V&A in China

Collections & Galleries

The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses one of the most comprehensive and important collections of Chinese art in the west, amounting to over 15,000 objects, with fine examples from all branches of Chinese art including ceramics, jade, metalwork, lacquer, textiles, furniture, sculpture, ivory, bamboo, rhinoceros horn, glass, paintings, manuscripts and prints. The collection has particular strength in the applied arts of later dynastic China, after AD1500, and the V&A continues to collect actively, with a focus on excellent examples of contemporary art and design.

Five Chinese-speaking members of V&A staff contribute to projects relating to China. Visitors to the T.T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese Art and in the Robert H N Ho Family Foundation Gallery of Buddhist Sculpture can read our gallery labels both in English and Chinese.

The Museum possesses one of the most comprehensive and important collections of Chinese art dating from 3000 BC to the present time. The T.T.Tsui Galleru displays magnificent textiles, exquisite porcelain and elegant furniture among the many treasures of the finest quality and design. They are displayed according to use - living, eating and drinking, burial, the court, temple worship and collecting.

Exhibitions

In late 2010, exhibitions presented in Chinese venues include the digital art exhibition Decode at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and Indian Temple Sculpture at the Shanghai Museum to mark the Shanghai Expo. Other V&A exhibitions in China include The Golden Age of Coutureat the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in 2009, and A Century of Olympic Posters in the Capital Museum, Beijing (70,053 visitors) and the Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shenyang (140,626 visitors in 6 weeks) both in 2008.

In 2008, the V&A presented China: Design Now, a major exhibition on Chinese contemporary design. A conference was held during the exhibition, which saw an exchange of scholarly opinion on the subject of Chinese graphic, fashion, product and Industrial design. This exhibition has since toured to venues at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Portland Museum of Art in the US and achieved a high profile among young creatives and mainstream media inside China. We are now preparing an ambitious exhibition of Great Masterpieces of Chinese Paintings for the V&A programme in 2013.

Other successful touring exhibitions include Vivienne Westwood which, following successes in Shanghai and Taipei, toured to Hong Kong between December 2008 - January 2009 where it was enjoyed by 51,328 visitors.

Future projects include an exhibition on China’s ceramic interactions with Europe, in collaboration with the National Museum of China and the British Museum, planned for 2012, which will also tour to other venues in China; and an exhibition of British watercolours from the V&A collection, to be shown at Shenzhen Museum in 2012. Completing our plans for 2012, the year of the London Olympics, is a plan to present British Design 1948-2012, an exhibition of 20th century UK design, architecture and graphics in China in autumn 2012. Our exhibition The Splendour of India’s Royal Court will be shown at the Palace Museum in 2013, following the exhibition Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City at the V&A in 2010.

UKNow

During his visit to Beijing in 2010, the British Prime Minister Rt. Hon David Cameron MP announced plans for a major festival of British culture, UK Now, in China in 2012. The V&A is providing two festival highlights: British Design 1948-2012, an exhibition that will showcase 60 years of British creative talent including fashion, furniture, ceramics, photography and architecture; and a major exhibition, Masterpieces of Chinese and European Porcelain, jointly organised by the British Museum, V&A and the National Museum of China. Other V&A exhibition plans for 2012 in China include the exhibition Water into Art of British watercolours from the V&A collection, to be shown at Shenzhen Museum in 2012.

Our exhibition The Splendour of India’s Royal Court will be shown at the Palace Museum in 2013, following the exhibition Imperial Chinese Robes from the Forbidden City at the V&A in 2010.

Relationships

The V&A recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Palace Museum to support our exchange of exhibitions and already has Memoranda of Understanding with the National Museum of China and the Capital Museum. The V&A has growing links with other institutions in China. Contacts between the Museum and Chinese museums have ranged from collections research and digitisation to photography and public programmes. The V&A also welcomes many visitors from Chinese museums. As members of the British Council China-UK: Connections through Culture, we regularly receive a number of senior colleagues from institutions. We hope to continue to strengthen strong and sustainable cultural relations between the UK and China.

Shanghai 2010

Because of its unique links to the Great Exhibition of 1851, the V&A was active in marking Shanghai Expo 2010. Designs for the British Pavilion were displayed at the V&A in 2009. We are also proud to have worked with the Shanghai Expo Bureau, Shanghai Museum and the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) towards two exhibitions for the Shanghai Expo. The magnificent oil painting by Henry Courtney Selous, “The Opening of the Great Exhibition” (1851) was among over 30 loans to the Shanghai Expo Museum which, to the end of August 2010, had received 1,620,000 visitors. Masterpieces from the V&A collection of Indian sculpture were displayed in Indian Temple Sculpture at the Shanghai Museum, an exhibition organised in collaboration with the British Museum.

Learning

The V&A is currently offering a year-long course entitled Arts of Asia 1500–1900. The course offers participants the opportunity to study the rich diversity of artistic traditions found within this geographical area and discover how artists and craftspeople refined the arts of painting and calligraphy, architecture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and carpets, carving and sculpture. The third term focuses on China.,/p>

Publications

V&A publications on Chinese themes are extremely diverse and include From Silk to Porcelain - Stories of British Collectors and Museums, a study in Chinese by Ming Wilson of early collectors of Chinese art published jointly by V&A and Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House in 2008; a translation into Chinese of the Vivienne Westwood exhibition catalogue, and a contribution by textiles curator Helen Persson to a collaborative volume on medieval textiles from Central Asia in the Stein collection.

Chinese audiences in London

The V&A has an active Chinese Community Programme with a particular focus on Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn festival times. Recently, our focus has shifted towards contemporary China, with weekend events celebrating the contemporary scene in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. The fashion designer Ma Ke presented her work in Fashion in Motion at the V&A, in May 2008. Collaboration with Yung Ho Chang, a leading Chinese architect, on an instllation of a series of gigantic screens in the John Madejski Garden resulted in an installation from June to September 2008.

The V&A website

The V&A’s prize-winning website includes rich information in the Chinese language about current exhibitions, and about museum collections and activities relating to China, including Shanghai Expo activities. Over 6.7 million visits to the Chinese language web pages were made between April 2009 and March 2010. The V&A recently launched a dedicated Chinese website.

Visit: www.vamuseum.cn