Running head: HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

How does the cultural globalization influence the Chinese curator?

Lin Zhu
Eastern Michigan University

Abstract
Curator as an important part of art development originating from 16 th century; then as time goes
by, curatorial industry developed more and more mature, and started to afferent eastern countries
with globalization. This study focuses on how the cultural globalization influences the Chinese
curatorial industry and how do these emerging curators use these influences to do something

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

different in China. The study will illustrate the history of curatorial industry both in west and
China, analyzes the current situation in China via collecting famous curators interviews and
interviewing 4 emerging curators who are study abroad to elaborate the problems during the
development process and the future of Chinese curatorial industry.
Key words: curator, globalization, China, issues

How does the cultural globalization influence the Chinese curator?

Introduction
Curator is an important part of arts development originating form 16 th century, who have
always attracted peoples attention. As time goes by, the national boundaries of arts and culture
have become fuzzier than before because of the globalizing of the whole world. The issue that
this study addresses is the influence of the curatorial industry from cultural globalization. The
purpose of this study will be to explore the curators development and the issues under the
cultural globalization; comparing the difference between the development of curator in western
and China; finding the past, current conditions, and the future of the curator in China.

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

The origin of the curator is closely related to the system of museum and arts gallerys
development in the west from the 16th century. After the World War II, the west started to develop
museums and arts centers to enhance the quality of cities. Since the 1980s, with the wave of
economic globalization, cultural and artistic communications between the east and west become
increasingly frequent, and curator system also began to rise in Asian countries and regions;
China, Japan, and South Korea emerged a number of local curators, and they played an
increasing important role in the local social and cultural life.
Early in the last century, curators started to realize that it is really important to work between
cultures for the curatorial industry. (B. Michael 17) They also found that curators would continue
to play a key role as brokers, translators in the present struggle between global and local
interests. (M. France et al. 14) According to the development of the international exhibitions, like
the Kassel Documenta, The Bienal International de Sao Paulo, and the La Biennale di Venezia,
curators started to understand that cultural interaction, adaption, and change have taken place in
the region for centuries, and the Western influence may come to be seen as insignificant in the
future. (M. France et al. 19) Although the curators had realized their condition, there still have
been some curating issues. Some western scholars thought that it is important for curator to have
ability of self- consciousness and openness to deal with the transparency in curatorial
presentation. In short, while words and phrases like declaring yourself and making yourself
transparency can help establish a climate of exchange and engagement.(B. Michael 22) They
also realized that the curator id a kind of leader of an exhibition who needs to think
imaginatively about the collision and inclusiveness, and then combine with aesthetic, economics,
history, politics, critics, and management immediately to communicate with artists, business
leaders and heads of community. (B. Michael 16)
With the wave of economic globalization, cultural and artistic exchanges between East and
West have become more frequent; but we cannot deny that the curator in Eastern countries
developed slower than the West. After 1980s, Chinese curators started to break the single model
of exhibitions and explored the distinctive style of Chinese Arts Exhibition. After 1990s, the
improvement of the market economy motivated a new understanding of curating; the 90s were a
vital period that economics and arts got a rapid development in China, social underground

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

changed from a planning economy to a market economy, and at the same time, the creation and
methods of distribution of arts got an opportunity to transform. (W. Yi 79) After the
establishment of market economy, Guangzhou First Art Biennale in the 1990s exhibition
opened a new model in it own way in 1992, which is completely different from the previous
exhibitions. There are lots of interrelated factors between art and market, including the art of
investment sources and the whole environment, and the legal system of the arts community, the
selection system and operation mechanism and so on. This biennale formed a system of appraisal
which revolved around the exhibition manager, the judges and discriminators also participate in
it. It also adopted exhibition manager system during this exhibition, which means giving the
manager corresponding rights: the manager could host throughout the assessment, and had final
arbitration powers for awards nominations, and coordinated the relationship between the judges
and discriminators. Actually, this position of exhibition manager is very close to the curator
identity in an enormous international exhibition. (L. Yin 38) But the curatorial industry did not
develop fully, compared to the West; China has yet to improve the accumulation management
and delivery mechanism of social and culture arts foundations. So the economic resource of the
curators and arts and cultural institutions cannot totally rely on the government and fundraising
like the West countries. And the art museums or galleries didnt put the independent curator as a
choice of the exhibition, there is also no foundation funded those independent curator to curating
their own exhibition for a long time. So the large-scale arts exhibitions in China always held by
government culture departments or Fine Art Association, which leads to the misidentifications to
Chinese curators. In a long term, Chinese museums and arts galleries have no plans about
holding curatorial academic activities. As the development of marketing economics continued,
the exhibition style becomes newer and more diverse; many curators are starting to cooperate
with arts centers and entrepreneurs to hold exhibitions to influence this industry. But this
curating style still belongs to an initiative stage and did not admit by official yet; even it didnt
have the structural guarantee. So Chinese curatorial industry still need to have an essentiality
break through. (W. Yi 79)
Now the truth is globalization will be the mainstream of the world, not only in economic
area, but also in a cultural aspect. I found that many scholars were focus on illustrating the
cultural globalization from analyzing the biennale of arts in the world. But my question is: how

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

are contemporary Chinese curators influenced by Western curatorial industry and how do they
use these influences to do something different in China. In other words, how does globalization
in the curatorial industry affected Chinese curator? To address this problem, this study will
explore and narrow the scope of the past and the current conditions of the Chinese curators.
Methodology
To gather these data, this study will collect some existing interviews from 3 famous East
curators to illustrate the current condition and the development trend in the future. They are
Huang Du, Pi Li, and Hou Hanru.
Huang Du was born in 1965, and he became a famous curator in 1990s, many important
exhibitions curated by him in recent years include Manufacturing in China(2002, New York),
The 50th Venice Biennale Chinese Pavilion(2003, Venice), The 26 th Sao Paulo Biennale
Chinese Pavilion(2004, Sao Paul). In 2010, Huang continues to serve as the curator of Today
Documentary Exhibition and to have The second Today Documentary Exhibition launched.
Meanwhile, He served as the judge of Credit Suisse 2010 Arts Award and participated in the
curatorial work of Recommended Young Artist Exhibition of Shanghai Art Fair. Pi Li, one of
the most important curators in contemporary China was born in 1974, and became a curator and
critic during 1990s. He used to be a judge for BMW Art Car Project, a consultant for Tate
Collection Pacific Contemporary Art, and an administrator for Asian Pacific Pension Trust. He
has also been a curator for Seoul Media City Exhibition in 2006, a jury director for 2006 Chinese
Contemporary Art Awards, and a collection advisor for UBS Asian Arts Collection. Hou Hanru is
an international art curator and critic who lives in the United States and France. He has curated
numerous exhibitions including Cities On the Move(1997-2000), Shanghai Biennale(2000),
and the Venice Biennale (French Pavilion 1999, Z.O.UZone of Urgency 2003, Chinese
Pavilion 2007). He has also been a consultant and advisor in so many international institutions
including Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
The second part of my methodology will involve interviewing 4 emerging curators from
China who were study abroad majors in Arts Administration/Management, and a curator who is a
professor at the University of Chicago. The 4 students are all my friends, and I will interview

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

them and the famous professor via email because of the jet lag and distance. About the professor,
he told me he has no time to accept my interview, but he sent me an unpublished draft interview
as reference. The interview includes 10 questions about the theme of this study. All the questions
were strongly connected with the title of this study with certain logic. The following list of
questions is my interview protocol:
1. What do you think of the cultural globalization trend?
2. What do you think the development of Chinese curatorial industry?
3. What do you think the advantages and disadvantages during the development of Chinese
curatorial industry?
4. What do you think are the causes of those disadvantages?
5. How can you overcome them?
6. How will you use your own studies to contribute to the development of Chinese curatorial
industry?
7. What do you think the training or self-development of Chinese curator will improve the
development of Chinese curatorial industry?
8. What do you think will be the future of the Chinese curatorial industry under the current
climate of globalization?
9. What will you do to promote such developments and prospects of Chinese curatorial
industry?
10. Is there anything else you want to say about this theme?
After I collect the data from all my interviewees, I will arrange all the responses and those
existing data, then do analysis of those data according to the order of the questions, compare with
those existing data, and draw a conclusion.
Discussion
Based on several years development, many Chinese curators had started to consider the selfdevelopment issues.
Huang Du as a famous Chinese curator, who has more than 20 years practice experience in

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

curating, really thought a lot about the development of curator and Chinese curatorial industry. In
his perspective, a good or successful curator should have a basic ability of judgment. This
judgment should build on the curators knowledge and experiences: firstly, curator must have an
extensive range of knowledge about Arts and Economics, these scholarship could help a great
curator to think with a certain height; then, a good curator should have wealthy practice
experience, and also should have to follow the news in arts development, the relationship
between arts and social culture background. It is not necessary to ask a curator has a diploma or
specific education about arts management. Huang Du realized it is different between China and
foreign educational system. For western, arts education and arts museum are more popular, they
can attend lectures between different disciplines, so their knowledge is relatively comprehensive.
It is more possibility that non-major in college to become a curator in west. Everyone has an
opportunity to be a curator, as long as you have a certain level on cultural theory study, a high
aesthetic sense, enthusiastic of curatorial industry and working hard. He thinks the most
important responsibility of a Chinese curator is not swayed by utilitarianism, they should hold a
high degree of independent and keen judgment to arts. Chinese contemporary art is based on the
level of whole development, not just individual behavior. Only the overall level of the artists
development, in order to promote the whole development of Chinese contemporary art, and the
development of artists also necessarily involves improving arts education levels, construction of
art criticism theory and promoting art institutions system. Those problems are more complex. In
short, Chinese curatorial industry and contemporary art are still on a long way. (Mens Fashion,
(2010, Aug. 23) Huang Du: curator of taste is the same as girl's dress. Retrieved from
http://art.china.cn/voice/2010-08/23/content_3674695.htm) About the influence from cultural
globalization, Huang Du had a sharp view. He thinks the rise of biennales reflected the cultural
strategies of a country, a city, even a region; it actually is a competition of the discourse right or
power discourse. In other words, it is really similar between international relationship and
cultural dominance. Although China is much stronger in economics than before, we still did not
play a dominant role in the cultural aspects, we still are be dominated; because China did not do
a cultural policies with open adjustment, we still in a very conservative state. For example, the
exhibition is very conservative, just exhibit art works from Chinese Artists Association and the
art language is not contemporary and international enough; this is a case of cultural delay today,
although the Chinese Artists Association are doing like Beijing Biennale, it still did not have

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

enough sense of international impact. In Huang Dus opinion, culture and politics always exist
together, and these international art exhibitions are a barometer of the national cultural strategy
and the power discourse. (Curator's report Huang Du 2: Global curators are looking for virgi,
2013)
Not as Huang Du, Pi Li is an independent curator, which is more focus on the international
development of Chinese arts market and independent curator. As a typically outstanding student
cultivate by college art history system, Pi Li owned the academic accomplishment and logical
thinking ability, which belongs to critics. He has both the professional identity and reliable
knowledge background; from undergraduate to PhD in the Central Academy of Fine Arts until
leaving as a professor, he experienced academic knowledge authority period; and is also involved
in upper period of markets and business. Pi Li has been living in the first scene of Chinese
contemporary art. And now he is working as senior curator in M+ contemporary visual culture
museum (Hong Kong).
M+ museum got the generous donation from Swiss collector Uli Sigg, who is the most
important promoter for Chinese contemporary art. Mr. Sigg donated 1463 pieces contemporary
art works to M+ museum; and he also purchased and collected 47 pieces art works from M+,
which is accounting for about 65% of his entire collection of proportion. So M+ museum owned
the most complete collection of avant-garde art system during 1974-2011, Siggs donation
brought a positive signal to Chinese contemporary art that finally broke the Museum
Skepticism condition of Chinese contemporary art system, M+ museum quickly established the
important position in Chinese contemporary art system in future. In a long term, if the museum is
worth to trust of donors is the pain point of Chinese contemporary art. The omission in
displaying, storing, and other aspects in country-owned galleries and museums lead to rarely able
to get praise and full trust from donors. Also the unstable survival and unregulated operation of
private museum result in the difficult to get the valuable important precious donation. M+
museum, formed in full compliance with the Western museum mode, is an important project of
West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong Construction. M+, with a new concept of visual
culture museum, based in Hong Kong native, external radiation in Asia and International art
field, which will focus on the collection, display, study of art, design, architecture and imaging in

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

20th and 21st century. On the management aspect, M+ built the museum administration
committee, which is responsible for developing and recommending to the Board about the
planning, development, and operation of M+, and strategies and policies of exhibition center.
The operations of Museum Committee entirely oversight from all classes and Hong Kong
taxpayer, and most importantly is financial transparency. It is actually an international art
museum. (Transition from Gallery Owner to Curator Pi Li s New Work, 2014)
Pi Li bluntly talked about the issues of Chinese contemporary art in his personal blog: credit
bankruptcy, he (2014) claimed No one would believe our academic, media, transaction, and
collectors It is ridiculous and hard to believe it. The plight of the way is not particularly hedge
fighting, but again return to universal values, reshaping a complete ecosystem of art,
complained this harsh environment, when in fact you are part of it. Pi Li represents the wave of
practitioners who still faith art, they grew up in the East, worked between the West, the identity
transformation and widely vision, they have wealthy practice experiences of working for the
diverse, and still embracing the blueprint as a builder; they experienced idealism shift to a market
economy, still has not lost the introspection and self-regard of original heart. It is a new job for Pi
Li, and also a constant battle. (Transition from Gallery Owner to Curator Pi Li s New Work,
2014) After Pi Li worked in Hong Kong, he started to consider international issues. In his
opinion, globalization and economic integration are developing simultaneous. Economic
integration is good news to communication, but not an exciting thing to arts; it will erase the
difficulty in arts. It needs to be vigilant, although the degree of internationalization of arts market
and the internationalization openness are in proportion to the economic growth. This is a really
important point for contemporary curator; globalization is a double- edged sword, curator should
try to take advantage to this unavoidable trend. Pi Li also emphasized how to get our own value
system recognition in the international communication. It is not about the price level, it also
including the identify issue of our contemporary culture creates value; and how to think about it,
this may need be our generation of Chinese art market operators and curators to face carefully.
(Si Shang Art Museum)
Compare to those two curators, Hou Hanru may be best qualified to speak on the
globalization issue. Hou moved to Paris during 1990s, and then started his curator career. Now

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he is a professor of the Royal Academic of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. His famous exhibition was
Moving city, which curated with Hans. This exhibition last 3 years, involved 7 countries and
more than 140 artists. His international curation background leads him a higher level to consider
Chinese curatorial industry. Hou has a similar thought as Pi Li on the cultural homogenization
under globalization, but he also has his own view. Hou underline the Middle Ground concept,
which is a space beyond the old nation (state order), beyond the separation of East and West, an
overlap between global and local each other, it also can be descried as the Glocal space. Self
and others, dominator and people are dominated by, center and edge, etc. All those relationships
will be renegotiated, and eventually super pass. It will develop an enduring tension and
movement between the global and the local in this process, it could be described as a new and
truly global art. Actually, word likes glocal or worldwide- locality was often appeared in
Hous exhibitions, which illustrated the strong concern to the interactive relationship between
global and local. So Hou Hanru mentioned the challenge of Chinese curator is how to curate an
exhibition with reflecting and strengthening the arts and culture significance in the coordination
between global and local, also surpassing the established power relations and legalistic localism
between different regions in politics aspect. It looks like a high level and complex requirement to
curator, but Chinese curator really need to find the balance between globalization and Chinese
culture value. And for curator itself, Hou thinks that curator should actually be a critic, or at least
with a critical perspective. He (2014) mentioned that curator should know well in profession and
arts, How can a curator have no thoughts with art? How can a curator do curate without critics
thoughts? Hou thinks Chinese curatorial industry is developing booming, but the key is the lack
of academic depth. He claimed (2014), Chinese curator knows few of international curatorial
industry and arts, so most of exhibitions are still belongs to domestic exhibition. The main
reasons are the lack of broad international perspective, and depth study.
Those three curators are all mentioned the cultural homogenization under globalization. It is
hard to deny that cultures or core values in different region will be more similar than before
because of the globalization and closer communication. So it is more important to curator and
artist to find their own characteristics and value about their culture and arts. The world we live
now is dominated and shaped by digital technology: Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc.; but
actually people were always be indoctrinated by the correct and only one core value. That is

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the worse thing the artist and curator should be vigilant. There are two models of curator:
independent curator and exhibition curator in museum. Exhibition curator exists in many art
museums and galleries, but this kind of curator just in a simple level; they are relatively a single
role, charge for the traditional individual exhibitions. While an individual curator actually plays a
various role, but also a contradictory role; on the one hand, independent curator will temporary
organized a group of artists, offer those artists convenience to their creation on both technically
ad materially; on the other hand, independent curator also need to work as a critic, they need to
find a balance on theme and creation forms of art works with artists. So, independent curators
work not only just curate a exhibition, but also including a big part of art critics. Well, as the
developing of globalization and large-scale international exhibition, traditional exhibition curator
could not take a leading role, so China need more independent curator. So, the development of
independent curator is vital important to Chinese curatorial industry in the future. These three
curators are all realized the current issues and the direction of development of Chinese curatorial
industry. According to the interviews, the emerging Chinese curator and Arts Management
students had have the awareness about how to deal with the cultural globalization.
The interview including 4 emerging curators, and 3 of them were study abroad. Yuping Yu,
Arts Management undergraduate student of Xiamen University in China and got a long-term
internship in local arts gallery. Danqing Xue, Drexel University graduate student, major in Arts
Administration. Yaqi Luo, Arts Management graduate student in Indiana University
Bloomington. And Yingting Xie, second year in graduate, major in Arts Administration of Royal
College of Art in London, and just finished her own exhibition in her school. These four
interviewees all have their own perspective, and have the similar opinions with those 3 famous
curators in general.
Yuping, the one interviewee studied in China. She has more specific perspective from
Chinese college education and curatorial industry. In her opinion, she thinks cultural
globalization is not avoidable. According to the economic globalization and the development of
information technology, the harmonization and diversity of material and spiritual also got an
opportunity to develop. And for culture itself, the standard will appear after enough
communication; it may enrich the cultural diversity of local, but it will lose the distinctive

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features from a global perspective. As Yuping worked in Chinese art gallery, she believe curator
now is popular in China; but most of them were dependent on art museums and galleries, only
few of them were real independent curator. And also there are not too much practice
opportunities for emerging young curator now in galleries and museums. So many emerging
young curators need to find some insider to recommend them to the real Chinese curatorial
industry; Yuping suggest galleries and museums offer basic opportunities or selection mechanism
to young curators. Now people, not only Chinese but also people around the world, are expecting
great on Chinese curatorial industry, so everyone is enthusiastic. But the disadvantage of Chinese
curatorial industry is the immature education system and participatory mechanisms. Yuping
compared with the west countries, she thinks although west did not have the professional arts
administration education; they had relatively more practice opportunities, which leaded to
cultivate practical curators. But China does not have enough practice opportunities and mature
education system, like the unreasonable curriculum and experience absent. So Yuping proposed
we need to improve the education system and combine with governments cooperation to create a
better environment for curator. As Chinese art museums are still dominated by government, and
limited by the senior government officials artistic accomplishments. So she thinks China still
need more time to improve it. Curatorial industry would not be treated as a serious problem, till
people realize the importance and necessity of it. Cultural globalization let developing countries
know more the mature development of West, but it still has some drawbacks. The mature art
development of West not only because of the relatively complete social system, but also the rich
cultural atmosphere and the help from publics consciousness. Blindly learn from Western
system and imitating Western curatorial will lead to Chinese curatorial industry too anxious. Of
course, globalization also helped us to see the various possibility of breakthrough; there will be
progress in the exchange. (Yuping Yu, Personal Communication, April 15,2015)
Yingting Xie, graduate student in Royal College of Art. She is the only interviewee that
studies in Europe, and a real emerging young curator; so she has a more mature perspective than
other interviewees, and also curator was her specific research direction. In her perspective,
globalization is becoming the most striking characteristic in this world now; people generally
tend to hold pessimistic views to this trend. The result of globalization is the trend of
homogenization. It is the trend that strengthened peoples desire in difference, and thinking in

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13

self-awareness, identifies, and culture aspects. Besides, globalization indeed greatly improved
communication and strengthened the multicultural spread to help us better understand our world
and the future. Therefore, we need to be on the basis of understanding and tolerance to art works
and culture, dialectically to look at the process of globalization. She (2015) told me, What we
have to do is not other people tell us that we should or not need globalization, but to find the real
problems and cause social concern for the problems and try to intervene through various arts and
culture to resolve them. As Yingting had finished an exhibition in London, she has a deeper
opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese curatorial industry, which compared
with European. She believes there are three advantages: firstly, people are increasingly
concerned about Chinese curatorial industry because it just began to rise; secondly, China has
strong financial strength; finally, the good momentum of Chinese art market. Also, she finds five
disadvantages: firstly, the lack of professional and experienced curator staff; secondly, the
unregularly employment standard of Chinese curatorial industry; thirdly, the lack of appropriate
arts sponsorship community, investment institutions, and curatorial development mechanism is
not complete; fourthly, the lack of public awareness for curatorial industry; finally, Chinese
national government did not give the appropriate employment protection. She concludes that the
reason of those disadvantages is time, curatorial industry just developing for 20 years in China,
however, both in theory and practice is not enough to form a perfect development mechanism;
and official ideology determines the scope and status of curatorial industry development, so the
industry have to make some compromises. Although there are several serious issues now,
Yingting still feel optimistic about the future development. She thinks there will exist global
operating mode; in fact, this operating mode has now started. With the development of
globalization, curator will no longer just be a specific job to develop national culture and art, and
also will gradually evolved into a tool for the exchange under globalization. We can understand
and demonstrate more complex, realistic and possible issues by curatorial work in a globalized
world. In addition, Yingting also has her own plan for future. She will put into the curatorial
work of art galleries or related institutions, enhanced personal curatorial theory and practice
experience, understanding and familiarity with the domestic situation; committed to promoting
public art projects to improve social awareness to art and curatorial industry. (Yingyting Xie,
Personal communication, April 16, 2015)

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The other two interviewees are all study in America. Danqing Xue is a student in Drexel
University, and Yaqi Luo studies in Indiana University Bloomington, both of them are major in
Arts Administration. They all admit that cultural integration is inevitable, although China got a
higher position in economics, the culture is still relatively weak, Western-centric will exist. In
Danqings opinion, China now absent a system standard recognized by public; only part of the
official institution could plan academic exhibitions. And Yaqi focuses more on economic
element, she thinks economic value behind the art activities still is the main purpose of Chinese
curatorial industry. In other word, market manipulation is the primary means of artistic activities.
It is interesting that these two interviewees hold substantially the same view on the advantages.
Both of them think Chinese curatorial industry has a huge potential in the future, because
everything is just starting; and on the opposite, Danqing thinks Chinese curatorial industry lack
professional curator and communication with international curators, Yaqi thinks Chinese curator
just westernized and emulate the surface art form, excessive touted star artist and curator, which
lead to the different quality level of contemporary curators. When I asked about the reasons, they
all mentioned that China still need more time to complete system and popularization the public
aesthetic. Danqing illustrated now China need the pioneers effort, especially the younger
generation curator study abroad, they need to have a sense of mission, absorbing and
internalizing what they learned and promoting the development of Chinese curatorial industry.
She has a future plan for herself, she (2015) said I will try to get a job in famous American art
museum, learn their history, operational mechanism and their fail experience; then come back to
China to help Chinese curatorial industry developing faster. After interview, she told me that
although more and more Chinese study curating abroad, Chinese curatorial industry still outside
of the mainstream. How to build our own aesthetic standard rather than depend on western
standard is our highest goal.(Danqing Xue, Yaqi Luo, Personal communication, April 14, 2015)
Conclusion
With the development of cultural globalization, Chinese curatorial industry is facing a great
opportunity and challenge. Although Chinese curatorial industry has developed less than 50
years, many Chinese curators were starting to consider the problems and developing direction for
future.

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15

This study collects 3 famous Chinese curators, analyzes their existed interviews and
opinions. Their views are more mature, and from a higher level because of the rich experiences.
They all hold an optimistic view to the future of Chinese curatorial industry, but still mentioned
that Chinese curator needs to find their own cultural value system and help government complete
the operational mechanism. Hou Hanru advocates that contemporary curator should also be a
critic or with critics perspective, almost Chinese curator are lack the deep research of academic,
they should pay more attention on professional art academic with an international perspective. Pi
Li focuses more on the mechanism; curators always existed with mechanism, which is China
need to improve and complete. The mechanism includes the employment system, fundraising
system, and museum development system. And different with these two curators, Huang Du
illustrates a sharp view about power discourse on culture during globalization, he mentioned that
China is weak on culture compared with economic, so we should recognize our own unique and
develop it.
Then, this study collected 4 interviewees response. Both of these 4 interviewees are
students, they all think cultural globalization is inevitable, it may enrich the variety of culture for
a region, but it still developing to cultural homogenization; so we need to find our own aesthetic
system, universal educate contemporary art, and support the development of non-for-profit
institution. Cultural globalization seems like a double-edge sword for these emerging curators.
On the one hand, they are worried about the lack of professional curator and the limits form
government; on the other hand, they greatly expecting for the development in the future because
Chinese curatorial industry was just started. For this situation, these young curators believe
China just need more time to complete the curatorial mechanism. For themselves, three of them
are studying abroad, so they will learn the history, system and operational mechanism of western
curatorial industry, and combine with Chinese situation to create or build a unique but Chinese
curator style in the future. And the rest one wants to go abroad to accept the systematic
education.
Globalization is unavoidable, so how to take advantage of this trend becomes one of the
most important problems that curators need to carefully consider. Whether the old generation or
the young Chinese curator, both of them are really seriously consider the situation and

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developing direction for Chinese curatorial industry in the future, and they also find their answer.
China need more time.

Reference
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Anonymous, Scope, Artists. (2014, Mar. 25). Transition from Gallery Owner to Curator Pi Li s
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18

Appendix
Interviews from 4 emerging curators
Yingting Xie
1.

,
- ( homogenization, )

2.&

3.

1992

20

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

19

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Danqing Xue
1.

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

20

2.

3.&
:

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

21

Yuping Yu
1.

2.

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

22

3.&

4.

5.

6.

7.
//
////
/
8.

9.
6
10.

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

23

Yaqi Luo
1.

2.

3.&

4.

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

24

5.

6.
7.

8.

9.
10.

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

25

HOW DOES THE CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE THE CHINESE CURATOR?

26