An exhibit in the privately owned Shanghai Museum of Pen and Ink Photo: CFP
Privately owned museums have been popping up throughout China in recent years, a development that has been widely applauded as part of the cultural prosperity measures that the government has spared no effort to promote. These museums offer people more opportunities to enjoy private collections and learn more about Chinese art.
However, whether these private museums can survive, or keep up sustainable development in the long run, has become a concern for these entrepreneurs and industry observers.
New directions
For many museum owners, the main question is whether they can earn enough to stay open. Due to high overheads, simply displaying good art isn't enough to guarantee a steady volume of visitors.
Eight museums in Luoyang, Henan Province, are set to launch in April at the China Luoyang Peony Festival. These new museums, each of which features a different local traditional art form such as calligraphy, stoneware, and silver, are exploring new ways to secure financial success.
What sets these eight museums apart is that they each have an industry to back them up. Each institution has developed a business that operates in conjunction with the museum, providing both a steady income and further publicity for their collections.
"This model could really help struggling private museums," Zhang Bai, an expert on museums and Chinese cultural heritage preservation, told the Global Times in a telephone interview.
"So many private museums could solve their financial problems if the owners seek out another steady source of money," said Zhang, who is also the former vice director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. "A business operation that backs the museum is one innovative way [to solve this problem]."
Private museums in other parts of China have already adopted this model. Luo Yunsheng from Weifang, Shandong Province, owns a small museum that features hundreds of kites, a local handicraft that dates back to ancient times and is celebrated throughout China.
Luo, in his fifties, told the Global Times that the kites had been collected by his father and grandfather, and some were even made during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
To keep his museum well funded, Luo opened a company that makes kites. With a dozen local people on staff, his kites are now being sold around the country, spreading appreciation for this ancient craft. "People visit my museum to see the kites on display, and then order kites from my company," he said.
Photo: CFP
Struggling to survive
However, not every museum owner is as successful as Luo. With challenges like insufficient publicity and inconsistent funding, many privately owned museums are in the red soon after opening.
Chen Jingshun, a peasant from Xingyang, a county-level city of Zhengzhou, Henan Province, is a self-taught expert on historical relics. In 2009, Chen built a museum that displays ancient Chinese porcelain in his hometown, having raised the money for the project on his own. The result is the largest museum of its kind in the entire province, but since charging for entrance is uncommon in Chinese museums, Chen has to offer free admission. Today he earns a little money by appraising ancient artifacts, but his museum is seldom open and on the verge of extinction.
Qiao Chonghong, a native of Zhengzhou, has had his own share of difficulties. Over the years, he has collected some 2,000 ink pot artifacts of various shapes and ranging in size from 5cm to 35cm. Some of his pieces date as far back as the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).
Qiao founded an underground exhibition hall several years ago, spending more than 100,000 yuan ($15,870) to establish a folk museum focusing on ink pots. But the museum saw no profits, and as a result closed in its first year. Now his collection has been moved to a storeroom which is open to the public on weekends.
Looking for solutions
The experiences of Chen and Qiao are rather common to art lovers who dream of owning a museum. Many start out with great hopes of venerating an art form they are passionate about, but end up bitterly disappointed.
As these eight new museums face their upcoming launch, many are asking whether the new model can save them from a similar fate. Some industry insiders say yes with confidence.
"The newly approved private museums have a few things in common: Their collections are unique and celebrate local culture; they sidestep many funding pitfalls by avoiding excavation-related risks; and their owners are affluent entrepreneurs," said Wang Zhiyuan, who is in charge of launching private museums in Luoyang. He added that such features make these private museums competitive alternatives to national ones.
These museums serve not only as a showcase for the private collections of these wealthy entrepreneurs, but also as a platform for them to boost publicity for their own businesses, Wang added.
Wang Jian, who works at the Museum of Tangsancai in Luoyang, which displays tri-colored figurine art from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), told the Global Times that the artifacts displayed at the museum help promote the local Tangsancai business, which in turn, provides financial assistance to the museum.
But doubts remain about the future of the new museums. Yang Xiangfei, a well-known collector of "red" artifacts that celebrate modern revolutionary culture, pointed out that we will have to wait to see whether they can decode the puzzle facing privately owned museums throughout the country.
"Museums must rely on income from related businesses in the early stages, but what can they do if the businesses are not doing well?"
Global Times