Places & Spaces: Art in Global Context

Art Focus Program in 2 Parts

Sunday, 26th March 2023

1:45 pm Registration

2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Part 2 – START Museum

Part 1 of March Art Focus was dedicated to understanding the establishment and built-culture of art museums in Shanghai within the last decade. Part 2 will take us through the doors into the newest space highlighting contemporary art in Shanghai. Designed by the globally renowned architect Jean Nouvel and taking nearly a decade, the START Museum opened to the public on December 30, 2022. Moreover, the private collection amassed by He Juxing, the founder and director of START Museum, reportedly took "more than half a century" and constitutes an immense holding of paintings and sculptures created by acclaimed Chinese and foreign artists.

Led by the Art Historian and RAS China Art Focus Convenor Julie Chun, this in-person museum visit will examine the PLACE of the building with special attention on the global phenomenon of "starchitects" who have achieved world-wide fame for their practices in innovative museum designs. We will also investigate how the urban development of the West Bund area, where START Museum is situated, has come to receive international attention as Shanghai's "cultural corridor." This will be followed by a close visual reading of the SPACE where the inaugural exhibition "Season One" is staged. By bridging the context of the artworks with a discussion of the curatorial selections and display, we will assess the production of exhibition-making and determine how it can enhance or hinder viewer perceptions.

For more information about the START Museum and its current exhibition "Season One", please visit: https://www.startmuseum.com/en/exhibitions/jili-xingmeishuguankaiguanzhandiyiji/​