After three years of preparations, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum officially opened on June 25, 2015 with the opening exhibition“The Civil Power”, the museum is the third member of “MSMS”, following Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum and Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum.

Designed by architect Zhu Pei, the Art museum consists of multiple irregular geometrical boxes, rendering a modern stereoscopic abstract art shape, to reveal the visual tension, swift and freedom. Beijing Minsheng Art Museum devotes to the research, collection, display, education and communication of modern and contemporary art, striving for independently and objectively combing through the history of Chinese modern and contemporary art, to summarize and present the development trend and creative achievements of the contemporary art, supporting young artists and carrying out international exchanges and cooperation of contemporary art.

At 3:00 pm, “The Civil Power” exhibition was inaugurated and many honored guests from China Minsheng Bank, Beijing Municipal Government, cultural circles and art circles attended the opening ceremony. Hong Qi, Chairman of the Board in China Minsheng Bank addressed the opening ceremony, and hoped Beijing Minsheng Art Museum would be built into a world-class comprehensive art platform for exhibitions and exchanges, to support the fusion, innovation and development of different forms of culture and art, so that more institutions, and people from all walks of life concerned and supported art business and social harmony and progress. Wu Weishan, Director of National Art Museum of China congratulated it on behalf of the museums, he said, China Minsheng Bank was one of the important driving forces among private art museums in China, for Chinese art museum system, both public art museums and private art museums were important participants of contemporary Chinese culture, and art museums under different backgrounds and systems also had the individual advantages and characteristics. Zhou Xujun, Director of Beijing Minsheng Art Museum said the choice of “The Civil Power” as the opening exhibition, was based on the background of the times of reform and opening up over the 30 years,? under the context that the art comprehensively reflected on the society, because artworks were the best annotation of the times. Chen Zhe, Vice Chairman and Secretary-general of China Urban Cultural Industrial Development Alliance said art and artists should be respected by the society, “The Civil Power” was the power of the people, culture should not be the power of a certain person, but the collective power of all the people. It was coincided with the fifth anniversary of Wu Guanzhong’s death, so Chen Zhe proposed that all honor guests who were presented at the opening, stood in silent tribute for one minute for Mr. Wu.

Along with the opening of the exhibition, the award ceremony of “The Civil Power Exhibition Collection Awards” was held at the same time, a total of 32 artists won the awards, for a total bonus of 500000 RMB, among them Niu Wenbo won the Jury Prize of 180000 RMB. The opening exhibition of “The Civil Power” is divided into three parts: “Collection Competition Unit”, “Special Invited Unit”, and “Fieldwork Creation Project”. The call for entries started on October 10, 2014, and ended on January 10, 2015. The entire call for entries lasted about 3 months, received the widespread social attention and positive response, accepted a total of 8539 works, among 88 works are presented at “The Civil Power” exhibition after multiple selections, so the viewers can see these works reflecting the ideas and feelings, concerns and responsibility of the present Chinese society. “Special Invited Unit” invites the most active, representative and innovative artists throughout the history of contemporary Chinese art to participate in the exhibition, featuring 94 sets of works by 76 artists. This group itself carries and reflects the civil power, is the writer and witness of the development history of contemporary Chinese art, using the active life and constant creation to vividly represent and interpret the germination and development of the civil power over the past 30 years. It selects and combs through the works from three aspects including the civil identity, civil element and symbol, and the civil as the method. “Fieldwork Creation Project” was organized and initiated by Beijing Minsheng Art Museum since November 2014, supporting four groups of young artists and scholar who have rich experiences of fieldwork and creation, to go deep into the civil, directly reaching the scene, respectively using first-hand information to write the civil creations under different fields in Qinghai, Guizhou, Tibet and Anhui, recording the social realities which come from the field, thinking aboutthe heterogeneous life world. Their work is presented in a unique form in the exhibition.

The exhibition will continue to October 10.

Text and photo by Zhang Wenzhi/CAFA ART INFO

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO