Newman Huo

    CHINA’S first museum specializing in design art, the OCT Art & Design Gallery, was inaugurated here in Shenzhen on Monday.

    Located in Overseas Chinese Town (OCT), Nanshan District, the museum becomes a new cultural landmark in the city’s landscape.

    “So far, there has been no design art museum in China. With the establishment of the OCT Art & Design Gallery, we wish to help build Shenzhen into a ‘city of design,’ true to its name,” said Ni Jing, curator of the museum.

    Following the He Xiangning Art Museum and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), the OCT Art & Design Gallery is the third museum to be built by the OCT Group.

    Located between the He Xiangning Art Museum and the InterContinental Shenzhen Hotel, the museum’s three-story main building has a black steel and glass honeycomb-like outer wall.

    Because it looks similar to the National Aquatics Center in Beijing, which is better known as the “Water Cube,” the museum has been nicknamed the “Water Cube in Shenzhen.”

    The museum has been transformed from an old building that was used as a laundry and warehouse for the Shenzhen Bay Grand Hotel.

    When the hotel was transformed into the five-star hotel InterContimental Shenzhen in 2006, the OCT Group decided to renovate the laundry and warehouse to change it into a museum. Shenzhen Urbanus Co. Ltd., a design company based in the OCT-LOFT, was commissioned to do the renovation.

    “In fact, the structural designs between the ‘Water Cube’ in Beijing and the museum in Shenzhen are quite different,” said Meng Yan, a Shenzhen Urbanus Co. Ltd. partner.

    “The outer wall of the ‘Water Cube’ in Beijing is a design based on the natural formation of bubbles in soap foam, while the outer wall for the OCT Art & Design Gallery comprises honeycomb patterns of various sizes,” Meng said.

    “Because the old main building cannot support much weight, the museum’s outer wall has to be designed as a separate shell to cover the old building,” he said.

    The OCT Art & Design Gallery is a modern multifunctional museum. It has 3,000 square meters of floor space for exhibitions and a temperature-controlled storeroom for art collections.

    Ni said the museum would focus on displaying and collecting various kinds of vanguard design artworks, including graphic design, space design, industrial design, fashion, digital design, animation, video and photography.

    In collaboration with other cultural and tourist facilities in the OCT, the museum will provide a platform for communication and exchanges for art patrons, artists and collectors by organizing special theme art exhibitions, public forums and academic lectures.

    Although Shenzhen has taken the lead in developing design art and has also built a number of well-known brands in interior design, fashion design and graphic design, the city still lacks design art exhibitions as well as exchanges with counterparts at home and abroad.

    Guan Shan, a spokesman for the OCT Group, said the OCT Art & Design Gallery was an important step the group had taken in building a complete complex of art and cultural facilities in OCT.

    “While the He Xiangning Art Museum focuses on female art and the OCAT on experimental and avant-garde art, the new OCT Art & Design Gallery will pay special attention to vanguard design art, thus forming a complete art museum triangle in OCT,” Guan said.

    “With different orientations and target audiences, however, the three art museums will produce a concerted force to boost the development of contemporary Chinese art,” Guan said.

    The OCT Art & Design Gallery is also the first museum in China to be affiliated with a five-star hotel.

    More importantly, the art museum triangle has enabled large art exhibitions to be organized in the city in future.

    When the OCT Art & Design Gallery announced the official inauguration Monday, a large art exhibition, “Hypallage — The Post-Modernist Mode of Chinese Contemporary Art,” also opened to the public.

    Curated jointly by Feng Boyi, Wang Xiaosong and Zhao Xiaoxuan, the exhibition features paintings, sculpture, video, photography and installations created by 54 Chinese artists based on classic masterpieces from both Chinese and Western art histories.

    The participating artists include internationally acclaimed artists such as Yue Minjun and Lu Shengzhong, but also newly emerging young artists, such as Wang Zi and Wang Tiantian.

    The OCT Art & Design Gallery will open free to the public through September, and will consider charging an admission fee after a trial period of one month.

    Hypallage — The Post-

    Modernist Mode of Chinese Contemporary Art

    Dates: Through Dec. 1

    Hours: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Closed Monday

    Add: OCT Art & Design Gallery, Overseas Chinese Town (深圳华侨城华·美术馆)

    Buses: 21, 26, 32, 54, 59, 101, 105, 109, 121, 204, 209, 223, 234, 327, 328, 350, 370, 390

    Metro: Hua Qiao Cheng Station (Overseas Chinese Town Station 华侨城站), Exit C