(Re-)Making Space for a New Culture of Art: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong

Abstract

Despite its headlong rush onto the modern world scene, China is a country that has long been cut off from the mainstream of cultural activity in the world. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in its visual arts and its venues for presenting this work. Starting from almost nothing, the People’s Republic has opened literally thousands of new museums in the past two decades. Among these is a large and intriguing subset consisting of industrial and commercial buildings repurposed for use as art venues. This study explores a number of these re-makings in three of China’s major cultural centers: Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Although the repurposed spaces are often architecturally interesting and sometimes even dramatic, the overall effect is unusually derivative. Profit motives, at both the public and private levels, also play a significant role in the long-term success of the projects. As a result, this new attempt at providing and promoting a new art culture has limitations for making China a new focus of world attention in this arena. More importantly, repurposing historic and otherwise historically significant buildings for art reveals how such spaces can at the same time both enhance and confuse the issue of cultural identity within a heretofore predominantly closed society.