2014.11.19

The international influence of Times Museum in contemporary international art circles has grown increasingly significant since its establishment more than three years ago. Recent exchanges and cooperative efforts with several internationally renowned art institutions have further promoted its international fame.

On October 24, 2014, an exhibition titled "Landscape: The Virtual, the Actual, the Possible?" was jointly planned by the Museum's curator Chen Ruijun of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Weng Xiaoyu, from the Kadist Art Foundation, and held a tour display at the Yerba Buena facility. The exhibition was first held at Times Museum this June and received high praise from professional media and audiences. The exhibition's opening ceremony in San Francisco attracted a large audience of those with particular interest in the works of young Chinese artists. Next year, the exhibition will visit Paris.

On November 1, 2014, the exhibition "Polit-Sheer-Form!" was held at the Queens Museum of Art, New York, which was also planned by the museum's curator Chen Ruijun. Polit-Sheer-Form is a Chinese art group that was founded in 2005 by Hong Hao, Xiao Yu, Song Dong, Liu Jianhua and Leng Lin. This June, they launched a project called "Doing the Same Good Thing" at Times Museum, in which they organized 100 volunteers to clean a bus together. On November 3, the project was extended to Times Square in Manhattan, New York, in which they organized 100 foreign visitors to clean the museum's floor together. The project is designed to test whether collectivism is a kind of social demand or a way of ruling in the different social contexts of China and the United States. The exhibition held at the Queens Museum of Art was also a review of the most representative works of Polit-Sheer-Form since its establishment nine years ago.

On November 6, 2014, an international curatorial seminar titled "Future Curation: What Cannot Be Done and What Can Be Done; a Tricky Problem" was organized at Bard College, in New York State. The seminar was organized by Paul O'Neill and Tom Akers; and the collaborating institutions included the Valand Academy of Fine Arts, University of Gothenburg; Afterall Books: Exhibition Histories; the criticism and curation graduate programs of Saint Martin, University of Arts London; and Amsterdam's de Appel curatorial project. The four-day seminar invited nearly 30 guests from different countries and regions, including the internationally prominent artist Hans Ulrich Obrist. It included lectures and undertook discussions about the following issues: What to research? What is the future of research in exhibition? How should research be conducted? What is the future of curatorial education? What is practice? What is the future of curation and artistic practice? What kind of future institutions do we need to fulfill these futures? Times Museum curator Cai Yingqian was invited to give a keynote speech on "Try Again? Fail Again? Fail Better?" The invitation implies that the results of academic research of Times Museum were of concern and attention throughout the international mainstream academic circle.