Museum Note
——He Liwei
On the very occasion of booming economy and cultural renaissance in China, Xie Zilong Photography Museum was officially opened on September 16th, 2009. Driven by his original intention, Mr. Xie Zilong assumes a great aspiration to build this museum at Hexi Yanghu Wetland with an investment of 150 million yuan, for enriching the global photography history and trends and starting up a domestic public welfare undertaking for photography. Hundreds of teams and organizations and over 2000 builders spent painstaking efforts from dawn to dust in planning for two years and constructing for another two years respectively to realize this grand dream and the museum finally rose from the ground with a building area of 10,000 square meters and art museum of 10 mu (1 mu is about 666 square meters).
Photography, invented 178 years ago as a new perspective for people to view the world from, has become a favorite art form for hundreds of millions of people, while the art of photography in China, so far, lacks an authentic top-level palace of photography. As the founder of LBX Pharmacy Chain Co. Ltd., pushed by his original intention to benefit the people, Mr. Xie has made LBX Pharmacy Chain the pioneer of fair-price drug stores in China with his stores covering almost half of China, and successfully listed at Shanghai Stock Exchange. Mr. Xie, a big fan of photography, aspires to contribute back to the society and his hometown, so he put all business income in his photography museum whose magnificence, brilliance and grandeur is second to none in this world. As the private non-profit photography museum of the largest scale, it’s cheerfully responding to the great rejuvenation of Chinese culture.
Xie Zilong Photography Museum, designed by the team of Mr. Wei Chunyu, dean of the School of Architecture, Hunan University, is “the vessel of light and shadow and the ark of art”, aiming to “collect the history of Chinese photography” and aspiring to “to give a world-class museum back to photography art”. the museum, an exchange and interaction platform, blends and presents Chinese and world photography, and assumes the responsibility of collecting and researching on photography as well, with a focus on the discussion on the direction of Chinese photography in particular, to streamline the history of Chinese photography. The museum serves three academic and artistic functions: first, as a database for studying the development of Chinese photography; second, as a place for all schools of photographers in China to have their voices heard; third, as the most valuable exhibition hall for photography education and dissemination in China and even the world. Such numerous and impressive arrays of exhibits undoubtedly showcase devoted endeavors to push forward the development of Chinese photography. Moreover, taking academic studies as the blood vessel, education as its responsibility, the museum, enables the public to be exposed to and impressed by the lights and shadows of remarkable pictures and the splendor of humanity, which also elevates social life to a spiritual height.
We Hunan people always dare to be the first. Imposingly erect, Xie Zilong Photography Museum is a case in point of such pioneering spirit in the culture of Hunan people. With the first step made, we’ll be viewed by the world and also gain the opportunity to view the world, namely a mutual connection between the world and me. Therefore, an event significant like this will bring benefits to the hundreds of generations to come.
So much is my note for the museum.
