In 2013, the 31-year-old Gao Peng officially became the director of the Today Art Museum in Beijing, which became a sensation in the art world. To this day, a search for his name still reveals prefixes such as "director of the youngest art museum in China" or even "director of the youngest art museum in the world."
Fast forward nearly 10 years, and this record has also been significantly refreshed this year - on March 18, 2022, the Song Art Museum officially announced that Ding Zehua, president and collector of Beijing Songze Art Center, has officially become the director of the Song Art Museum, and is fully responsible for the operation and management of the future Song Art Museum.
Ding Zehua, 24 years old this year, as the first "post-95" art museum director in China, he has been involved in art collection for nearly 10 years – coincidentally, it began in 2013, when Gao Peng became the director of Today Art Museum.
Exterior of the Matsu Museum of Art
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His first exhibition as curator
Half of the works come from his private collection
On April 9, 2022, Ding Zehua officially opened his first exhibition "Rhythm and Overlap" after becoming the director of the Song Art Museum. The exhibition presents to the public nearly 50 works by more than 40 important contemporary Chinese artists – Zeng Fanzhi's "Mask Series No. 3 in 1997", Zhou Chunya's "Green Dog No. 3", Liu Xiaodong's "Father and Son", Chen Danqing's "Khampa Hanzi", and one of Zhang Xiaogang's classic works, "Bloodline: Big Family No. 9" (1997), which sold for HK$25.45 million in 2021.
One of the important works of "Rhythm and Overlap": Zhang Xiaogang,"Bloodline: Big Family No. 9" (1997)
This exhibition of famous masterpieces, which has been created from the 1970s to the present, spanning half a century, is mainly painting, with both video and sculpture, just like a small history of Chinese contemporary art. What is even more remarkable is that nearly half of the works in this exhibition are from Ding Zehua's private collection.
His name appeared earlier in news reports related to art exhibitions in 2019, when he was 21 years old – in 2019, Ding Zehua launched the "Isomorphic Sharing - Tangshan Delong International Sculpture Art Festival".
From 2019 to 2021, Ding Zehua planned and held large-scale activities such as the "1515 Young Artists Creation Program - Delong Cup Steel Sculpture Creation Camp" and the Delong Steel Sculpture Festival for three consecutive years. He has revealed the significance of the project's name "1515" in the closing speech of the "2021 China World Youth Summit Annual Conference" - 1, the temperature of the steel solution is 1115 degrees; 2, the plan is expected to recruit 15 young artists to create each year, a total of 15 sessions.
Ding Zehua
In previous media reports, it was mentioned that Ding Zehua "helped the family steel company hold many sculpture exhibitions" before becoming the director of the Song Art Museum. Ding Zehua himself also introduced Tangshan Delong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. in an interview, "Not only is it a steel enterprise, but also a national AAA-level tourist attraction, and the company hopes to transform and upgrade in the current development, and gradually establish a road of combining industrial tourism and steel art." ”
In 2019, the legal representative of Tangshan Delong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. was changed to Ding Liguo, the actual controller of Delong Steel. According to public information: Ding Liguo, born in 1970, is a deputy to the Eleventh National People's Congress and a national model worker. In addition, Ding Liguo was listed in the Forbes China rankings from 2005 to 2008, and ranked 140th in 2008 with 2.52 billion yuan.
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In a state of suspension
From the age of 15, he began to participate in auctions
Although there is no information about Ding Liguo's collection of art in the media report, Ding Zehua revealed in reply to an interview question from Red Star News: "About 2013, when I was about 15 years old, my family switched from the original collection of antiques to the collection of contemporary art, and it just so happened that I was in a state of suspension at that time, hoping to find something to do, so I began to learn to collect with my teachers, and I also participated in some auctions, and gradually cultivated an interest in contemporary art." ”
Liu Xiaodong,"Father and Son"
Unlike domestic art museums that compete to collaborate with international big-name artists, the faces of all-Chinese artists who open the exhibition seem to indicate the future route of Song Art Museum - focusing on promoting Chinese artists. In fact, Ding Zehua's own collection is almost entirely Chinese contemporary.
Ding Zehua said that the tendency to collect Chinese contemporary art was indeed influenced by the family in the early days, but first of all it was out of interest. "The main direction of my collection is the paintings of the 1990s, which still follow the vein of the history of Chinese contemporary art, especially the works that have an important impact on society and occupy an important node in the history of fine arts." Ding Zehua said, "The importance of a work lies in the fact that it makes an overall record of society or raises important questions, as well as reflects the mental state of the society as a whole at that time, although they are all artistic expressions from the perspective of personal subjectivity, they are all profoundly ideological." ”
"Rhythm and Overlap" exhibition scene
In his view, a large part of the spiritual outlook expressed in Chinese contemporary painting in the 1990s was dominated by a mocking or critical attitude, "because society at that time was just after the reform and opening up, the climax stage of commodity economy and consumerism, and the background of the times gave birth to these paintings." ”
The main way Ding Zehua collected these works was through auctions, "because the paintings in the 1990s were beyond the time stage of the gallery's agency." From a teenager who once held up a sign with his parents and teachers at the auction floor to now becoming a well-known art museum director on his own, Ding Zehua admits that this task is quite stressful, but the motivation that makes him jump out of the comfort zone of collection and enter the art museum world lies in his sincere "desire to do something for Chinese contemporary art."
Chen Danqing's work "Khampa Hanzi"
As for why many young collectors at home have not paid attention to contemporary art abroad, Ding Zehua said that he believes that the West already has a complete system, and we do not need to intervene. "It doesn't mean much to China itself, and it doesn't have much to do with us; and with different cultural backgrounds, foreign works don't necessarily make you feel particularly big." Therefore, I think it would be better to collect things related to our Chinese, and it would be more helpful to the local art ecology. ”
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At the "Net Red" Art Museum with 199 pines
Thinking about the future of contemporary art
Originally a private horse farm of Huayi Brothers founder Wang Zhongjun, Song Art Museum is located on the wenyu river in Beijing's Shunyi District, designed by the famous designer Zhou Guangming, and officially opened to the public in 2017. The Song Art Museum covers a total area of about 22,000 square meters, and the indoor exhibition area is about 2,200 square meters, which is divided into two districts: east and west. What gave the museum its name is the 199 different shapes of the pine trees in the park, which are combined with the white and minimalist buildings, making the Song Art Museum a "net red" art museum that people have been punching in since the day it was opened.
Exterior of the Matsu Museum of Art
Ding Zehua also mentioned that in the past, people came to the Song Art Museum to appreciate the environment and take pictures, accounting for a considerable part. "It's also a natural phenomenon, because this environment is here." But he hopes to make the Song Museum increasingly a more open platform, with in-depth connections with different subjects, "such as with enterprises, schools, and the general public, so that everyone can better understand the content of art, rather than being limited to the built environment itself." In the future, in addition to our own enterprises, we will also cooperate with some different types of enterprises, and there may be more cross-border. ”
After taking over as the director of the Song Art Museum, Ding Zehua also had his own artistic ideals, that is, to strive to establish a display sequence of modern and contemporary art in China's private art museums. The future Song Art Museum will be based on Ding Zehua's personal collection, through in-depth research, form an exhibition with vertical thinking, enhance the academic and professional construction of Song Art Museum, and actively participate in and promote the development process of Chinese contemporary art.
"Rhythm and Overlap" exhibition scene
As the youngest museum director in China, Ding Zehua also admits that while collecting classic works of Chinese contemporary art, his attention to young artists has never fallen.
He told The Red Star News reporter that the Song Art Museum has specially launched a "relaxed plan" for young artists, and in the future, the east area of the art museum will also focus on the display of young artists, which will complement the academic combing and research in the west area of the art museum. "I think rejuvenation must be done. Because the whole society is moving forward, young people are slowly growing, so to do the things of young people, young people are closely following the society. ”
At the end of the interview, Ding Zehua also mentioned the 2021 Chengdu Biennale that is being held in Chengdu. "I personally like this form of the Biennale very much, which is very much in line with the current direction of the art museum - such as breaking the boundaries of art, connecting different subjects through art, including the scale and academic nature of the Chengdu Biennale, and through this form of activity, it can also drive other industries in the city." ”
Red Star News reporter | Qiao Xueyang
Edited | Duan Xueying