National Art Exhibition Hall in Nanjing—Establishing the Order of Modern Chinese Art Exhibitions
Event details
This lecture takes the National Art Exhibition Hall as a point of departure to examine the formation of modern art exhibition institutions and exhibition order in China. The Hall was not merely a physical space for displaying artworks, but also an important institutional site in which modern systems of artistic classification, selection, display, and viewing were established. Drawing on its exhibition practices, the arrangement of artworks, and the institutional context in which it operated, the lecture explores how traditional modes of displaying and appreciating painting and calligraphy gradually gave way to a new order shaped by modern artistic disciplines, exhibition mechanisms, and public viewing. It further considers the relationship between this transformation, national cultural construction, modern artistic concepts, and the emerging art public. Through this case, the lecture seeks to reconsider the historical transition of Chinese art exhibitions from traditional modes of collecting and connoisseurship toward institutionalization, public accessibility, and modernity.
Dr Chen Ming
Chen Ming is an Associate Professor and Master’s Supervisor at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. He is a Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Commissioner and a Visiting Scholar at the University of York in the United Kingdom, supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) as a ‘Young Backbone’ Teacher. His main research areas include exhibition and display design, cultural and creative product development, and rural visual design.
Image: Nanjing Art Exhibition Hall under construction in the 1930s.
Please contact Michael White (michael.white@york.ac.uk) or Ivan Knapp (ivan.knapp@york.ac.uk) if you have any questions. View the full schedule for the semester.