MoCA of the Month
Dear Readers, this month we would like to draw your attention to Beijing’s Today Art Museum. The Today Art Museum represents the first non-for-profit and non-governmental run art museum in China, whose aim is to explore an appropriate development strategy for museums of its kind within a Chinese context. Founded by Mr. Zhang Baoquan in 2002, it is located in the hearth of Beijing’s Central Business District, close to the China World Trade Center and the new CCTV building designed by Rem Koolhaas. Since 2004 it has been managed by current director Mr. Zhang Zikang, whose intention is to promote Chinese contemporary art based on an internationalized vision: “If the previous Today Art Museum was a museum in the sense of a gallery, then the new museum will be built and run in accordance with standards of international art museums and end up a genuine public art museum.” (Zhang Zikang).
Today Art Museum
Building 4, Pingod Community, No.32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100022
Tel：+8610-58760600 Fax：+8610-58760500
Mission Statement
The Today Art Museum’s mission is to promote the advancement of Chinese contemporary art in its various movements and personalities. Under the motto “Basing upon now and prospecting the future”, the Today Art Museum is not only involved in showcasing established names but also in supporting emerging artists of the Chinese contemporary art scene. In the meanwhile the museum is also pursuing the building up of a larger environment for contemporary art, through the promotion of trans-national exchanges between artists and art organizations and through accepting commissions from overseas foundations. As a private and non-profit institution, the museum strives to encompass boundaries between private and public, between art system and society, with the clear intention to “enable people to feel, know, and accept “today” in today’s art”. Today Art Museum quests for the developing mode for non- public operating museum actively, trying to set up a reasonable financing machinery and a self-contained working system, which is rested on a multi-layered operational network. A solid scholarly apparatus, a system of public education, and a viable financial model therefore support the Today Art Museum’s activities. Currently the museum embraces the following departments: exhibition, academic, art education, collection, contemporary art authentication, monograph and magazine editing and publishing, artnow.com.cn, public relations, information center, video and photography center, art bookstore, and other art programming, services, and facilities.
Education Center
The Education Center has two main functions. First, it produces academic research for the museum. Second, it provides educational programming for the public. Based on the needs and demands of the museum’s constituents, the Education Center regularly invites renowned art experts to organize and conduct thematic lectures, artist talks (in accordance to actual exhibitions), workshops, and interviews with Chinese and foreign artists. The Education Center strongly advocates the public dissemination of art bringing art into schools and into daily life, serving as a platform and conduit in which avangard concepts of contemporary art can be exchanged with the public.
Editorial Center
The Today Art Museum’s Editorial Center constitutes the interface and safeguard of the museum’s academic research and public education programming, working also as a relevant link between Chinese and foreign art.
The Editorial Center produces large quantities of texts each year, thus serving an important role in promoting contemporary art documentation and Chinese contemporary art development. Major book topics include: “Today’s Chinese Contemporary Artists” (a series); “Complete Collection of Works By Famous Artists of the World”; and “Complete Collection of Works By Famous Chinese Artists.” Besides the editing of the museum’s exhibitions catalogues, the Editorial Center is also in charge to produce four magazines under the “Oriental Art” label: “Oriental Art Finance”, about the art market and investing in art; “Oriental Art Classics”, on classical art; “Oriental Art Master”, which reports on the newest art trends and works by well-known artists; and “Oriental Art Calligraphy”, which emphasizes cultivating a richer appreciation and culture of calligraphy.
Information Center
The Information Center collects and manages information regarding the Today Art Museum including videos, images, book samples, documents and artist dossiers. Currently, the center has a large selection of image data, including archival photographs of artists taken by in-house photographers, photographic reproductions of works, and over ten thousand images of various art settings.
Documentary Film and Photography Center
Documentary Film and Photography Center consists of an in-house team of directors, cinematographers, photographers, and editors who form the core members of production. Its task is to document, through images and videos, the contemporary art development. Documentary Film and Photography Center focuses on gathering Chinese contemporary art data, art documentaries, public relations videos, and high-end image printing. Documentary Film and Photography Center produces many of the professional images used in texts published by the museum’s Editorial Center.
Artnow.com.cn
Artnow.com.cn is an effort to promote a professional, interactive online platform for exchange in the art world. The Today Art Museum is the only main sponsor of Artnow.com.cn., while Beijing Today International Culture and Art Development Company Ltd. is its underwriter. Artnow. com.cn was founded in the beginning of 2006. The new edition, launched in the end of August 2006, continues to promote an academic, artistic, and open tenet, and strives to become the most professional Chinese art website. The museum website is a platform for disseminating information about the museum, and also provides Artnow.com.cn with content support. Featured sections on the website include: art news, art criticism, artist document database, exhibitions, art market, people, art organizations, art classics, art store, and daily discussion. Artnow.com.cn gathers international management experts in the art field that include experienced IT elite, renowned Chinese and foreign artists, critics, designers, and others professionals concerned about the art world.
Facilities
From the book bar to the digital movie theatre, the Today Art Museum is a cultural recreational center with comprehensive facilities for book retail, reading, film screenings, exhibition organizing, catering, art business, and more. Various spaces in the museum are designed to host academic lectures, symposia, film screenings, press conferences, cocktail receptions, and other events.
Architecture
Designed by famous architect Wang Hui, the building lies in Pingod Garden, Baiziwan road, Chaoyang district, Beijing, covering 1400㎡. As a steel-structured architecture with 5 floors, with about 2500㎡ for exhibition, it’s convenient space to exhibitions as well as events involving about 1000 persons. With 40m in length, 32m in width and 30m in height, the building consists of three exhibition floors. The 2nd floor with 12.5m in height is the main exhibition area covering 1000㎡, while the 3rd floor designed flexibly to get rid of grip from traditional concepts. Apart from displaying paintings, it has been also arranged for exhibiting large-scale contemporary installations, sculptures and other forms of arts such as video arts , new music and so on.
Based on the analysis of the reconstruction of the oldcity district, Wang designed the whole architecture from the wall to the interior details, according to the old outline and interior functions of the architecture. The aim of the project laid on architect’s belief on creating new functions and meanings by reconstruction and discovering. In his point of view, a selecting preserve can save the old architectures which hold special meanings and could represent historical marks among the growing city. There are few old scenes remained in the central business district, where developing speed is higher and higher. The museum is surrounded by complex social structures: white collar of foreign companies, peasants workers from the country, moneybags, beggars. Considering such an interesting mixture, Wang decided to choose this specific and already-existing builgind to set up a new space for contemporary art; in order to establish, through art, new relations and networking between different segments of the chinese society.
The entrance
Wang Hui considered the organic combination between the artistic character and the using function of the architecture, exaggerating the trapezium and metal barrier in the old architecture, and creating a trapeziform metal stairway, which can represent the convergence between contemporary and old architecture.
Building No. 1
The Today Art Museum includes 3 exhibition halls: The total interior exhibition space of the Building No.1 is 4,000 square meters with a capacity of 1000 visitors.
The main hall is a five-level, steel-frame structure, 40 meters long, 32 meters wide, and 30 meters high, with three levels devoted to exhibition space. These three levels can be dynamically rearranged, allowing these functional spaces to break through the traditional limits of exhibition-hall architecture.
The main exhibition hall on the second floor is 800 meters square and 12.5 meters high. Aside from the usual functions of a large exhibition hall, it is especially suitable for various non-traditional forms of art such as large contemporary installations, sculptures, and video and sound (new music) art.
The annular exhibition hall on the third floor is the effective supplementary space to the main hall. From 2009, some of the Today Art Museum’s collections are exhibited on the fourth floor, which is part of the long-term exhibition of the Today Art Museum.
Building No.2 and Building No.3:
Today Art Museum opens Building No.2 and No.3 in 2008. The exhibition area of Building No.2 is 2,000 square meters and that of Building No.3 is 1,000 square meters. The irregular spaces of these two buildings are the complementation of Building No.1, which could help the Today Art Museum to satisfy more different styles of contemporary art exhibition.
Art Square
Located at the front gate of the museum and next to the Central Business Centre (CBD), the 3000 square – meter. The square is suitable for various open air art events and art fairs.
Outdoor installation
Designed by artists Wang Jianwei,the roof of the building hosts the permanent outdoor installation “Viewing the Exhibition”. In Wang’s opinion, dramatic rituals are our lives, and our lives are dramatic rituals too. The installation “Viewing the Exhibition” sends forth the artist’s long time pondering about our society. His purpose being integrating invisible social resource with contemporary art, Mr. Wang realized with this installation the exchange between “viewer” and “role” in contemporary art.
Collection
Since its establishment in 2002, Today Art Museum has acquired more than 5,000 pieces of contemporary artworks of all media, striving to become an important authority on art documentation and contemporary culture.
The collection mainly consists by three parts: Today Art Museum collections, Today Art Museum virtual collections and donations. It focuses on contemporary classic 2-D works, but as well on other genres of contemporary artworks, forming a complete collection which includes a dozen media: from ink-wash paintings, oil paintings, etchings, sculptures, to photographs, videos and installations.
The collection of Today Art Museum includes almost all the works of established and well-known Chinese contemporary artists, and near a hundred works from artists such as Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Wang Guangyi.
Besides these artists, works of modern Chinese ink-wash and calligraphy masters such as Wang Yong, Zhang Ding, Long Run, Ding Liren are among the collections. While works of Tan Ping, Hong Lei, Lu Hao, Xin Dongwang, Ji Dachun, and Yin Zhaoyang are part of the contemporary masters collection.
Information compiled from the Today Art Museum official website and press-releases. Quotes by museum’s director Zhang Zikang could be found in “Dreams and Realities of Private Art Museums” by Sun Yu in www.artzinechina.com.
