Avant art: 5 stunning art museums to visit in Beijing
Photo: Zhi Xia/Song Art Museum
Step out of 798 and check out these galleries peppered across the city
Want something a little different in your life? Check out one of these rather stunning contemporary art museums around Beijing, not just for the art they contain, but because each building is a work of art in and of itself.
Beijing Art Now Gallery
Photo: Beijing Art Now Gallery
This two-storey art space has a two-pronged mission: to support Chinese contemporary artwork while preserving it within the context of global art history. It achieves the former with regular exhibitions from some of China’s top avant-garde artists, including iconic works from the likes of Yue Minjun and Zhang Xiaogang. The latter it manages by collaborating with art galleries across the globe to ensure that Chinese artists are well represented at international art fairs.
Today Art Museum
Today Art Museum opened in 2002 and has been leading the charge in Beijing’s contemporary art scene ever since. It focuses on Chinese artists (while also hosting international work), and supports the community by providing both a space to exhibit and a space to foster dialogue at seminars held throughout the year. You can’t miss it – just look out for the cluster of Yue Minjun’s silver laughing men fronting its exterior and you’ll know you’ve arrived.
Red Brick Contemporary Art Museum
Sitting amid a beautifully sculpted Chinese garden, Red Brick Art Museum derives its name from its stunning, one-of-a-kind red brick structure. Consisting of two sprawling exhibition halls and numerous smaller spaces, the museum is dedicated to hosting film screenings and regular live performances, while also boasting an impressive permanent collection of bespoke installations created by Chinese and international contemporary artists.
Three Shadows Photography Art Centre
Photo: Three Shadows Photography Art Centre
Opened to the public in 2007, Three Shadows is China’s only privately run, non-profit centre dedicated to photography. It has two main goals: to legitimise photography as an art in China through education and to reclaim a history of China through photographic images. According to its co-founder Rong Rong, a prominent Chinese photographer himself, ‘photography in China is three decades behind the West. It’s still not considered an art here.’ To remedy this, Three Shadows runs workshops, invites internationally renowned photographers to give lectures and boasts its own library of over 5,000 books and publications, all in a complex designed by iconoclastic artist Ai Weiwei.
Song Art Museum
Photo: Zhi Xia/Song Art Museum
With its pitched roofs, pure-white walls and stunning courtyard layout, Song Art Museum is worth the trek out of the city. Once a former stable where studs were bred, it’s now a museum set on beautifully manicured lawns adorned with 199 pine (or song) trees. Artwork comes courtesy of Huayi Brothers founder Wang Zhongjun’s private collection and includes representative work of both Chinese and Western contemporary artists.
For more art galleries to check out around Beijing, hit 'Read more' below.
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