The Reading Room Opens to the Public

OCAT Institute is very pleased to announce the opening of ‘From A History of Exhibitions Towards A Future of Exhibition-Making: Exhibition-Making Practices in China and Southeast Asia in 1990s’ The Reading Room (hereafter referred to as The Reading Room), a public accessible study space and on-going archive. The Reading Room was a part of a research platform co-initiated by the independent curator Biljana Ciric in collaboration with the Rockbund Art Museum. It now re-launches at OCAT Institute, and will last until late September.

Apart from the materials from OCAT Institute, the Reading Room also benefits from the contribution of Rockbund Art Museum and the personal collection of Biljana Ciric. It will feature a diverse collection of primary archival material, critical readers, original catalogues, artist made books, and rare out-of-print locally produced publications focusing on the history of exhibition practices during the 90s in China and Southeast Asia. Audiences are invited to interact with a growing collection of publications, which have been compiled to help disseminate, draw awareness, and promote accessibility to different book forms and methods of documenting these exhibition histories. The Reading Room will also function as a collective bibliography, which will be digitalized as a searchable platform for audiences to search specific topic areas, fields of knowledge, and regional publishers featured in the collection.

About The Reading Room Project

The Reading Room plays a key role in building a research platform co-initiated by Biljana Ciric and the Rockbund Art Museum, which focuses on the history of exhibition practices during the 90s in China and Southeast Asia. International research into exhibition histories frequently rely on references taken from Western contemporary art, while there are currently relatively few initiatives focused on Asia. This pioneering research platform is therefore about acknowledging the specificity of the diverse regions within Asia— therefore looking to decisively contribute towards a (re)mapping of exhibition practices and a remaking of exhibition histories from the perspective of local contexts within Asia.

The Reading Room explores exhibition histories as an academic field of inquiry and will display a collection of relevant research that includes recent and notable publications together. This includes original archival publications produced in the 90s, research projects and the collection will explore different uses of the book medium in relation to its role in revisiting these exhibition histories.

EXHIBITING

OCAT Institute

The OCAT Institute is a non-profit research center dedicated to the history of art and its related discourses. It is also a member of the OCAT Museums. The Institute has three main areas of activity: publication, archives, and exhibition. The scope of its research encompasses art from antiquity, modern and contemporary Chinese art, more specifically, it includes the investigation of artists, artworks, schools of art production, exhibitions, art discourses, as well as art institutions, publications and other aspects of art’s overall ecology. It will establish a research archives and facilitate dialogue and exchange between China and abroad. In addition, it serves as an exhibition platform in Beijing.

The OCAT Institute aims to establish a paradigm of values, a system of academic investigation, and modes of applying historical research methodologies to modern and contemporary Chinese art. Through an interdisciplinary approach that bridges contemporary art research, critical theory, and the history of ideas and culture, it promotes an integrated methodology that seeks to cultivate an open spirit of academic research. The OCAT Institute is open to the public in 2015.

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Address: OCAT Institute, Jinchanxilu, Chaoyang District, Beijing (100 meters North from Subway Line 7 Happy Valley Scenic Area Station Exit B)

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