Reporter | Xu Luqing
Editor | Jiang Yan
The founder and art collector Yu Deyao Art Museum in Shanghai passed away in Hong Kong on March 18 due to pancreatic cancer at the age of 65. This is the news from Yu Deyao Art Museum . The obituary mentioned that Yu Deyao had been fighting against illness for more than six years, and he passed away yesterday with his family's company.
Yu Deyao was born in Jakarta, Indonesia and grew up in Singapore . He is an important Chinese agricultural entrepreneur in Indonesia . He began collecting artworks in 2004 and founded the Yu Deyao Foundation in 2007. Yu Deyao has a large collection of art works, covering everything from German post-war art to interactive art created by young artists. Contemporary art in the 1980s and 1990s was one of his most important collections. He once said: "This batch of things can be said to be the treasure of the history of contemporary Chinese art. At this historical stage, only two people now have a relatively complete and systematic collection. The first is Mr. Sick ( Swiss collector Wuli Sick), but he has donated it to Hong Kong (region), and the second is me."
In addition, Yu Deyao also has a strong interest in installation art, believing that this intuitive art form can carry more complex art. Artistic meaning, his collection of installation works include the Tobacco Plan by Xu Bing, Huang Yongchang, 's "Bat Plan", etc. "Instrumental art can be said to be three-dimensional art, four-dimensional art, or even five-dimensional art, containing time clues. Of course, many installation arts are difficult to collect, and not every collector is willing to collect this."
In 2014, Yu Deyao was invited by the Shanghai Xuhui government to establish the Shanghai Yu Deyao Art Museum in the West Coast Cultural and Art Block. The earliest art exhibition that Yu Deyao Art Museum was well-known to the public was " Rain House ". The exhibition was advertised on the subway throughout Shanghai, and the exhibition images were widely circulated on Weibo , attracting more than 200,000 visitors. What won Yu Deyao Art Museum high recognition in professional sense is the 2016 " Alberto Giacometti Review Exhibition". This is the largest personal retrospective exhibition in the world in history by artist Alberto Giacometti. It exhibits more than 250 works and is rated as the best art exhibition of the year by many media at home and abroad.
In addition to famous overseas artists, Yu Deyao Art Museum also pays attention to the works of local artists, such as "The Complete Stroke: Yang Fudong's Works Exhibition", "Zhou Li: Baiying", Sun Xun's 5 exhibitions " Prophecy Laboratory ", etc. Yu Deyao once mentioned in an interview that art gallery should not allow local artists to be buried and help underrated artists. "Now the art museum has a little international reputation. Top foreign scholars, curators and curators will come here. They turned a blind eye to Chinese art before, and I want to force them to understand."
"Collection but not collection" is Yu Deyao's collection philosophy. He attaches importance to the public attributes of art museums, is committed to giving art collections the opportunity to be appreciated by the public, and always supports international professional art institutions to borrow exhibitions. At the 2017 "Office Medal of Honor of the French Republic" award ceremony, when Yu Deyao was asked about the significance of establishing an art museum, he said, "I hope to give full play to the public welfare and educational functions of the art museum itself, so that everyone who is willing to come into contact with art and establish his own artistic ideals can find the key to the door of art here and truly become a public art museum."
Reference materials:
Obituary | Sufferingly remember Mr. Yu Deyao
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/4qE_7KzfYd-_LcSab8kvRA
Yu Deyao Every day with art is not vain
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_igGHYcUadVOWjng3ZWZ1Q
collector Yu Deyao was awarded the military medal: "Art is a language without borders!"
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/e_tWiwi9oW6Fb25j0WOTPA
