Detail: Contemporary art museums from around the world shall participate in a conference on the issues surrounding institutional collections of Asian contemporary art this September at ShContemporary 2010. Titled Collecting Asian Contemporary Art: What, When and How?, the conference is being organized by Hou Hanru, the Chinese born curator and critic currently based in San Francisco and Paris. Hou is Director of Exhibitions and Public Program, and Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. His latest curated projects include the 10th Biennale de Lyon and the 10th Istanbul Biennial.

Hou speaks to us on the ideas behind this conference and the important questions to be discussed:

For the last two decades, contemporary art has become not only a global activity but has also significantly changed the cultural landscape and ways of living around the world. The contemporary art scene in Asia, thanks to its exceptionally rapid development and energetic creativity, has been largely considered as a new centre of the global art scene. Numerous cities across the region are holding major art events such as biennials and art fairs while hundreds of new museums, galleries and art foundations are being founded or are under construction. Along with its booming economy, the art market in Asia is a new Eldorado for the global art economy while some of its star artists are setting records for their high prices. Over the last ten years, we have seen the arrival of a new generation of private collectors focusing on Asian art in the various countries both inside and outside the Asian continent.
Ironically however, so far very few public museums have been able to build their Asian contemporary art collections in a systematic manner. Most of the museums are still in their earlier stages and lack both financial means and expertise to compete with the private sector although they have been making considerable efforts in organising punctual or regular events to make contemporary creations visible. In the meantime, the existing private collections are intermingled with highly uneven elements in terms of quality and professionalism. Indeed, collecting activities involve a large portion of speculation. The rationale, motivation and function of art collecting are becoming increasingly ambiguous, ambivalent and confusing. This has caused some major debates on the actual significance of contemporary art itself in both social and cultural contexts.
Obviously, the urgent question now is what and how to collect Asian contemporary art. This is a serious challenge that the whole art world faces and requires an answer for. This is particularly crucial for public institutions – including museums and art foundations.

For the last two years, economic crisis has affected the art market but interestingly, has not simply killed the market. Instead, it has brought some correcting effects on the speculative growth and installed a kind of warning device. In a way, this helps to build up a platform for reasonable and rational discussions and debates on the notions of the value of art, cultural memory, heritage and social change.
In this light, we are organizing a conference on the issue of collecting Asian contemporary art at the upcoming ShContemporary fair in Shanghai – a seemingly contradictory but effective context for this kind of debate. Somehow, the pragmatic coexistence and interaction between the intellectual and commercial worlds can produce unexpectedly productive and interesting solutions.