The National Museum of China in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, recently trippled its exhibition place in a renovation and expansion that lasted about three and a half year. This makes it the largest museum in the world – it beats New York’s Metropolitan Museum, formerly the largest museum in the world, by about 20,000 square feet. The first exhibition?
On the occasion of the re-opening, several German museums and their curators were invited to create programming and exhibitions on the art of the Enlightenment: a survey of artifacts from an era of European creativity, scientific progress, and openness of thought.
This is in a period that China is embarking on what has been described as “the most intense crackdown on free expression in years”.
H/t Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen. Their weekly programme on pop culture and the arts is always a delight to listen to. It is also available as a podcast.
