Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Yinchuan (Where?)

This morning I met Clare Shea, Director of Goodwood Sculpture Park which is part of a Foundation, set up by Wilfred & Jeannette Cass. It's a wonderful place: scores of sculptures set amongst the trees, a mile from Goodwood Racecourse and three from Chichester, so quite special to me. I remember taking the girls there a few years ago and they loved it.
Like many British arts institutions, they're curious about China and Claire's here to check out the opportunities, not least to see if they might commission some works by Chinese artists. She's already advising on a sculpture park which will be part of the Yellow River Arts Centre in Yinchuan, 700 miles west of Beijing on the border with Inner Mongolia. Last year, 389 new museums were built in China (for the mathematicians amongst you, that's over one a day). But even I was taken aback by this one. It won't open till next year but it looks amazing from the plans - and it is in a place not even most Chinese have heard of.

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