Wenzhou cultural landmark about to rise

On September 28, Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center project, as one of the major projects in the third quarter of 2022 in Wenzhou, held a groundbreaking ceremony at the Municipal People’s Great Hall. As a new window to showcase Wenzhou image, Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center covers the functions of art museums and other venues, which, after completion, will not only better meet the needs of the public for culture and art, but also fill the gap of municipal art museum in Wenzhou.

“For a city, art museums are cultural engines that stimulate the city’s innovative vitality, highlight local cultural differences and intensify citizens’ cultural identity.” The absence of a municipal art museum has long been a regret in the minds of Wenzhou artists. Now, the construction of the Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center, which is larger and more functional than the art museum, has finally made up for this shortcoming.

The Pain of Absence

The well-endowed land of Wenzhou has a rich and long tradition of ink and calligraphy. In contemporary times, Wenzhou’s painting and calligraphy circles have created a stunning“Wenzhou phenomenon” of art and calligraphy.

Today, Wenzhou artists carry much weight in the art world in China, and many are active in the field of contemporary art and have made great achievements. By far, there are more than 10,000 Wenzhou-based artists, among whom more than 2,000 are also provincial-level members, over 700 national-level members, and nearly one thousand, 269 and 45 are municipal-level, provincial-level and national-level members of the Artists Association respectively. A large number of famous masters of calligraphy and art are living in major cities and data show that nearly 100 Wenzhouese teachers are now teaching in nine major art colleges in China.

In recent years, Wenzhou artists have frequently won awards in major art exhibitions. For example, more than ten works from Wenzhou have been selected at the five-yearly National Art Exhibition each time, several of which won national gold medals, bronze medals and excellence awards. Countless works have been present at national art exhibitions and won national individual awards.

The boom of Wenzhou art nowadays is due not only to the successive hard work and innovation of generations of artists, but also to the contribution of the Wenzhou Painting and Calligraphy Institute as a professional institution that undertakes the collection, display and exhibition of Wenzhou calligraphy and art works and professional documents.

Wenzhou Painting and Calligraphy Institute, founded in 1992, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. During the past 30 years, under the leadership of successive (current) presidents Lin Jiandan, Zheng Fangwei and He Wei, it has held more than 200 painting and calligraphy exhibitions, collected more than 600 pieces of boutique calligraphy and paintings, published more than 100 volumes of painting and calligraphy works, carried out more than 300 activities of painting and calligraphy at the grassroots level, and conducted two-way exchange exhibitions with Guangzhou, Guilin, Urumqi, Lanzhou, Nanchang, Shanghai, Hefei, Zhengzhou, Hohhot, Jilin etc. Besides, it has also visited over 10 countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Finland, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Italy to hold exhibitions and art exchange activities, which have played an active role in inheriting the local culture and boosting the prosperity of Wenzhou culture.

To this day, it is clear that the size of the Wenzhou Painting and Calligraphy Institute exhibition hall cannot accommodate the needs of the times.

The Aspiration of the City

“In stark contrast to the dynamic Wenzhou culture and art business, Wenzhou’s cultural infrastructure construction is slightly lagging behind, especially the low-level construction of the city’s art museum facilities.” In the opinion of Zhang Chengbi, Chairman of the Wenzhou Artists Association and member of the Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, such shortcomings do not match Wenzhou’s status as the first city in Zhejiang in terms of population, the third largest city in terms of economy, a central city of the Yangtze River Delta and one of the five major centers in the west of the East China Sea.“It’s not conducive to enhancing the city’s overall cultural image, as the gap is widening against the backdrop of other cities.”

“The limited space has greatly restricted the organization of painting and calligraphy activities, as it has been impossible to introduce large-scale exhibitions, which is a great pity.” Dai Honghai, a national first-class artist and honorary professor at Wenzhou University, also observed that the absence of municipal art museums hindered the development of the art business.

As a public cultural facility, art museums also play a very crucial role in enhancing the quality of public cultural life and improving the artistic taste of all people.

“Wenzhou is in urgent need of a fully functional modern art museum!”Thanks to the appeal of Dai Honghai, Zhang Chengbi and a group of enthusiasts of Wenzhou’s cultural business industry, Wenzhou planned to build a new art museum during the 12th and 13th Five-Year Plans. However, the plan was not materialized due to various reasons. Now that the news of the Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center came, these industry professionals, while rejoicing, unanimously suggested to build a high-grade art museum to be a landmark building for the future of the city.

There are many useful suggestions from the industry on how to build a good art museum. The majority believe that the service targets of cultural facilities such as public art museums are the audience and exhibits, and that while we should give the museum a beautiful appearance as a new urban landmark, we should pay more attention to such cultural facilities as exhibition halls, storage rooms, and areas for public education and leisure, as well as the internal functions of the venue.

The Promising Future

Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center project, located in the core area of Wenzhou business center unit G-08 plot, is scheduled to be completed and open to the public in 2025, with a total construction area of about 22,000m2 and a total investment of about 750 million yuan.

According to the current plan, Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center will consist of 8 professional exhibition halls, collection storage, preparation area, multi-function hall, lecture hall, art souvenir store, library reading room, multimedia center, training classroom, creation room, cultural station, cafe, painting and calligraphy restoration room, photography room, administrative office area and other functional areas. After its completion, it will serve as a new window to display Wenzhou image, echoing with the City Balcony in Binjiang CBD and the Wenzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center as city landmarks to display the city’s image and enhance the city’s primacy.

“The completion of Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center is not the end. The key is to host high-quality exhibitions or borrow important collections to better carry out international cultural exchanges, art works canonical collection and art research.” In Zhang Chengbi’s eyes, public art museums and other cultural facilities are not only buildings but also living bodies; we should focus on both hardware and software like research staff, curatorial staff, collection staff, public service education staff and other staffing. In the future management and maintenance and the organization of various activities, attention should be given to the opinions and suggestions of professionals so that they can better serve the public and the new era and contribute their share to the cultural construction of Wenzhou.

“The construction of the Wenzhou Cultural Exhibition Center is both a continuation of the Wenzhou Painting and Calligraphy Institute and a new beginning for the painting and calligraphy business in Wenzhou.” He Wei, President of Wenzhou Painting and Calligraphy Institute, expressed his expectations for this new cultural landmark that will soon rise in Wenzhou - a base for the city’s cultural and artistic display and creation, an output ground for knowledge production and dissemination, and an experimental site for cross-border integration of culture and art. (ZhongXin)