The Making of A Museum Opens at Aurora

Opening of The Making of the Museum at the Aurora Museum of Shanghai, November 21st

Arthub has collaborated on the organization and curation of a contemporary art group exhibition, hosted by the Aurora Museum, that will run until March 31st 2015 as a parallel event to the 10th Shanghai Biennale.

The museum is located in the Aurora Plaza at 99 Fucheng Road in Lujiazui, Pudong New Area. The museum is closed Mondays, but open to the public from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Sunday.

Here contemporary art will be called into dialogue with the collection, creating a meta-level of discussion that foreshadows the future of the Aurora Museum—the institution is planning to open a Contemporary Department in the next three years.

In 2013 the Aurora Museum commissioned the long-term Xinlu (New Roads) project, with the curatorial assistance of Arthub. Since then, Xinlu has inaugurated a series of artistic interventions aimed at connecting the Museum’s collection with contemporary art. The first curatorial project of this series was The Unicorn and the Dragon, a solo show by artist Qiu Zhijie, presented during the 55th Venice Biennale.

Now Aurora presents The Making of the Museum, the title expresses the institution’s will of consciously shaping a new idea of museum, while inviting the public to witness the final result, as well as the process in between.

The pilot projects have been devoted to a consistent curatorial quality, aimed at preparing the contemporary museum. Additionally, the projects created cohesion between Arthub and Aurora’s teams to share expertise and refine models of artistic presentations.

Within the challenging idea of making a new museum, contemporary art and the artists themselves become tools to analyze the different possibilities of progression and the museum’s extension into contemporary life, bringing further significance to the antique collection.

As a project, The Making of A Museum is conceived in two parts: a group show and a symposium with in-depth analysis of the role and identity of the museum. The artists’ interventions in the group show will be staggered over five months, thus allowing the creation of a lively and continuative dialogue, fuelled by critical responses to be used as constructive feedback.

Currently the Aurora Museum is a collection of masterpieces that span five millenniums. To avoid any kind of simple exoticism, we decided to work with Chinese artists (Chinese in its cultural connotation rather than ethnical), who represent four decades and generations. We invited Qiu Zhijie, Yang Fudong, Ling Yun, Li Shurui, Kan Xuan, Liu Jianhua and Michael Lin.

The artists have been invited to interact with the antiques collection. Working with artists from different generations, who use varied media, will disclose a spectrum of responses. Their artworks will represent new paths traced individually in a sort of solo-exhibitions mode although, curatorially, they will be mutually echoing. Each artists’ intervention, now being congruently displayed at the Aurora Museum enhances the others, acting as counterpoints.

More information on the upcoming lectures to be held at the Aurora Museum will be presented soon.

Presented with special support by Alcantara.