A private matter

The Beijing-based Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) has become the envy of private art museums in China. UCCA CEO Xue Mei gave the keynote speech at the China Private Museum Forum, held in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, expanding on the museum's recent success for the more than 100 experts and insiders gathered on September 8.

The one-day forum - co-organized by Shanghai Pudong New Area Culture, Radio Broadcasting, Film and TV Administration and the newly-built Long Museum, which hosted the event - brought together top figures from prominent private art museums in China, such as UCCA and Today Art Museum in Beijing, Long Museum, Rockbund Art Museum and Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai, Times Museum and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal in Guangdong Province and Blueroof Art Gallery in Sichuan Province.

In her speech, Xue said that revenue of UCCA last year surpassed 36 million yuan ($5.88 million), a 24 percent increase from 2011. This year, revenue is expected to exceed 41 million yuan.

"So fellows, come on!" said Xue, passionately encouraging her peers in the private museum field to be hopeful about the future.

Since the 1990s, China's private museums have flourished in every part of the country, especially in such economically-developed areas as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong Province. Insiders from the private museum scene are convinced that private museums enjoy more freedom than State-owned ones.

Despite the advantages of private art museums and the recent successes of ones like UCCA, they are still faced with unfavorable policies and an environment that hinders development, hotly-discussed topics at the forum.

Uneven policies

"I think what distinguishes the two parties can be divided into three aspects: first, human resources; second, management systems; and third, self-promotion," said Suchen Hsieh, former director of Today Art Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, during a keynote speech.

According to Hsieh, private art museums are much freer to employ experts in the art scene, and their management system is notable for its vitality and high efficiency. They also enjoy more freedom in controlling their brand, including choosing their collections and programs and selling their art.

Many private art museums in China can't guarantee free admission like their State-owned counterparts, who receive subsidies. From 2008 to 2012, the national government offered in total roughly 11.2 billion yuan subsidies to admission-free State-owned museums and memorial halls.

Government-sponsored incentives for exhibitions, academic research and public education projects available to the two different parties also seem uneven.

From 2010 to 2012, the government spent 16.5 million yuan to support in total 112 projects of art museums in China, and roughly 15 percent of the projects were from private ones, according to a report written by Zhu Di, deputy director general of Department of Arts of China's Ministry of Culture.

While receiving 85 percent of governmental project funding, State-owned museums make up closer to two-thirds of the total art museums in China: 265 out of 400 in 2012. Thus most private art museums have to rely heavily on the economic support from their donors to survive.

About 70 percent of the existent private art museums in China are backed by the real estate business.

"The excessive dependence on a single funding [source] is likely to result in the fluctuation of investments directly influencing the operations of the museums, and art museums will cater more and more to the personal interests of the investors," said Hsieh, who, along with many other insiders in the field, has called for more supportive policies from the government.