More of Kim Seon-gu's Sculpture in Shanghai

Dig out Cui Bo

Appetite for something easier to digest in Modern Chinese Contemporary Art? Here's someone for you. Cui Bo. His comical setting depicts life in China. Certain lifestyles had changed over the years, practices gone, habits evolved. His artworks painted a lifestyle that will slowly disappear from Modern China. Still, beliefs and practices linger, no matter how fast a chase for a western-to-be city is taking place.



source: Images from New Chinese Art.

Christie's auctions setting mad statistics

Sales of fine art, jewelry and ceramics are predicted to fetched an estimated HK$7.1 billion in total at Christie's Hong Kong 2007 fall auctions at the end of the month.

The interesting part about this auction off this fall are the growing numbers of Chinese 20th century and Asian contemporary art being auctioned off. More than 460 lots under this category went on sale, and will be fetching an estimated value of HK400 million dollars.

Works by Zhang Xiao Gang, Yue Mingjun, Cai Guoqiang are high on a record setting. In a bid to attract buyers from around the world Christie's has held pre-sale exhibition in Jakarta, Beijing, Singapore, London and Moscow.

Looks like Christie's is really set in making Modern Asian Contemporary Art a growing trend in collectibles. Whether a not this is a drive for profits. I am sure many museums out there in the world will be happy to collect some of this master pieces which depict stories of an era of chaos and social reform.

Code of Ethics: Museum Management

Introduction

Museum management is a profession in which offers more than just a junkyard for storage of old relics in a hidden wardrobe. The concept that museum is a storage place for objects are slowly being replaced by a recreation space, research centre, knowledge centre. Museums are not just repositories. They are places where collections are interpreted for the public through exhibits and related educational programs. How museums interpret their collections changes over time with the emergence of new techniques, scholarship, and viewpoints.

In accordance, museum management must follow a code of ethics in or order to achieve their goals at the end, forming a clear and transparent voice in which the public can gain awareness to what they are doing.

Professional ethics per se consists in searching for common answers to the questions everyone encounters in his or her professional practice, notably to those questions that cannot be answered by turning to existing rules and regulations or to the general norms prevailing in the community. Professional ethics presupposes the existence of an identifiable profession, but at the same time contributes to define a profession.

Museum ethics is a form of professional ethics. Professional ethics is the offshoot of general moral norms adopted by members of the same profession, who may be identified as a group. Strictly speaking ethics is concerned with theory, which is, contemplating as to what is right and just in a given situation.

The International Council of Museums defines the museum profession under article 5 of its Statutes as consisting of 'all of the personnel of museums or related institutions who have received a specialized technical or academic training or who possess an equivalent practical experience, and who respect a fundamental code of professional ethics'. In this respect it is important to note that many codes attempt to define the museum profession by putting up a partition against closely related fields of activity with conflicting interests, such as (art) trade. Museum codes unanimously exclude art trade from the museum profession.

Summary

Set Sail and Collect like pirates
Museums must be aware that in an age where information is exploding as an accelerated level. They cannot readily without judgement increase their threshold of collections quickly.

Many museums faces financial crisis in which is due to their management of collections. Facing difficulties, one can make uncertain judgements in which affects the trusts of the public.

In United States, The Milwaukee Art Museum, the museum has at least a $20 million shortfall that is forcing it to pursue something virtually unheard of in the art world -- offering up its collection as a guarantee for a loan. In Arizona, The $1 million sale of museum artifacts by a financially troubled museum in northern Arizona is sending shock waves through Utah's own museum community and leading to concerns the same thing could happen to cash-strapped museums.

This approach would violate ethical standards of the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose published guidelines caution that "the collections a museum holds in public trust do not represent financial assets that may be converted to cash for operating or capital costs or pledged as collateral for loans."

Collections are looted internationally
The J Paul Getty Museum, one of the world's largest and best endowed art collections, faces a fresh blow to its reputation following the publication of internal documents suggesting it ignored warnings that up to half of its highest profile antiquities acquisitions were looted from ruins in Italy. Know as early as 1985.

Sellers based in Thailand and Singapore are selling parts from Angkor Wat Temple, Cambodia - the two countries in South East Asia which have not been signatory to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. It is suspected that most artifacts illegally excavated by looters around Asia are transited through Singapore and Bangkok. In such, it raises controversy in which how governments could allow loopholes to take place, allowing such criminal activities to transact.

Even British Museum faces international furor in which most of their collections come from looting and plundering that took place during their Britain’s empire.

A profession has the responsibility to take the lead in setting the ethical standards by which its members are governed. The museum profession should set the example for governments, private collectors, and dealers with respect to all museum collections. This includes incorporating into museum acquisition policies the sense of such international conventions as the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property

Preservation of Collections
Preservation work in a museum is deem as the essence in which collections will sustain through time and proven a valuable asset to the public. Conservators in Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge face a huge dilemma
when a visitor tripped and fell down the stairs, smashing into three 17th century Chinese vases worth 500,000 pounds. The vases were smashed into hundreds of pieces. Conservators decided to repair the artifacts and showpiece them in relation to problems faced by museum professionals in handling exhibitions and caring of collections.

However, conservation practices vary across the world. In certain codes, restoration and conservation works are to be reached through minimal changes under conditions that collections are irreversible once changes are made to it. In china, many museums without following doctrines altered their collections in order to boost collections that are ready to be exhibited. Much of the time, porcelains were painted directly; causing damages in the long run, due to the chemistry involved causing burn and tears to the relics.

However, many museums around the world face the same issues daily: lack of funds. Without proper professional training of staffs and usage of technology to prevent the definite erosion of relics, many museums face uncertainty in their collections.

Museum is community.
Many times, we cannot reject the fact that the museums are serving the public and not a stand alone institution in which they can overwrite decisions. However, curators run a difficult situation in which decision made by the boards overwrite proper managements. Many a times, museums face problems that were accumulated through bad managements by boards. The public does not know of the activities within the museums until actions were taken. We can see clearly from the restoration of the lake in Yuan Ming Yuan, Beijing, as well as other museums which sell their collections without the consent of the public. Much of the time, public furors were splashed forward, causing scandals to be made known by the media.

Conclusion

Museums should have a proper standard operating procedures in which interactivity between the institution be made known.

The museum should made public that they are holders of the countries’ collections in trusts on behalf of the public/society. Relics and collections are reversible and irreplaceable. Once lost, the national identity in which the dissemination of knowledge will be much aggravated.

Museums should focus on public service, bringing in communication at levels in which transparency can take place. With public service offered at a higher level, museums can expect better performances through visits and interaction with the community. This will help to encourage people to explore collections for inspirations, learning and enjoyment.

Museums should also consult and involve communities, users and supporters. This way, the museums can understand how they can improve the situations. At the same time, the public will be more will informed of the situations in which the museums face.

Museums should acquire items honestly and responsibly. This could prevent unwanted loss of collections and public shame. In the Cases of looting, Museums should readily adopt new policies in which to put a curb to unwanted trading to take place in the future. While it seems unlikely that these cases will be settled anytime soon, there is a growing trend among museums to return art objects and artifacts to their countries of origin after ascertaining that the works were stolen. They should safeguard the long term public interest in the collections. Guidelines stipulated should show that curators should "respect the interests" of the communities from which objects of cultural value originate. And in an implicit admission of the dubious nature of some past acquisitions, it urges them to recognize that others may have a "stronger claim to certain items" than themselves. As the saying goes: “We are to be a repository for artifacts, not a clearinghouse,"

In order to improve situations, many museums stood down guidelines such as: reinvigorate thinking about the process of creating exhibitions, establish a system for regularly reviewing exhibition planning guidelines in order to gain a better stand or what and how they manage their collections and museums.

Museums should also recognise the interests of the people who made, used, owned, collected or gave items in the collections. Collections do not belong to one man’s decision board. The people involved should also have a say, especially donors. One would not like to see what was donated to be sold due to financial problems face. In doing so, it is best to identify accountability at all levels of the Institution to adhere from mistakes.

In conclusion, As Sinatra sang, "you can't have one without the other." Ethically, a museum must know and face what its actions have upon the public. Even so, it is not as simple as that. Collections are never permanent. It is always a fight against time before they disintegrate. That is the reason why Museum managers as professionals should always consider ethically what their actions will do and hold responsible for the future generations of museum professionals, the public and the nation.

Zhang Jianhua's Coal Mine Workers

In Beijing, one cannot miss going to Great Wall of China, The Tian An Men Square, the forbidden city, the summer palace. In the other part of Beijing, the little known area in which Chinese Contemporary Art thrive and a must to visit for art lovers is the 798 factory. Many post cultural revolution Chinese artists host their art works there. However, even though so, many artists reknown internationally still remain ambigous to the locals. Such is the case for Zhang Jianhua, whose sculpture works are disturbing and profound, especially those he made: life size sculptures of Chinese coal miners

His life works depicts depict miners sitting on the ground in their black rubber boots wearing looks of sheer fatigue. Some stare blankly into the distance or prop up their heads with both hands, their faces fixed in nameless agony. Although seeing it, one might not feel any connection to it without before hand understanding the social issues in China, in which coal miners die in the thousand annually due to the hazardous working environment and poor safety issues. Little do the locals look upon the sculptures with interests, and silently, it also symbolizes the problems coal miners face in modern China, making them silent victims to disasters little known to people. Or simply, not many care about them.

The works of Zhang, now in his mid thirties, received many critical praises from the art industry. However, locally, no Chinese museum or established gallery is willing to take in his display of the coal miners entirety, even though he insists, due to the controversy and troubles it might bring from the local authorities. This can be seen clearly when his works was exhibited in 798 factory during April this year, but demanded by the censors to remove the six dead coal mine workers out of the show. They just do not wish to see it somehow.

If you look at it in a picture most Chinese in this era want to depict a progressive China, full of smiles and great improvements. No one like to look at the ugly side being depicted. Everything is good and merry, the air is tinged and filled with love songs. There is nothing "wrong" with China. There is no bubble reality at all.

Officially, 4,794 coal miners died in work-related accidents in China last year - more than 13 every day, on average, though many believe the official figures understate the real toll. But Zhang's temerity in representing the victims has won his work what might be called a soft ban.

And Zhang is not aiming to criticize the authorities. He would just like to see that from his works, he can change and affect the society, gaining awareness from the public, in which changes can happen to make his belove country more open and transparents about making changes possible, not with empty promises and propaganda. Everyone should know what is going on in the country. The thing is, a large majority do know, but they choose to leap into a safety zone of "i fuck care as long nothing disturb me" attitude.

Personally, I think people outside of China are more interested with the Chinese Contemporary Artists than the locals. If these artists did not gain International attention when they exhibited their works overseas, pressures forced upon China internationally, a lucrative art market in which China wants to put his paws upon, and also because of the WTO few years back, the voice of the artists locally will still remain unclear throughout the country.

more about the artist, extract

The artist's first taste of successful shock realism came with another series of sculptures four years ago in which he depicted the lives of peasants from his native Henan Province. The 12 figures in that series included an elderly woman sitting alone, threadbare migrant workers and rural schoolteachers.

The work drew critical praise when it was introduced at a gallery in Beijing. But when the show began touring other venues in the capital that year, displayed on the grounds of two middle-class housing developments and at China Agricultural University, it drew strong protests, with residents and students attacking it as vulgar, striking the artist and knocking over some of the figures.

The university exhibition had to be canceled after only two hours.

"These were beggars," said one commentator in a school newspaper. "It's sick." Another complained that "rural areas have progress, too, why not show that?"

Zhang's choice of topics is not the only thing that sets him apart from many contemporaries. He said that to prepare for his miner series, he made numerous trips to the coal country in Shanxi and Henan provinces, living with miners for weeks at a time, soaking up their hard-knocks culture while simultaneously observing the lives of the illegal mine owners, with their flashy, sudden wealth.

The artist grew particularly animated as he described the scenes of lavish weddings organized for the daughters of coal mine owners in Datong, one of China's most famous mining towns, of motorcades of stretched Cadillacs and Hummers and Mercedes-Benzes, festively honking their horns. "This is the kind of ostentation they want," he said. "Yet underneath the wheels are piles of white bones and pools of fresh blood."

For his next project, clearly another effort at unveiling a ubiquitous but officially invisible social problem, Zhang said he planned to portray the country's large numbers of prostitutes. "Not the prostitutes of the rich, but the ordinary, working-class prostitutes, who live in very difficult conditions."