This summer has been unbearably hot!!! After last summer’s experience, I’ve kept up my daily ritual of waiting for those magical evening sunsets. But when it’s this hot, where can you even go wander around?
It seems like everyone has flocked to museums. Several blockbuster museums in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai have become nearly impossible to get tickets for, and even making a reservation has turned into a scalper business.
So I thought I’d start a new series about museums and art museums I’ve either visited before or hope to visit someday. Let me open with words from one of my favorite writers:
All museums are treasures of humanity, but I do not believe that grand, monumental museums are the model for the future...The measure of whether a museum is successful should not be whether it can present a carefully selected version of a nation’s history, but whether it can reveal the humanity of individuals...
The urgent task is to make museums smaller and more beautiful, and more focused on the individual. That is also the only way museums can tell stories on a human scale.
—Pamuk
All told, I haven’t been to that many cities, but by now the number is still in the hundreds. I haven’t visited every museum in them, of course, but I’ve seen dozens, enough that they blur together like a tangle of threads, with no clear organizing thread to follow. I was wondering which day and which museum I should start with when, all of a sudden, I thought of a tiny city far away—mustard-seed small, yet somehow one of my favorites.
My connection with Shunde began with A Bite of Guangdong, and later I returned many times for work. Thinking it over, that art museum ended up outshining all the food.
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HE Art Museum
The museum building itself is a work of art, because Tadao Ando designed it.
The first time I saw one of Tadao Ando’s buildings was the 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT museum in Tokyo’s Roppongi, which he created for Issey Miyake. From that moment on, I fell in love with Ando’s signature exposed concrete. The whole building looks as if it were made by folding a steel plate in half—triangular, three-dimensional, sharp, and bold.
But here in China, in Lingnan, “harmony” becomes the theme, and geometric forms become “circles.”
Even the walk to the museum is full of delight. The drain cover beneath the trees looks like the ripples from a fallen fruit, with a touch of dry landscape garden aesthetics.
A spirit wall and the small garden around the corner fully capture the understated beauty of Chinese architecture. To borrow a line from Dream of the Red Chamber: “Without this hill, if all the scenery in the garden were visible the moment one entered, what would be the fun? Without deep landscapes already in one’s heart, how could one have thought of this?”
Only then do you arrive at the open, dreamlike water courtyard. Walking along the photogenic path over the water, there’s even a bit of red-carpet ceremony to it, as if you’re about to enter an unknown artistic space.
The four-story museum building itself resembles ripples spreading outward across the water. The offset concentric circles are extremely simple, yet visually rich in variation.
My first impression was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven—and also the Fujian tulou.
The silver tree reflected in the still water shows symmetry at its most refined.
And when you stare at the water long enough, as it merges with the sky, the shallow pool seems to stretch into infinity.
Once inside, the first thing you see is Master Ando’s “highest directive.”
Of course, I headed straight for the one-of-a-kind exposed concrete double-helix staircase. It really is an outstanding feat of design and craftsmanship, so it’s no wonder so many people come here to snap photos. When a museum does more than display beauty—when it also lets visitors help create it—doesn’t that make it a success?
So when you see photos that turn out like this...
...this is what the scene actually looks like on site...
Ando really is good at developing underground space. I remember that most of the space at the Roppongi design museum is hidden below ground. And when you stand at the bottom of the staircase and look up at the dome, that beam of light feels like hope after groping forward through darkness—whether in art or in life.
It’s like the light the Renaissance brought to the Dark Middle Ages. Ando himself once said that architecture is the art of pouring light into space after spending all your money. In that sense, HE Art Museum does echo his masterpiece, the Church of the Light.
The charm of light is everywhere.
That said, the overall style can create the illusion that you’ve stepped into a Korean wardrobe—after all, Koreans seem to own only three colors: black, white, and gray.
But the hardness of exposed concrete is instantly softened by all the playful signage throughout the museum. It’s still a very lovable art museum.
Curatorial Team EXHIBITION
In a word, the operations team and curatorial partners are excellent.
To be honest, I didn’t have especially high expectations for the exhibition itself. Maybe it was prejudice—I figured the hardware was there, sure, but this was still a smaller city, so how good could the exhibition really be? (Then again, I had forgotten that Shunde’s GDP could probably beat that of a small country.)
But the moment I walked in, the operations team proved me completely wrong. More than a year later, I still remember the energy and professionalism they showed. It felt very different from the staff at large state-run museums. That’s not to say the latter aren’t professional, of course—it’s just that the overall impression is different. You know what I mean.
From the exhibitions to the event programming to the membership system, everything made it feel unmistakably like a living museum, rather than one of those heavily funded projects that gradually fall into neglect.
The exhibition that day was titled ON|OFF 2021: Back to the Future, an echo of a blockbuster exhibition from long ago. I’m hardly qualified to judge whether an exhibition is good or bad, since I’m still at the stage of saying, “This installation looks so cool,” so I’m not going to put on airs and write a bunch of analysis.
Still, I believe that when there is strong art and interesting artists, brought together in a compelling way, viewers naturally sense the professionalism and meaning behind it.
Three works from Artificial Moon 2, by Wang Yuyang. The spherical installation is covered with countless polarizing lenses, making what is actually a white glowing orb appear to be a colorful object. What you see is not what you get—isn’t that true?
"Gravel Understood the Sea No. 14," by Jiang Pengyi. Feels like something I could shoot too.
"S," by Chen Wei. It seems to subtly echo the building that houses the exhibition.
"Kikachick Takes the First Step Toward the Stage Reflected on the Snowy Ice Surface, Slightly Pink Under the Lights in the Deep Blue Dusk," by Guan Xiao. Such a long title, but the sunlight behind it makes it feel very comforting.
"Weakness," by Li Liao. One of the few works I understood right away: the artist noticed soaps of different shapes at home and realized they were marks left from his wife throwing them at the wall when she was angry.
Chen Wei, "In the Waves #5" and "In the Waves #4." At the entrance to the gray-white architectural space, a separate room partitioned off by black PVC curtains hits you with a burst of color.
"Woodland-Eros No.4," by Ma Qiusha. These are stockings...
"Dance—The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountain No.2," by Gong Jian.
The "Miracle" series, by Xu Qu. Satellites bound together with leather and thread.
"Maze-Red Line," by Xu Qu. Even though it made me dizzy to look at, I liked this one too.
This exhibition alone, along with the museum itself, is enough to prove that it is more than just an Instagram check-in spot.
Besides the special exhibition, there are also famous works from the founding family's collection throughout the museum, including Xu Beihong's horses, Zhang Daqian's landscapes, and paintings by Picasso.
But after coming out of an exhibition that left me totally confused, I was ultimately won over by this cute backdrop instead (I really didn't understand the rest).
Wealth and Art MEDICI
HEM originated from investment by the He Xiangjian family of Beijiao, Shunde. Some people may not have heard of the He family, but many, many households probably own one of their products: Midea.
After the wealthy make their money and move past the basic phase of buying and spending, some turn their attention to art. It reminded me of the Medici family of Florence. What, never heard of the Medici either? The image below explains everything.
Behind the household names of the Renaissance—Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian—stands another shining name: Medici.
It is said that Ando was also delighted by the name He behind the project, because it gave him a rare chance to have someone support him in completing all of his details exactly as intended, regardless of cost.
Across from HEM is Midea's headquarters, which is also quite nicely designed, I have to say.
In recent years, many private museums have been established across China, and quite a few are family-collection museums founded by wealthy families. Giving something back to society is a good thing. Perhaps support from outside official institutions leaves more room for imagination to grow.
Whether in architecture or operations, HEM can be considered a benchmark. If you come to Shunde, besides enjoying late-night congee, remember to visit HEM and take a look at the art ecosystem in this "small" Lingnan city.
Some Basics FACTS
About
HEM (He Art Museum).
Architect: Tadao Ando; area: 6,000 square meters;
Opened: October 2020;
Address: No. 6 Yixing Road, Beijiao New Town, Shunde District, Foshan, Guangdong Province;
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 - 18:00;
Tickets: single 150 yuan/person, double 120 yuan/person (expensive! The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York charges 30 USD), but the 20th of every month and International Museum Day are free admission days. The HEM official WeChat account publishes the reservation post on the 18th of each month, and you can access the free booking link through that post; Website: http://www.hem.net.cn/.
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