A museum a day: New private art museums in Shanghai

The People’s Republic of China is experiencing a dramatic rise in museum building. Among the new institutions, privately owned museums comprise an ever growing part, their number having more than doubled from 2008 to 2013. Seemingly, art-collecting and building one’s own museum has become a fashion among the super-rich of China. I analyse how three new private art museums in Shanghai are branding themselves in a variety of ways in order to increase their visibility, create an image and build a reputation. These institutions are: the two branches of the Long Museum created by collector-couple Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei; and the Yuz Museum built by Chinese Indonesian Budi Tek. All the collectors discussed were first businesspeople, before becoming art collectors and subsequently opening museums. Therefore, it is only natural that they stick to their most recent profession and run their museums like companies, relying on marketing communications and other business skills, and applying these to museum management. In contrast to the many museums run by the Chinese state, the new private art museums discussed in this article take up a different stance. Thanks to their larger independence from the government and its slow system of administration, they represent a younger, quicker, more flexible conception of a museum.