Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

The creation of the Rockbund Art Museum indicates a revival, or, a renaissance, of an important institution with a turbulent history in an energetic pursuit to embrace a brilliant future. From its earlier days as the RAS building and “Shanghai Museum,” to its opening as a Public Library, and now re-emerging as an contemporary art museum, the establishment has always been a major site of testimony to and memory of the city’s eventual composition, from its colonial past to the current process of modernization via communist revolution. This complex and often perplexing history has made Shanghai a world legend, and one of the most dynamic, thrilling, and promising of global cities. While toiling in hard negotiations, in double binds, in a deeply contradictory identity as a cultural and political hybrid, in the meantime Shanghai provokes so many fantasies and dreams. In spite of all of the complications, amongst the population there is always an irreducible optimism and confidence that drives the city forward. This renders the metropolis with a most spectacular urban-scape. Further, it is a city where life never stops: in the day, Shanghai is an enterprising center of economic and urban activities, accentuated by the uproaring noise of traffic, machines, and commerce. In the night, the streets are then invaded by the most electrifying symphony of all kinds of sounds that mix the night market hubbub with popular karaoke outcries — between hidden dark corners and dazzling neon lights, the city is turned into a paradise for leisure, culture and pleasure, with a flair of seduction, dream and fleur-du-mal style of poesy and adventure…

Shanghai is also a unique site for contemporary art production. The art world there has been an avant-garde in the developments of Chinese modern and contemporary art, while growing intertwiningly with the city’s extraordinary history. Artists’ projects have long been integral to processes of urban expansion and of opening up towards the rest of the world. Actually, the Shanghai art world could even been considered as the most outstanding representation of the city’s development over time. Different from most of the “avant-garde” movements in China that biases towards collective claims and struggles, the artists in Shanghai have formed a tradition that privileges individuality and self-reflection. Independence and singularity are emphasized as the superior way to freedom of imagination and expression. Criticality, however, has never been in lack. It is found in almost all art production. Instead of artists being over-passionate and confrontational, most choose to express their views on both reality and inner-life with distance, transcendence and also with a great degree of humour, irony and playfulness. They are radically urbane. They not only claim for freedom in images and words, but also embody it in their body language and everyday acts…

It is with optimism and self-confidence that artists respond to a strange and quasi-grotesque fusion of consumerism and political control—the symptomatic reality of our globalized world today, incarnated so perfectly by China, and in particular Shanghai—that has become a crucial challenge to Shanghai’s art scene. Shanghai welcomes a wave of museum boom and art market growth, as seen in the foundation and maturation of institutions like the Shanghai Biennial, as it provides unique conditions for artistic and cultural production. Artists from the city and the country are not only encouraged to develop more experimental works, but the entire international art world is also beckoned to this site of research, discussion and production that is still rapidly flourishing. The opening of Rockbund Art Museum is the latest effort to keep the city on the global map of artistic production.

In this context, I propose to curate a project entitled, By Day, By Night, or some (special) things a museum can do.

Nine artists who are among the most active in both Chinese and international art worlds today are invited to Shanghai to study, research and explore the histories and realities of both the city and of the Rockbund Art Museum. Most of them will arrive to then spend two to three weeks in a residency (organized by the museum) to produce site-specific projects for the exhibition. During this time, the artists may give lectures and run workshops, as well as carry out other activities, in order to establish exchanges and collaborations with the local art community and the larger public. Likewise, local art organizations will be invited to make specific contributions to the project’s events.

The exhibition structure entails two distinct but intertwined components that create an intimate and efficient relationship amongst the artists, the works, the events, the institution, the participants, and the realities of Shanghai’s city life. The exhibition, or the event, is to unfold throughout the daytime and into the nighttime, with constant surprises.

During the day, a more materialized aspect of artistic and intellectual productions will be exposed in the site, where the public can experience a certain visible set of recollections around the dynamic and spectacular urban development and the material growth of the modernization process. This will appear as a more stable and tangible format of an “exhibition”…

In the night, all of these abiding and solid forms gradually soften. Objects lose their materiality and dissolve into fluid and uneasily graspable flux and “ether”… The exhibition will be intruded upon and even replaced by more flexible and interactive occurrences that, on the one hand, reveal things that are usually hidden or ignored by the busy and bright daytime activities, and on the other, invite the public’s participation in the most relaxed of ways. This is an invitation to the city and its population to enjoy something remarkably other than what is encountered in both day-to-day life and during ordinary night entertainments. Artists will initiate all kinds of performances — from lectures to concerts — while a film festival is planned to feature selected favorite inspirations of the participating artists. A night school proposed by several local educational organizations, will present lectures, workshops, symposiums and other activities, and open itself as a platform for professionals of various disciplines.

The project intends to compose an event that functions, to some extent, in the same rhythm as the real life of this non-stop city itself. By turning into an articulated space and time of city life, By Day, By Night, or some (special) things a museum can do strives to become an integrate and even intimate part of urban society. This is where one can find the genuine relevance and coherence of the museum’s undertaking. Ultimately, this helps the newly reborn Rockbund Art Museum define its mission and its functions in the early stage of an ambitious plan through which the art space can eventually become an original institution for contemporary art and culture in Shanghai. This uniqueness, at first, can be discovered in the conceptual expansion of both the exhibition and the museum as being primarily recognized by their conventional devices of collection, representation and dissemination of existing art works, to a site of conception, production and new presentation of the works that offer opportunities for public participation and dialogue between the art world and society.

上海外滩美术馆的成立意味着一所曾具有重要历史意义机构的复苏和复兴，它体现了复杂的历史和对其光辉未来的无限向往。从最初的亚洲文会大楼和“上海博物馆”到日后的公共图书馆，到如今的上海外滩美术馆，她以当代艺术博物馆的形式再一次出现在公众面前。她的建立，伴随其复杂而动荡的历史，一直以来都是上海这座城市从殖民时代到共产主义革命带来的现代化进程的重要见证和记忆所在。而这错综复杂的历史恰恰将上海塑造为最具活力、激情和潜力的国际性大都市之一。同时拥有充满神秘色彩的过去和创造了无数神话和梦想的现在，上海是全世界的一个传奇。与此同时，作为文化和政治的结合体，人们从未停止过对其矛盾身份的争辩和诠释。但另一方面，在这座城市的背后总有一股强大的自信和乐观主义精神推动着她前行，这也为上海带来了惊人的城市规模和永不停息的城市生活：白天，在嘈杂的交通，贸易和机器轰鸣的驱动下，磷化液 切削液上海是最具活力和生产力的经济金融中心和都市活动中心。夜间，上海以其魅惑的气质、充满梦想的特性和“恶之花”式的诗意格调变身为顶级休闲、文化和娱乐的天堂，大街小巷也充斥着各种交响乐，混杂着夜市的喧闹嘈杂和卡拉OK厅的高亢旋律。

上海也是当代艺术创作的独特场域。这里的艺术界融合了城市扩张和对外开放的过程，但同时也强调个体和个人反思，以此来获取想象和表达的真正自由。然而，这里也不乏批评的声音。批判精神体现在几乎所有的艺术创作中。大多数的艺术家并非以过激或者敌对的态度，而是选择用隐晦、超然或甚至是极幽默、讽刺和游戏性的方式来表达他们对现实和内心世界的批判观点。他们极度地都市化，不仅在图像和文字中寻求自由，这种渴求也体现在他们的肢体语言和每天的行为举止中……这是一个消费主义、全球沟通和政治掌控相结合的时代。这是一个怪异新奇的杂种社会，也是当今全球化社会现实的症候性表现。中国，尤其是上海“完美地”体现了这种现实，上海的艺术界正面临一个重要的挑战，而她要以乐观主义精神和自信来回应。另外，自从上海双年展等艺术机构的创立和成熟以来，上海正迎来美术馆和艺术市场的新热潮。上海正为艺术和文化生产提供得天独厚的条件，这将大大鼓励来自城市和乡村的艺术家们发展更多的实验性作品。上海也正快速地成为全球艺术界研讨和创作的具有重要意义的场所。上海外滩美术馆的项目正是为了将这座城市融入世界艺术生产的图版所做的最新尝试和努力。

有鉴于此，我提议以“日以继夜，或美术馆可为之若干事”为名而策划此次计划。我们将从当代中国和国际艺术界中最为活跃的艺术家中邀请九人赴上海调查、研究并探索这一城市及外滩美术馆的历史与现状。其中大多数艺术家将在美术馆安排下作2-3周以上的驻地计划，并针对展览场地的创作特定作品。整个展览将由两个风格鲜明，独立但又相互交织的部分组成，以期在艺术家、作品、活动、机构与城市生活的现实之间形成亲密而高效的互动。展览活动由白天一直延伸至夜间，让观众不断地为这些新颖之作拍案惊奇。在白天展出的艺术作品侧重于物质性的形态。公众由此可以感受到那蓬勃而壮观的城市发展及现代化进程中的物质增长。这一部分展示的是一个展览的稳定而可触摸的一面……随着夜幕的降临，所有稳定的、固定的和壮观的形态将被逐步“柔化”。物件将失去其物质形态，被溶解成液态的，无法揣摩的流体与“灵气”。惯常的展览形式逐渐被侵蚀，被更为灵活的形式所取代，以此揭示通常被繁忙而明亮的日间活动所隐藏或忽视的事物，而另一方面，又能让公众以最为舒畅放松的方式参与其中。这是向整个城市及其居民发出的邀请，邀请他们体验在白天和普通的夜生活中遍寻而不得的事物。艺术家们被邀请上演各类表演，从演讲到音乐会，而同时呈现的还有由艺术家们精选的作为其艺术创作最佳灵感源泉的电影盛宴。此外，多家当地的教育机构还在此开办夜校，组织各类演讲、讲座、研讨会和其他活动，从而为艺术领域内外不同学科的专业人士提供与普通大众交流的平台。

显而易见，这一计划的结果是一个展览，或更为准确的说，一个与永不停息的城市现实生活共享律动的事件。它是城市时空的升华，并被努力打造成为城市社会不可或缺的，乃至最为亲密的组成部分。最终，这将帮助这一年轻的美术馆定位其自身的使命与作用，以尽早迈上宏伟的发展之路，并最终成为扎根于城市，在城市中茁壮成长的具有原创性且独具特色的当代艺术与文化机构。这一独特性，最初即体现在展览与美术馆的使命从传统的收藏、展示、传播现成艺术作品及其相关叙述，逐步扩展成为一处集艺术作品的孕育、创作和表现于一体的场域，一个吸引公众参与、实现艺术界与社会对话的平台。