A private US$164-million museum complex opens near Nanjing
The private Sifang Art Museum makes the most of its scenic setting in the Nanjing countryside and a specially curated show to mark its opening, writes Catherine Shaw
Private art museums in China are springing up in the most unlikely locations - most recently the Sifang Art Museum, nestled in the Laoshan national forest park about an hour's drive from the ancient capital, Nanjing, in Jiangsu province.
The museum, which opened early this month, is the centrepiece of a US$164 million art-architecture-resort complex established by developer Lu Jun, 58, and his son, Lu Xun, with a view to promoting the appreciation of contemporary art and design on the mainland.
So much in China is still taking shape. This could well become a very important museum, a place that can create a buzz. Then again, who knows?
The inaugural exhibition, entitled "The Garden of Diversion" and curated by Antwerp-based art historian Philippe Pirotte, takes on the almost insurmountable challenge of diverting attention away from the museum's spectacular mountain setting and innovative architecture.
It is almost impossible to consider the art without the architecture, so closely are the two entwined. The 21,528-square-foot exhibition space designed by New York architect Steven Holl is a dramatic space-age structure with a distinctive rectangular light box "leg" cantilevered out over the grassy knoll below.
This powerful physical context can clearly be seen in the exhibition that marks the unveiling of the complex. According to Pirotte, the works "share a consciousness that their spatial and social relationships aren't necessarily bound up in the self-contained art object, but that their gestures are integrated within larger spaces of social realms".