Globalization in Museums and Globalizing Chinese Art

Modern museums grew out of globalization in the 19th century, collecting and interpreting art and culture in the galleries for the purposes of exploring exotics in lands afar. Today entering the 21st century, a new wave of globalization stimulated by webs of information technology and social media is going to re-shape the way of thinking and doing in museums. As museums start to revitalize new galleries of Asian art, there would be still a strong tendency to segregate cultural representations by regions and countries as a norm. However, curators responsible for, or specializing in, collections and galleries of specific cultural regions would have challenges to assemblage the artworks under the context of globalization but also realize such opportunities of rethinking and reinterpreting regional art in communities of growing multiculturism. Taking Chinese art for example, when we define Chinese art, what is the boundary of Chinese art, or should there be one? What does the global art history mean to curators and what does this term mean to our audience/visitors? Whose art or whose culture we interpreting in the galleries? How could be different views from communities integrated in museum gallery interpretations? This talk will illustrate a few practical issues during our curatorial life in the museums holding large collection and galleries of Asian art, and raise more questions than providing solutions, but hopefully illuminating and enlightening for further discussions.