ASIAN VISUAL CULTURES Ho Chui-fun Museum Processes in China Processes Museum Selina Ho Chui-fun Museum Processes in China The Institutional Regulation, Production and Consumption of the Art Museums in the Greater Pearl River Delta Region FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Museum Processes in China FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Asian Visual Cultures This series focuses on visual cultures that are produced, distributed and consumed in Asia and by Asian communities worldwide. Visual cultures have been implicated in creative policies of the state and in global cultural networks (such as the art world, film festivals and the Internet), particularly since the emergence of digital technologies. Asia is home to some of the major film, television and video industries in the world, while Asian contemporary artists are selling their works for record prices at the international art markets. Visual communication and innovation is also thriving in transnational networks and communities at the grass-roots level. Asian Visual Cultures seeks to explore how the texts and contexts of Asian visual cultures shape, express and negotiate new forms of creativity, subjectivity and cultural politics. It specifically aims to probe into the political, commercial and digital contexts in which visual cultures emerge and circulate, and to trace the potential of these cultures for political or social critique. It welcomes scholarly monographs and edited volumes in English by both established and early-career researchers. Series Editors Jeroen de Kloet, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Edwin Jurriëns, The University of Melbourne, Australia Editorial Board Gaik Cheng Khoo, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom Helen Hok-Sze Leung, Simon Fraser University, Canada Larissa Hjorth, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Amanda Rath, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany Anthony Fung, Chinese University of Hong Kong Lotte Hoek, Edinburgh University, United Kingdom Yoshitaka Mori, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Japan FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Museum Processes in China The Institutional Regulation, Production, and Consumption of the Art Museums in the Greater Pearl River Delta Region Selina C.F. Ho Amsterdam University Press FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Cover image: Museum of American Art in Berlin, Museum of Modern Art, reproduction of the 1936 MoMA exhibition ‘Cubism and Abstract Art’, exhibition view, ‘A Museum That is Not’, Guangdong Times Museum, 2011 (photo by Guangdong Times Museum) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Typesetting: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 352 7 e-isbn 978 90 4855 035 7 doi 10.5117/9789463723527 nur 692 © Selina C.F. Ho / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Table of Contents Acknowledgements 9 Note on Romanization 11 1. Introduction 13 1.1 Rethinking museums in China 17 1.2 Museum as cultural circuits 33 1.3 The selection of art museums in the Greater Pearl River Delta region 40 1.4 Methods 47 1.5 Book structure 49 2. Revisiting the historical trajectories of modern art museums in China 63 2.1 The path towards the birth of modern public art museums in the Republic of China (1912-1949) 66 2.2 The development of art museums in the People’s Republic of China (1949-current) 71 2.3 The changing museum contexts in Hong Kong (1962-current) 86 2.4 Concluding remarks 90 3. He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen 97 3.1 Between the state and the market: a contingent national museum framework 100 3.2 From nationalism to the production of knowledge: the art of He Xiangning 107 3.3 Cross-straits cultural diplomacy and public dialogue on contemporary art 112 3.4 Interpreting contemporary sculpture: possibilities and limitations 118 3.5 Educated youth, provincial visitors, and a diversified national public 127 3.6 Concluding remarks 135 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS 4. Guangdong Times Museum in Guangzhou 141 4.1 Institutional boundaries: the private market, the state, and society 144 4.2 A developmental perspective of cultural globalization 151 4.3 Artistic regionalization: southern imaginary vs northern hegemony 161 4.4 Educated youth and the consumption of ‘alternative culture’ 164 4.5 Concluding remarks 173 5. Hong Kong Museum of Art in Hong Kong 177 5.1 Museum bureaucracy and its institutional network 180 5.2 The historical painting collection: from the colonial legacy to aesthetic differences 182 5.3 International blockbusters and global cultural capital 185 5.4 National representation and the grandeur of dynastic art 188 5.5 Different notions of the local: from East-meets-West to a local-national-global nexus 192 5.6 Public and counter-public: museum consumption in a city- state 197 5.7 Concluding remarks 211 6. Conclusion 215 6.1 Museum modes of circuits 218 6.2 Implications of the findings 219 6.3 Contributions of the research 226 Bibliography 235 Index 259 List of figures, tables, and illustrations Figures 1.1 The number of museums in Mainland China (1949-1982, 1985- 2017) 19 1.2 The Museum Circuit 37 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Tables 3.1 Modes of museum identification of the visitors of He Xiangning Art Museum 129 4.1 Modes of museum identification of the visitors of Guangdong Times Museum 167 5.1 Modes of museum identification of the publics of Hong Kong Museum of Art 200 Illustrations 3.1 The exterior of the He Xiangning Art Museum 98 3.2 The central exhibition lobby of the He Xiangning Art Museum 109 4.1 The rooftop gallery of the Guangdong Times Museum 142 4.2 The main entrance of the Guangdong Times Museum 144 4.3 The artist Gum Cheng and a passer-by drawing portraits of each other in a public area near the Huangbian village, 2014 155 4.4 Visitor at the ‘Roman Ondák: Storyboard’ exhibition, 2015 166 5.1 The exterior of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, at the stage of renovation, December 2018 178 5.2 ‘Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation’ exhibition at HKMoA, 2009 210 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Acknowledgements The bulk of the research for this book was done in preparation for my PhD thesis, submitted to the University of Melbourne (UoM), Australia in June 2018. My research could not have been completed without the help of my former doctoral supervisors, Dr Edwin Jurriëns and Dr Lewis Mayo at the Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne. Their contributions have largely laid the groundwork for this book. My deepest gratitude goes to Dr Jurriëns for his principal guidance and detailed comments on my original thesis. As an expert in media and contemporary art studies, he has given me valuable advice, particularly on audience reception and contemporary art practices. I must also thank Dr Mayo for his thorough review of my original thesis and his encouragement to develop it into a book. I am deeply grateful for his critical questions that challenged my thinking at different times. I have truly benefited from his profound knowledge of the cultural history of China. I also have benefited from the comments and suggestions offered by the external reviewers of my original thesis, Dr Chow Yui-fai (Associate Professor of Hong Kong Baptist University) and Dr Olivia Khoo (Associate Professor of Monash University), and the anonymous examiner of this book. I am indebted to my friend and interlocutor, Dr Vivian Ting who has constantly discussed with me the subject matter of this research. I thank all of them for their inspirational commentaries that led to several important improvements to this book. This book has grown out of my interest in museum studies and China studies. How a museum constructs its institutional identity and expresses or diffuses its ideologies through exhibitions and their relationships and networks of cultural production and patterns of cultural consumption is the focus of this research. During an intensive four-year period of research, I have investigated museum-related materials, and interviewed a range of curatorial and managerial staff, as well as visitors, in three museums. They include Feng Boyi, Wang Dong, and Philip Ngan from the He Xiangning Art Museum; Zhao Ju, Cai Yingqian (Nikita), Shen Ruijun, Veronica Wong, and Jacqueline Lin from Guangdong Times Museum; and Eve Tam, Maria Mok, and an anonymous interviewee from the Hong Kong Museum of Art. I would like to express my appreciation to them for sharing their views. Their interviews have given me insights into understanding their practices. I also thank the staff members of the Asia Art Archive, Michelle Wong and Linda Lee, who have offered help in accessing the materials of the Archive. Most of all I thank some 150 anonymous visitors. I appreciate their opinions, FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS 10 MUSEUM PROCESSES IN CHINA attitudes, and interesting remarks. They have greatly contributed to my analysis of museum consumption in this research. Undertaking this research required enormous financial support. I must acknowledge the Faculty of Arts and the Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne for their full support of my research.