Weekly News Roundup: February 25, 2022

teamLab to Open New Museum in Beijing 

Digital art collective teamLab will open their second museum in China, teamLab Massless, in Beijing this year, following the opening of teamLab Borderless in Shanghai 2019. Located on the top floor of Beijing’s shopping mall Chaoyang Joy City Hall, the 10,000-square-meter space will be the neighbor of U2, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art’s new museum that opened on the same floor in December. With a 11-meter-high ceiling, teamLab Massless will house more than 40 signature immersive and interactive installations, including the group’s latest works Massless Suns and Dark Spheres (2022), which comprises spheres of lights that respond to the visitor’s movements, and Resonating Microcosms – Solidified Light Color (2022), a mesmerizing field of numerous egg-shaped sculptures that flickers in 61 colors. To maximize the experience, the museum will also contain other iconic works such as Massless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life (2020), featuring large volumes of clouds floating in the space.

Turkish Arts Patron Received Spanish Award

Füsun Eczacıbaşı, the co-founder and chair of the board of Turkey’s independent art patronage group Saha Association, was honored by the Madrid-based Callia Foundation with the International Patron Award on February 22. The award is supported by Queen Sophia of Spain, who was present at the ceremony. Saha remains a unique patronage organization that collectively pools its members’ contributions and supports artists and arts professionals from Turkey who participate in exhibitions and projects internationally, now totaling more than 400 to date. In Istanbul, Saha Studio offers six-month residencies, and organizes a curatorial program. The award selection committee comprised Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Tomás Marco, director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid; and Carmen Gaitan, director of the National Museum of Art in Mexico.

Metro Manila Inaugurates Digital Museum

The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) launched 21AM, a digital museum of contemporary art on February 25. Presented as a website, 21AM offers “art created for cyberspace that takes in the present catastrophic moment and responds in an imaginative and responsible way to the demands of such a time.” Conceptualized by CCP curator Marian Pastor Roces and vice-president Chris Millando as the Center’s 50th-anniversary project, 21AM features curated exhibitions and works from the CCP’s collection, as well as a section for augmented learning, a digital rights space, a chat room, and visitors’ personal archives. Curated by John Kenneth Paranada, the inaugural exhibition, “The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders,” showcases 3D-printed replicas of Imelda Marcos’s infamous jewelry collection, created by London-based artist Pio Abad and designer Frances Wadsworth Jones. The project used augmented reality and 3D scanning to digitally reproduce and distribute the Marcos’s jewelry collection, which was seized in 1986 when Ferdinand Marcos was ousted as the country’s dictator. 

Powerhouse Parramatta Museum Project Already Underwater

On Tuesday, the construction site of Sydney’s Powerhouse Parramatta museum, located on the banks of the Parramatta River, was once again waterlogged by the latest flood in the city, according to photos and videos captured by local residents. Ben Franklin, the art minister of New South Wales, denied claims that the site is built on a flood-prone area while being questioned by members of the legislative council on the museum’s capability to withstand flooding. The minister insisted that the ground floor of the museum would still be half-a-meter above the waters even in a case of a “one-in-1,000-year” flood. Since March 2019, the site of the AUD 915 million (USD 660 million) museum has flooded three times, leading opponents to criticize the construction plans due to the threat of damage to the museum’s collections. The opening of Powerhouse Parramatta has been delayed to 2024.