Cultured city

Three or four years ago, parks would be the most likely weekend destination for Shenzhen residents.

Nowadays, art museums and galleries have grown in popularity, becoming the new showpieces for visitors. Frequenting the art venues has grown fashionable, and provides a means of self-improvement for local people.

To the envy of other Chinese cities, the special economic zone, which is separated by a narrow stretch of water from Hong Kong, has three first-class art museums: the He Xiangning Art Gallery, the Guan Shanyue Art Museum and the Shenzhen Art Museum.
On a regular basis, these art museums present to visitors their permanent collections and host exhibitions of works by artists from China and abroad.

Art exhibitions are staged frequently in public galleries of the Shenzhen Art Academy and the Shenzhen Art Museum as well as in the private commercial galleries scattered throughout the city.

Despite competing for visitors, the art museums and galleries have coexisted in harmony, each being distinctive and all contributing to the splendour of this emerging centre of art.

"Each year, the city hosts more than 200 art exhibitions, next only to Beijing and Shanghai in number," said Dong Xiaoming, deputy director of Shenzhen Culture Bureau who is also director of the Guan Shanyue Art Museum and the Shenzhen Art Academy.
The art museums and galleries, with their modern facilities and top class exhibits, have elevated the cultural image of Shenzhen by building up an eye-catching "cultural landscape," Dong said.

Among Shenzhen's art museums, the He Xiangning Art Gallery is undoubtedly the most peculiar. It is China's first national art museum named after an individual and the second national contemporary art museum, following the China National Art Museum in Beijing.
Located in the well-known Overseas Chinese Town of Shenzhen, and opened in 1997, it was built by the central government to commemorate the veteran Chinese woman painter and revolutionary He Xiangning (1878-1972).

He Xiangning and her husband Liao Zhongkai were both close comrades of Dr Sun Yat-sen. Also a good friend of many top Chinese leaders of New China such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, she served as chairwoman of the Chinese Artists' Association and was one of the seven modern Chinese artists whose precious works are restricted from export out of China.

The three-storey white building is famous for its noble design which is widely acclaimed to be a perfect combination of feminine beauty and the functions necessary for a modern museum of art.

"Besides displaying and studying the permanent collection of He Xiangning's works, this museum focuses on exhibiting art by overseas Chinese artists, female artists and cutting-edge contemporary artists," said museum deputy director Yue Zhengwei.

Since 1997, the art museum has hosted more than 40 exhibitions and organized 36 lectures to upgrade the aesthetic taste and knowledge of museum-goers. Among the most influential exhibitions of the museum is its annual national show of contemporary sculpture, now in its third year.

What makes the He Xiang-ning Art Gallery seem special is that it is part of the Overseas Chinese Town, a multi-functional enterprise involving real estate development, tourism and electronic manufacturing. The museum is adjacent to popular tourist attractions such as "Window of the World," "Splendid China," "Chinese Folk Culture Village" and the well-known electronic company Konka, all businesses run by the enterprise.

A non-profit organization, the art museum, in a way, is influenced and inspired by the operational practice of the enterprise in its modern management and fund-raising system. Today, the He Xiangning Art Gallery is widely recognized as setting a good example for Chinese art museums by being innovative, reformative and market-oriented.

The Guan Shanyue Art Museum is the largest art museum in Shenzhen. Opened in 1997 on the eve of the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, it was built by the Shenzhen municipal government and named after a living veteran painter from Guangdong Province. Based on a donation of 813 works by Guan Shanyue, now in his 90s, its permanent collection has expanded to works by other active contemporary Chinese artists.

The huge building includes 9 exhibition halls and an outdoor sculpture plaza. It also includes a 6-storey multi-functional building that includes conference halls and other facilities.

"We have two exhibition halls to display the permanent collection of works by Guan Shanyue. Each year we also hold about 30 exhibitions of contemporary art from China and abroad," said Guo Bing'an, deputy director of the museum.

The most remarkable exhibitions the museum has hosted included the First International Ink Painting Biennial of Shenzhen in 1998 and the designing art section of the Ninth National Art Exhibition organized by the Chinese Artists' Association last year.

"As a newly built modern museum of art, Guan Shanyue Art Museum has first class facilities. But its functions and management still need to be improved," said Guo.

He accepted that the museum's collection and research have lagged behind other art museums in Shenzhen, despite the fact it has been prominent in hosting many large exhibitions in recent years.

Being the oldest art museum of the city, the tiny Shenzhen Art Museum seems shabby compared to its younger brothers. But it is in no way inactive on the Shenzhen art scene.

Originally the Shenzhen Exhibition Hall, built in 1976 on the East Lake, a reservoir providing drinking water to Hong Kong, it changed to the present name in 1987.

For a long time, the art museum was seen as a cultural symbol of Shenzhen and served as the only window to show the art of mainland artists to Hong Kong and the outside world, said Pei Jianhua, director of Shenzhen Art Museum.

After the detrimental "cultural revolution" (1966-76), famous Chinese artists like Zhu Jizhan, Wu Guanzhong, Huang Zhou and Wu Zuoren made their debut to the outside world in the art museum, which is also an important centre of research of art museums.

Today, the museum's limited exhibition space, aged facilities and relatively remote location have grown to be major obstacles for its further development.

"In recent years, our strategy has focused on the collection and research of contemporary art, especially the art of emerging middle-aged and young artists. This has become our advantage," Pei said.

Date: 05/08/2000
Author: YANG YINGSHI, China Daily staff
Copyright? by China Daily

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