“Myth/History”: Yuz Collection of Contemporary Art (curated by Wu Hung)
Yuz Museum (35 Fenggu Road, Shanghai) May 17–Nov 18, 2014
When there is word of yet another museum being opened in China by a fabulously wealthy collector, it is hard not to be skeptical. Coming after two Long Museums in Shanghai (Pudong and Puxi), the Yuz Museum, founded by the Indonesian Chinese Budi Tek, certainly took its time (four years) to come to fruition, at least by Chinese standards. Would it just be yet another vanity project by an over-hyped tycoon-cum-art-collector? With the quality of the Yuz collection on display no doubt greatly aided by having Wu Hung, the renowned scholar of Chinese art, as a curator, we can say that “Myth/History” was not half bad—pretty good, in fact.
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s work “Freedom” (2009) certainly stole the show. A hose within a steel box vacillating wildly from the water gushing forth, this meditation on control and chaos was doing an exceptional job of expressing this theme—in more ways than one, leaking all over the floor, creating lots of work for some poor wretched cleaning lady as she vacuumed up the water gushing through the seams. Apparently, leakage had already been a problem during the installation period, and the work had been shut off when we visited a week later.
Another kinetic sculpture, U-Ram Choe’s “Guardian of the Hole,” was much more well-behaved; a metal skeleton of some kind of Paleolithic fish (inspired by the ancient Indian sculpture “Shiva Lord of the Dance”) was confined to a black metal cage and gracefully extending what looked like fine gold filigreed wings—as if on its dying breath. Equally stunning and dark was Mona Hatoum’s “Impenetrable” (2009)—what looked like a bamboo forest of ink-black barbed wire—which again highlighted this theme of calm and conflict in a kind of insidious way. Other pieces of note included Xu Bing’s “Tobacco Project” (2004), (which was hastily moved when the roof started leaking during downpours a few weeks later), and Made-In’s “Calm” (2009), the only really eye-blistering work being Wang Du’s “Enter”(2004)—a giant acrylic and resin sculpture of a mini-skirted woman showing her undercarriage—which was a big hit with the crowd who posed for snaps beside her . . . uh beneath her.
Though designed by Sou Fujimoto (the brains behind the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 in London), the museum is more functional than visionary. It features large useable halls which offer much flexibility in terms of the kind of works on display, but in terms of the main lobby with its glass ramps and grey concrete, the sense of transcendence which one expects from the best contemporary art spaces is somehow lacking.
If the museum can continue to work with solid guest curators, we predict that it will be a destination in which to see a good range of contemporary Asian art, but as with many private museums, there are always the problems of funding. Let’s hope this initial momentum, can help it attract the financial support and the qualified personnel it needs to showcase what is after all a really rather respectable art collection.