Guests visit the exhibition
Since March 30th, three major themed activities, namely the opening ceremony of the "Collection of CAFA Art Museum", the Cultural Engine —— CAFA International Art Museum Summit, and the Conference of the Alliance of Art Museums in National Colleges and Universities, have been successively launched. This marks the official start of CAFAM academic series.
On the morning, the "Collection of CAFA Art Museum" took the lead in opening. After more than a year of preparation and implementation, the exhibition has carefully selected more than 500 outstanding works from the more than 20,000 pieces of artworks collected in CAFA Art Museum. It has meticulously presented two distinctive thematic sections, namely "Ancient Chinese Art" and "Modern Chinese Fine Arts". This exhibition is not only a vivid portrayal of the long and magnificent art history but also an important resource for the teaching practice of the academy. It carries the academic accumulation of the century-old Academy of Fine Arts, where art serves the people, and witnesses the arduous development process of Chinese art education.
The opening ceremony site
When more than 500 pieces of collections with the "characteristics of the Academy of Fine Arts" are gathered on a large scale in the way of "time folding", the artistic soul of the Academy of Fine Arts has never been so vivid. There are "artifacts" and "calligraphy and paintings" spanning a time span of two thousand years; and the century-long development context of plastic arts such as oil paintings, Chinese paintings, woodblock prints, and sculptures from 1900 to 2000. Each piece of work is a dynamic "atlas of artistic methodology".
The exhibition of collections of CAFA Art Museum -- the sections of "Ancient Chinese Art" and "Modern Chinese Fine Arts" will be on long-term display. Viewers who are interested can go to the exhibition site to visit.
Honorary Chairman of the China Artists Association and Former President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts
Mr. Jin Shangyi
In most large art museums around the world, there are fixed exhibitions open to the public. These fixed exhibitions have outstanding value and significance for cultural undertakings and cultural activities, and they represent the basic function of an art museum. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, art museums mainly focused on temporary exhibitions, and their functions were more similar to those of exhibition halls. Now, the Central Academy of Fine Arts has started to display its high-quality collected works as fixed exhibitions. This is an important measure for the transformation towards a modern art museum, and it is also an important cultural activity for the people. It is hoped that the Central Academy of Fine Arts will continue to adhere to this practice.
A member of the Party Leadership Group, Vice Chairman, and Secretary of the Secretariat of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles
Zhu Di
combining his work experience at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, stated that the preparation and exhibition of the collections of the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts are important measures for the work of art museums in the new era. He also extended his congratulations on the opening of the exhibition.
Deputy Director General of the Department of Art of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism
He Yawen
The collection exhibition is not only a systematic and concentrated display of the art collections of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Moreover, with the unique positioning of a university art museum, it provides a typical case for new approaches to cultural inheritance, the popularization of aesthetic education, and international art dialogue. It continuously builds a bridge for the public to understand the development context of art, and also offers a long-term research platform for artists and scholars. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has also included "strengthening the protection and utilization of art collections" in its key tasks. It is hoped that through support policies and organizational mobilization, it can assist art museums in improving their professional capabilities in the protection, restoration, and research of collections, and provide a solid guarantee for the sustainable development of art museums.
Dean of the Central Academy of Fine Arts
Lin Mao
The history of the collection of the Central Academy of Fine Arts is a condensed history of the development of modern Chinese art education, highlighting the fine tradition of "promoting teaching through collection and inheriting the cultural context through the preservation of collections". It is not only a reflection on history, but also a reinterpretation of the contemporary value of art collections. In the future, the school will always adhere to the dual mission of being "the pioneer of Chinese art education" and "the leader of academic research", and carry out contemporary practices of "digitally revitalizing the collections". The CAFA art museum will also establish a mechanism for revitalizing the collections with the integration of "technology empowerment + academic guidance" in the field of collection protection. At the level of public education, it will accelerate the construction of a digital art museum and promote the social sharing of high-quality resources. From the perspective of international communication, it will deepen the research on mutual learning among civilizations and systematically present the academic achievements of Chinese art education. The school will persist in making pioneering innovations while safeguarding the root of art, and serve society in the process of deepening aesthetic education practices, continuously painting a magnificent picture of art education in the new era.
James Rondeau, President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago
Wang Tao, Pritzker Chair of Asian Art and Senior Curator of Chinese Art at the Art Institute of Chicago
As one of the earliest art institutions in the United States, the Art Institute of Chicago adheres to the purpose of aesthetic education. It not only showcases collections with historical and artistic value from the perspective of an art museum but also provides a platform for artistic creation and academic exchanges from the perspective of an "academy". Relying on its rich collections and academic resources, the CAFA Art Museum is echoing the development of the world and exerting an influence on promoting the exchange and development of the global art cause. It is hoped that representatives from major art museums and art institutions at home and abroad can have in-depth exchanges during this academic season and work together to push the development of art museums to a new platform.
Ji Shaofeng, Director of Hubei Art Museum
The permanent exhibition is the cornerstone of an art museum, and it also serves as a concentrated manifestation of the museum's characteristics and academic standards. The permanent exhibition of Hubei Art Museum, "A Century of Horizons and Depths: An Exhibition of Hubei Art Documents in the 20th Century", represents a crucial step in the museum's transformation from an art exhibition hall to an art museum. It is hoped that the Hubei Art Museum and the CAFA Art Museum will move forward hand in hand, jointly promoting high-quality collection, high-level utilization, and high-quality service in art museums. May art museums become intellectual arenas that inspire creativity and bridge the past and the future, and also become important places where people in the new era can appreciate outstanding artworks and enhance their cultural literacy.
Zheng Yan, an expert advisor for the exhibition and a professor at the School of Arts, Peking University
his permanent exhibition demonstrates the "characteristics of the Academy of Fine Arts": The creative practices of artists facing the era and the future are always deeply rooted in the fertile soil of Chinese culture. And the new propositions and concepts of contemporary art constantly inspire art historians to rediscover and reconstruct our art traditions in a deeper and broader way. It is hoped that students of the Academy of Fine Arts will visit the art museum and draw inspiration from the flowing brushstrokes of landscape paintings and the thousand-year-old warmth of the glaze colors of porcelain, allowing the spark of traditional art to ignite the passion for innovation. One day in the future, they can donate their excellent graduation works to the art museum, enabling the "new paintings" to stand side by side with the ancient and contemporary classics, emitting new brilliance.
Jin Jun, Chief Curator of the Exhibition and Director of the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts
As one of the first batch of national key art museums, CAFA Art Museum comprehensively presents the development of Chinese art to the public for the first time. The museum always takes the research and exhibition of its collections as the core of its work. Using the display of its collections as a clue, it showcases the artistic development path from traditional classics to innovative media. At the same time, through digital interactive art, artificial intelligence, dynamic immersion, simulated restoration, etc., it "revitalizes" the collections, making the history of Chinese art visible and tangible. This is a tribute to history, an inheritance of traditional classics, and also an expectation for the future of art. It is hoped that it can become an artistic bridge connecting the past and the present, a space that stimulates the collision of ideas, and a model for the development of China's art museum undertakings in the future.
Yu Yang, Director of the Scientific Research Office of the Central Academy of Fine Arts
Preside over the opening ceremony
