an art museum is like a free market, or a shopping mall, crowded and noisy, with works displayed in a mess, then it may lose its significance. However, free admission may cause such kind of problems. On the one hand, some of the viewers may be ill-mannered, and on the other hand, our management may not be efficient enough – we may not have the awareness to stop noisy spectators or deal with it properly, which refers to a kind of poor state of “software”.  Then, the best state of “hardware” involves the whole environment of the gallery, including the exhibition layout, lighting, signs, and it should pay attention to every detail, even the bathroom. Why do our eyes light up in front of an excellent exhibition? It requires us to have a professional way of installation, visual requirements, including technical lighting. When the public enters an art museum, they should get a very different feeling from parks, markets, and shopping malls, which is the power of culture!

To take a specific example, CAFA Art Museum has a regular program for the public: museum night, an event inspired by the V&A Museum in the UK. About one weekend every month, the V&A Museum will be open to the public from 4 pm for free. It usually requires a ticket but except the very weekend of the museum night, and it mainly targets young people. The museum will hold activities according to the ongoing exhibition. Their museum nights are primarily organized by the academic department and the public education department. The academic department mainly focuses on the featured design of the exhibition to attract the public to participate in a series of events in a relaxed and happy atmosphere, while the public education department seeks sponsorship on the social impact of the exhibition. Once, I visited the museum just when they were planning a museum night themed on “Coding and Decoding – International Digital Art Exhibition”. It was about digital technology, so they were under the patronage of Apple Inc. With the intervention of this company, the museum was able to organize more large-scale activities, including inviting artists to create works. During the party of the museum night, the participants were offered with light food and drinks, and they could also take part in activities related to the exhibition to get some personal practices. The whole event of the museum night was organized in a comprehensive way. Their museum nights have been implementing for more than a decade and have received good feedback. We are still in the learning stage. We have done two museum nights, one in last June and one in last October. This year on June 9, there will be one more museum night following our first reading festival. Around the theme of the book, we organized a series of events, including makeup, performance, talk show, lucky draw, exhibition viewing, guided tours, etc. Also, we invited students and parents from migrant schools in Beijing to take part in the events, which was a success with many participants. For CAFA Art Museum, its favorable geographic location and cultural position can strengthen various associations with major universities in Beijing. This event is just realized in this way by the students’ unions of more than a dozen universities in Beijing, under the sponsorship of Guardian Online.

2. The structure of the art museum as an organism

The structure of an art museum, first of all, should not be a fixed and conditioned structure, but a management mechanism that emphasizes coordination and rationality. Only in this way can the operation of an art museum be active and alive, that is, the issue of rationality and coordination. Firstly, it involves the internal and external structure of the art museum. Take, for example, the need for the art museum to establish an art committee. What should be the relationship between the arts council and the director or the management? It may be a problem we all encounter. Indeed, for many art museums devoted to the study of modern art, their academic strength and influence are not strong enough, so they frequently need to employ social force to improve the academic quality and impact of the art museum, which necessitates the establishment of the art committee. The key to the issue is to coordinate the relationship between the art council and the art museum. Such as, what are the rights and obligations of the art council? What is the power of the director and the decision-maker? There must be clearly defined and documented rules in these aspects. Otherwise, some work may be difficult to carry out, and problems may arise in the process. For example, when the Guangdong Museum of Art set up its art committee, we used a keyword among many explicit stipulations, that is the nature or role of the art committee as an “advising and consulting” organization. It indicates or defines that it is not a decision-making organization, as the director’s office meeting resolves any decision-making rights. That is to say, we can consult them, and they can raise questions or give many advices, but the director’s office meeting makes the decision. I suggest that, if there is a need to establish an art council, it should be stated clearly in terms of conditions of its post and position. 

Secondly, the art council should make suggestions or give advices on major activities such as exhibitions, collections, annual plans, etc. These can emphasize its guiding role of consultants and advisors, especially in the field of the collection that involves the usage of funds. It is vital to use the funds wisely, to find a reasonable basis for the usage, also out of protection. It should not happen that you spend a great deal of money for a batch of valuable works, a kind gesture indeed, yet stumble in the end because of faulty procedures, or because of various starting points, including different views, such as you think it is worthwhile to buy, but other people do not, thus causing a grave misunderstanding. So, in this regard, clear procedures must be formulated in the collection to ensure favoring purchases, in which one key point is how to draw on the advices of the art council. Within the rules of the Guangdong Museum of Art, for example, there is a definite statement that the annual collection plan should be put forward by the academic department and collection department as they work in the front-line of the art museum and grasp the situation. They present the summary of information to the director and then to the experts of relevant art committees for academic judgments and suggestions. There will be many detailed provisions, according to which the director’s office meeting can be held with the experts for suggestions and decisions. Based on the price, there will be clear rules determining how much more than the number must be signed by the art committee, or by two heads, or three heads, and one of them should be at the director level. People just follow the rules. That is actually a reference to the practice of the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Due to a large gap between our level with that of foreign countries, it is unrealistic to learn from them except for Hong Kong, as many of their approaches deserves our attention. They apply segmentation to their art committees so that each art type has its own division for signing signatures and making suggestions, such as oil painting department, Chinese painting department, and Contemporary art department, which is very professional.

At present, in addition to the structural relationship with the art committee, art museums will soon be exposed to the foundation system with the general building of local foundations as well as its related systems. It may be easy for private art museums to conduct this respect, such as the Today Art Museum, directed by Zhang Zikang, has the setup of foundations, including some partnerships with Uli Sigg. I think we have to study and learn from the Western council system first. Now, CAFA Art Museum also studies how to cooperate with foundations, during which, of course, we have encountered many problems, but I think we should focus on the research first, whether it is feasible is something we will face and deal with later.

The next is the structure of the art museum itself. The structure or department set of art museums is mostly identical with minor differences, with no need to be explicitly discussed here. However, I want to share my views on the following aspects. One of the most important is coping with the relationship between the administrative department and professional departments, which, I think, is a common problem we all face. As a specialized knowledge production institution, the specialty is both the foundation and core of the art museum, and it must always come first as many works of the art museum are based on it. It is essential for a director to cultivate the professional ability and level of the staff in each special department. And the policy of the art museum can be more partial to the professional departments. The other is the administrative department, which is, first of all, a service organization. We should stresses this kind of service, particularly the service of assisting professional departments, and also the service of building an external image.

Another critical issue concerning the structure is the establishment of the core department, that is to say, there must be a research department, or academic department, curatorial department, which must focus on academic research. When Mr. Lin Kangsheng, the former director of the Guangdong Museum of Art, and I work out to set the development direction for the museum, the orientation of development emphasized that academic research is the leading role of the art museum, which can drive collection, public education, and other functions.

One of the crucial tasks of an art museum is holding exhibitions. The first thing is to contact with the academic and research departments, rather than the exhibition department. In this way, research and academic department could first make the judgment on an exhibition plan, conduct a comprehensive evaluation, and decide whether the exhibition is worth doing or not. After the decision is made, the academic department will take the lead to determine the details of the exhibition in terms of academic norms and professional requirements, from literal expressions to the specific presentation. Literal expressions include interpretation labels, press release, especially the foreword of the exhibition and introductions for each section. Its expression of words should be appropriate, without excessively grandiose language, which can test the basic academic quality of an art museum.

Then comes the taking-over of the exhibition department that carries out the installation of the exhibition and fulfills the exhibition site presentation and visual presentation based on the requirements of the academic and research department. The specific function of this department is doing such kind of work, as to how to arrange the gallery to display a sound effect, or how to design a good layout for catalogues and books. 

Besides, the academic department and research department need to communicate with the collection department to discuss what works must be collected after an exhibition and how to conserve them. It involves the responsibility of the collection department, on the one hand, to participate in the discussion of what and how to collect, and at the same time, it deals with a series of collection procedures for functional conservation. The more important aspect is to carry on in-depth research on the collection, thus forming a systematic series of collection research.

3. The academic ability of the art museum as an organism

The academic ability of the art museum is associated with all the aspects mentioned above. But here, I mainly stress two aspects: on one side, how can the art museum build academic heights and generate academic energy; on the other side, how to transform this energy into social services so that more people in society can fell the significance of knowledge produced as well as that of the presence of the art museum. Art museums should be places with the capacity of producing energy. Recently, I have written a book entitled Art Museum as Knowledge Production, published by Central Compilation & Translation Press. This book is the first volume of my collection of essays, which includes some articles I usually write about various aspects of the problems and thoughts of the art museum. The name of the collection of essays is Wang Huangsheng: New Experience on Art Museum. I plan to write four books, and the first one is called Art Museum as Knowledge Production, as the issue of the art museum and knowledge production should be a vital foothold of the art museum. The second book is called Curating as Gesture. When we organize an exhibition, we should have a stance or a gesture on which we insist during the process.

I want to introduce a few specific cases to elucidate the academic ability of the art museum in the series of work or system construction around exhibitions.

The first case is the Third Guangzhou Triennial “Farewell to Post-colonialism”, which was a very academic exhibition and discussed unintelligible topics, but its final presentation and the degree of audience participation, no matter on the academic circle or public sector, exerted a significant influence. 

In the preparation of this art triennial, the Guangdong Museum of Art received various supports in funding and force from multiple parties. Apart from the generous financial support from the Hong Kong Cultural Bureau, the co-organizer of the exhibition, many partners have also provided financial support, including Times Property, which invested the construction of the Times Museum; Goethe Institut, which hosted the 7th Mobile BBS of the exhibition; and UCCA, which undertook the sub-exhibition of the video works, also sponsors for food and the production of artworks. It is fair to say that such a magnificent exhibition could not be realized by only relying on the meager annual grant from the authorities. In addition, that year’s triennial further expanded and deepened the exhibition effect by adopting the interactive mode of “interaction among three museums”, that is, group visits and exchanges with the 6th Taipei Biennial held by Taipei Fine Art Museum and the Shanghai Biennial produced by Shanghai Art Museum. Also, 5,000 free tickets were given to the public through Yangcheng Evening News to encourage public participation.

The second case is the thematic exhibition held at the CAFA Art Museum in 2011, “Super-Organism/Research and Experiment from a Specific View”. It was the Biennale of CAFA Art Museum we launched as “CAFAM Biennale”, and we will use the term in the future. This exhibition aimed to explore some essences of mankind around four aspects: “super-body”, “super-urbanity”, “super-machine” and “bio-politics”, extending the tentacles of memory to the depth of a certain essential desire of human beings, and taking the problems presented by human desire in the present performance as an entry point and thinking point for artistic expression. Therefore, it constituted an exhibition that not only discussed the essence of things of human beings but also related itself to the current realistic relations and historical perceptions. The entire exhibition organized a series of activities at different relative levels, such as the organizational form of four high-end forums was a multi-disciplinary cultural symposium. Each invited 4 or 5 scholars of different disciplines and asked them to be fully prepared for discussions, and everyone had a half and an hour after the speech, then talks and exchanges among scholars, and finally the interacts with the public. The high-end symposium established dialogues among scholars, and the results were good for the four forums. The second form is the high-level dialogue, which refers to the relationship between the artist and the curator or the scholar, or talks among participating artists, curators or theorists, scholars. The third type is the workshop, which mainly provides a platform for young artists to communicate. The fourth way is the BBS in colleges and universities. Each time, a well-known artist will be invited to take part in the activities with university students, so as to let exhibitions and art museums go out and walk into the campuses and society. The fifth way is the aforementioned private interview, which establishes a relationship between the public and the artist’s studio. The sixth and final one is the party. The exhibition was ended with “The Night of Art Museum – Super Organism Assembly”, constituting an extremely rich structure and connotation of this show.

4. The operation of the art museum as an organism

Regarding the operation of the art museum, I want to focus on one important issue – fund-raising. I feel that many art museums in China are always complaining about their lack of supportive policies, lack of funds, lack of effective government support, and so on. Indeed, as public and service cultural institution, we should appeal to the government for support, and also boldly ask for funds, and accordingly, the government should also render more support, including in policies. However, I do not think it is a good idea to wait for the government to provide funds or policies. And, more importantly, we cannot just spend time in waiting, or cater to the government in terms of professional operations, turning into a role of waiting or flattering, or even lose the energy and capability of self-growth and changing in the organic system. It is very important for an art museum to both accept the criticism from society and receive various support from society, including financial support. Therefore, art museums should strive for funds from the whole society. One of the essential routines of the directors of Western art museums is fund-raising. It is said that many Western art museum directors frequently hold various fund-raising parties in their gallery space, and also go outside to play golf and contact with foundations to seek funds. In this respect, directors in China need to learn from them, and, first of all, learn how to find sponsors and partners.

From my personal experience, I set up a development department in the Guangdong Museum of Art very early, the purpose of which is to look for all kinds of possibilities of cooperation with society for funds and sponsorships. However, we must first publicize our image, our mission, let all sectors of the community know what we can achieve, so as to earn their understanding and support. It is a very powerful and flexible way to recommend yourself to the outside world. Society is an organism with rich levels. In order to get sufficient support of funding from society, you have to make plans targeted for different groups and hierarchies to run relevant propagandas, including direct and indirect promotions. That is the first thing to do.

The second point, since we decide to do promotions, it needs to verify the effect and to what degree it can achieve. In fact, society is also demanding the same thing, and monitoring you, to see how you deal with it. Because society does not give you money for nothing, and they are actually looking to see if such an institution is worth working with and whether the cooperation can offer more effective development possibilities. As such, if we can change our view and first make it clear that we should raise money from society, we will find a way, which is also a process of society’s recognition of the art museum. Why are art museums poorly-developed in China, it seems that, from experts and scholars to art museum practitioners, people know little of the current situation and future development of the art museum and have not enough confidence. I think the reason for this is that we lack the awareness to build our unique image that can win great popular support, and do not know how to establish our image more academic and professional. Although on the surface, many art museums have spent much energy on its operation, promotion, and fostered many related projects through the government. However, all these projects are actually made to respond to the government’s certain policies, commemorative activities, some kind of non-professional activities for just fulfilling a task, and we appear not cultural and professional in the public and academic world. How can we expect to get support from the rest of society with such an image? It is difficult to be distinguished from others and other cultural institutions in society, while Western art museums have long been able to construct the concept of the art museum in the hearts of the public and social groups to reflect the public appeal. Art museums in China should realize that we are serving the country and the public, so it is necessary to seek financial support from the government. However, how can we use our ability to ask for money from society and test our work with society’s examining mechanism to win its real understanding of the art museum? When I founded the development department of the Guangdong Museum of Art, I told my colleagues in this department at the beginning that I did not require how much funds they can get back, but asked them to continuously make propaganda and promotion, keep contacting people and organizations. Of course, it would be excellent if they could get the funding, but it does not matter if not for the time being, as this requires a process. 

For this point, I also particularly want to emphasize that we should have a very active consciousness. I think Today Art Museum has done a good job in this field, and I often discuss such issues with its director Zhang Zikang. In fact, he also borrows from the practices of foreign foundations, because at present, the domestic foundation system is not perfect and have no tradition to support art museums’ cultural work. Zhang Zikang did well in part because he has won the support of international foundations.

Several things must be done to win the support of international foundations. Firstly, to establish a public service image. For example, Zhang Zikang organized many activities, including the Martell program, and some activities for Children. Children’s activity is not only a service project of the art museum, but it also builds the due image of public service as a non-profit gallery through public education activities, Children’s activities, lectures, and other events. Only when you have built the image of public service can you request for funds from some foundations. Because when foreign foundations consider providing money to you, on the one hand, they support some meaningful academic projects, and on the other hand, they support your public social service programs. As a foundation, one of its responsibilities is to serve the public, so if your project is in line with their requirements, they will provide money for you. For an art museum, it should first establish itself as a real public service institution, and meanwhile, it should possess certain academic influence, which are two critical factors required when art museums seek support from society and being tested by society.

We may have the following experience that when we go out to raise money for a project, one of the most anxious and significant problems is being offered an equivalent exchange by the other party explicitly. For example, we are recently doing an important exhibition that will be held in August: “CAFAM Future”, which, along with the “CAFAM Biennale: Super Organism”, have become CAFAM’s two conventional biennale mechanism and are held alternately. That is to say, one year for the CAFAM Biennale and one year for CAFAM Future, thus becoming a Biennale opened in every year. Moreover, the academic orientation of the “CAFAM Future Exhibition” is apparent, and its approach is also relatively novel and unique. First of all, its object is very clear, that is, to hold an exhibition displaying works of young artists. It seems that many of us focus on young artists now, such as the “Art Nova 100” by Zhao Li, and the future projects for young artists organized in many art museums, showing the concern for the young generation. Under such a big picture, CAFA Art Museum is also very open to young artists and decides to launch the Biennale of “CAFA Future” targeting young artists. Its novel approach mainly reflected in that, firstly, we invite, both at home and abroad, influential art museum directors, critics, theorists, scholars, experts, as well as artists to constitute our nomination committee. Each member has the right to nominate and recommend six artists and is required to provide a brief academic statement for nomination. Secondly, we will collect all the artists nominated by the committee members, and then contact them directly, asking for their assistance in providing all kinds of relevant personal documents, catalogues, and literature related to their art events. We will systematically collate and edit the above documents and publish them together with the cause statements mentioned above about the nominees and their reason in the database of the “CAFAM Future”. This database is the product of our field investigation and research on young artists, as well as a summary of fieldwork documents of hundreds of young artists, which we hope will be important literature for the study of current contemporary young artists. Thirdly, based on this catalogue, we will invite influential domestic and international curators, especially young curators, to jointly plan the “CAFAM Future” exhibition. Also, the purpose of the exhibition is not to promote several so-called excellent artists, as we try to avoid such simple and arbitrary approaches. We emphasize on researching, investigating and presenting youth art phenomena, concern and reflect on youth art issues, from several themes, including the self-regarding of current young people, the relationship of self and other, gender issues, and the relationship with mass media, and so on. The tone of this Biennale is more to describe phenomena, draw the outlines, and raise questions, instead of just listing artists, whose role in the exhibition maybe more as case studies.

For such an excellent exhibition, we now meet the financial problem. When it was initially launched, it has received warm responses from all sectors of the community, so we thought it would be easy to get sponsorship. However, in practice, we have encountered many problems, which lasted until now. Although it will open in August, yet the funds we received is still minimal. Why do we get into trouble? It is not that there is no sponsorship, but the conditions of sponsorship are basically the equivalent exchange mentioned above: how many paintings you sell to me, what kind of paintings, and whose paintings depend on how much money I can pay to you. Alternatively, you should set up a prize for this exhibition, and I want to take hold of the prized work, etc., which is basically how they negotiate sponsorship with you.

Of course, there are successful case studies.

The first example is the case of cooperation of the Third Guangzhou Triennial with Times Property. Since 2003, the Guangdong Museum of Art has begun to work with Times Property and established the Guangdong Museum of Art Times Branch, which should be considered as a precedent for the first official Chinese art museum to build a branch outside, as well as cooperating with the real estate developer. Therefore, the new art museum exerted great influence after the founding and has received positive remarks, as the Ministry of Culture made a special investigation and recommendation on it as a study case. At the beginning of the cooperation, Times Property actually wanted to promote the overall image of their enterprise with the help of the cultural image of the Guangdong Museum of Art. We knew it very well and did not shy away from it, as we believed that if we could deal with it skillfully, it would not be a problem. As first, our cooperation started from a small space, but houses in the whole area were selling well, and all of them were sold out. In this way, with the cooperation in 2003, in 2005 when we organized the Second Guangzhou Triennial, they proposed that in the spare space between their original buildings, they wanted to invite an architect to establish a real art museum as selling houses was no longer an issue for them. They wished to build an organization of cultural service and organize some cultural service activities, thus hoping we can help them invite an architect for the design work. At that time, the architect who was active internationally was Koolhaas from the Netherlands, and his architecture and experiment were very contemporary, so we decided to contact Koolhaas for the design, and we planned this project.

The first step, we invited Koolhaas to attend the Second Guangzhou Triennial. Because the triennial was to discuss the regional modernization development, and Koolhaas has done much research on the changes and development of cities in many countries in the world, as well as the urban development culture of Shenzhen. Koolhaas was very interested in the topics of the triennial and agreed to participate in the exhibition.

The second step, we negotiated with him and hoped his participating work could be designing the Times Museum for Times Property, as a branch of the Guangdong Museum of Art. However, since it was an invitation to the exhibition, the design of the branch was not a purely commercial design, but Times Property paid a symbolic design fee accordingly, with which Koolhaas agreed. He is a person with a challenging spirit. He did not agree to build an art museum in the spare space in the middle of the initially planned building, saying it was too ordinary and not challenging. He wanted to build an art museum in the air, at the top of Times Property’s building, which was more challenging. After all, it was difficult to change the plan, but I went to talk with the CEO of the group, a young man and calm person, he actually agreed. Then I accompanied Koolhaas to talk with the leaders of the planning bureau. Finally, it turned out to be successful, and they approved the alternation.

The third step, we came back to Times Property and told them that we had invited Koolhaas for them, and the design fee was not as expensive as usual. If they invite him on their own, they may not get him; even if they succeed, it will cost a large sum of money. Yet, we invited him to participate in the second triennial as a cultural organization and solved these problems for them. So, Times Property has to sponsor the Second Guangzhou Triennial, and we decided the amount of the funds and they agreed to pay.

I think this case is very successful: Koolhaas’s participation in the exhibition has improved the overall influence of the Second Guangzhou Triennial; Times Property got a beautiful art museum representing their corporate culture, and the Second Guangzhou Triennial received a considerable amount of sponsorship. I think this sponsorship can be studied as one of the successful cases in the history of sponsorship or art museum history.

With an exhibition area of 3,000 square meters and beautiful space, Times Museum has become a very significant art museum in Guangdong. This art museum has been operating in avant-garde and open manner. Most of its staff are overseas returnees having their own opinions, and with relatively abundant funds, what they are doing is purer and more academic. Times Property has not imposed other additional requirements on them by any real estate organization. At present, all the houses in this area have been sold out, so the art museum is only responsible for the cultural image of the enterprise.

Take another example of “Super-Organism” exhibition, which also received the biggest sponsorship from Times Property. Another major sponsor is Bangwen Art Investment Co. Ltd, and our reward is to assist them with the “Future Collector Project”. Bangwen is an investment foundation that requires its members to participate in collective cultural and artistic activities and cultivate future collectors. Therefore, they need various cultural resources, such as teachers, visual resources, art resources, and so on, which are exactly what we do well. We have what they need, space, exhibition, special services, exclusive products, professors of CAFA, and social prestige, as the golden signboard of CAFA is a great attraction among Bangwen’s members. In this regard, we have sufficient resources to do this work with no difficulty, and this is also one of the most important works of the art museum in public service and public education. So, we worked together on this. As long as they need or want something, and which is just in our possession, capability, and responsibility, we would provide them with it. In this way, we hit it off with them and gained many funds.

The above two successful cases from different points of view show that when the art museum seeks financial support and sponsorship from society, how to use the wisdom of all parties to integrate relevant things to achieve better results, while at the same time, not need to lose our dignity to compromise. 

I think within such a reality in China, everyone presented here have to imminently think about that in the operation of the art museum, how can we avoid some disadvantages and carry forward our strengths, as well as thinking what kind of wisdom we use to deal with challenges, to overcome difficulties and confusions, to face a hard reality, to shoulder the responsibility of an art museum director, doing what should be done and becoming what it should be.

Let us encourage each other and develop together!

Lecture recordings of “National Art Museum Senior Management Talent (Director) Training Class” 

organized by the Ministry of Culture on June 5, 2012

Wang Huangsheng