Long Museum Shanghai Opens its Third Space in Chongqing

The Chinese collectors Wang Wei and Liu Yiqian will open their third museum in four years, in Chongqing, on 26 May. The Long Museum Chongqing is the institution’s first branch outside Shanghai.

Chongqing is one of the world’s largest cities, but not well-known. Many Chinese contemporary artists have roots in the city, including Luo Zhongli, Yan Xing and Zhou Siwei.

Like the two Shanghai locations, which opened in the Pudong district in 2012 and in the Xuhui district in 2014, the Long Museum Chongqing will be led by Wang Wei. Its structure will parallel its predecessors, with galleries dedicated to traditional Chinese art, revolutionary painting and contemporary art. It will also focus on art of the Sichuan region.

The 10,000 sq. m museum will occupy the first three floors of the Guohua Financial Centre, an office building owned by Liu, according to the property listings site Baidu Property. The inaugural exhibition will examine Chinese oil painting after the 1911 revolution (100 Years of Art History: 1911-2011). A long-term display will spotlight work from the collection by artists from Chongqing and Sichuan Province. Curators are also organising a loan show of work by three generations of Sichuanese artists.

While the museum building boom in the coastal centres of Shanghai and Beijing has slowed in recent years, new museums are rising quickly in inland, second- and third-tier cities, fuelled by a growing appetite for culture and unflagging property developments. Chongqing is already home to the state-owned Guotai Arts Centre, the Chongqing Art Museum and the private institutions Chongqing Yu’ao International Art Centre and the Changjiang Museum of Contemporary Art, which last year launched an ambitious photography and video biennial.