Today Art Museum is the first private, non-profit art museum in China. The museum’s mission is to support and promote the development of Chinese contemporary art. It’s dedicated to exploring an appropriate strategy for museums of its kind within a Chinese context. 

The structural adjustments of Today Art Museum in 2015 include: holding more three-dimensional exhibitions, developing education, realizing brand internationalization, building a council system and managing in a diversified pattern. 

2015 was a more strict and balanced year on exhibition strategy. There were 83 exhibitions in total which covered four layers, including one academic solo exhibition, one academic group exhibition, 3 theme activities; 6 big-scale solo exhibitions, 5 big-scale group exhibitions, 8 young artists support projects, 11 co-exhibition with embassies, 2 international projects; 36 cooperated group exhibitions. The number of visitors throughout 2015 reached 365,000. 

Those key exhibitions implied a clear main line behind them. The big-scale group exhibition and solo exhibition focused on the theme of “exploring the future art and returning to the humanistic care in classic art”. The “future gallery” series was a practice of exploring the model of future art galleries and its poster was firstly displayed in New York Times Square. After the show in Today Art Museum, “future gallery” went to Beijing World Art Museum, the Davos Forum in Dalian and Mangrove Tree Resort World Sanya Bay. Combining new technology with art, it born the “innovative and self-challenging” spirit of Today Art Museum. The Last Century-Lv Shengzhong’s Solo Exhibition, as Lv’s new exhibition after ten years, was called “one of the 10 must-see exhibitions in 2015”by the press and turned out to be a hit in academic field and other social sectors. Other solo exhibitions of well-known artists like Pang Maokun, Ying Tianqi, Dai Yun, Chen Zhiguang, Wu Shaoxiang and Weidong, etc., all displayed the spirit and level of contemporary artists from different aspects. The number of curators and academic hosts who cooperated with our museum in 2015 was more than 60, including Fan Di’an, Liu Xiaochun, Jia Fangzhou, Huang Du, Wu Hongliang, Peng Feng and Hang Chunxiao. 2015 added 24 new items  into gallery collection, some of which were created by the popular young artists group “Shuangfei”, the well-know American bio-artist Suzanne Anker and the contemporary artist Xiang Yang, etc.. Also, “young artists support project” made progress in the new “finding friends” series, which were featured by window show.  Meanwhile, our Today National Art Students Annual Awards welcomed its 10th anniversary. 

According to the data, in 2015, there were 428 educational activities in total, with 27592 participants, including 157 combined with exhibitions and 182 combined with picture book gallery, 34 special activities, 19 family activities and 36 else. 

2015 witnessed a big success in our brand internalization and attention. We cooperated with 9 embassies – Canadian Embassy, Korean Embassy, French Embassy, Spanish Embassy, Italian Embassy, German Embassy, Russian Embassy, US Embassy and British Embassy – and held 10 international exhibitions, promoted 2 big-scale exhibitions at abroad. Such cooperation laid solid friendship foundation for our museum and embassies in China and made it more convenient for Chinese people to have access to contemporary art all around the world, which enhanced the art communication among different countries. Moreover, Today Art museum was invited by Havard University and other dozens of international academic institutions to share its development experience and introduce the status quo of the private museum and contemporary art in China. In 2015, we made our first display in the Davos Forum and set a brand new art sub-forum in Davos history, which presented China’s exploration and efforts in contemporary art. 

The Council Member Center was officially operated in 2015. In 2015 spring, the museum held the special activity “Praise the Tea” for council members to appreciate contemporary art from close distance by experiencing sensory art, cross-border cooperation and interactive activities; in autumn, the international art navigation project provided a more high-end cultural and art exchange opportunity for council members. 

The operational performance of Today Art Museum in 2015 was more stable and sound. Its total revenue was 22.2842 million yuan. Apart from 40% normal sponsorship, 33% exhibition fee, 6% entrance ticket income and 7% government support, the newly-established council contributed 4% of the total revenue. 

At the beginning of 2016, the famous curator Liao Wen, as an important witness of China’s new tide in 1985, will curate a big-scale academic group exhibition “Illusive Garden” with Today Art Museum, with her new understanding of Chinese contemporary art to trigger a discussion in different fields. The famous performance artist He Yunchang will hold his first big-scale in recent years in our museum. Another big event will be the third “document expo” by the end of 2016, which was organized by Huang Du and the founder of Havana Biennial, Mosquera. The document expo, with Chinese contemporary art as its core, while concerning Asia, will extend the attention to contemporary art in Latin America. 2016 will witness an overall cooperation between Today Art Museum and Wang Shikuo Foundation, and the display of “Wang Shikuo Award and Today National Contemporary Young Artists Nomination Exhibition”, which will nominate 10 potential young artists under 45 years old. 

In 2016, the museum education center will continue to combine art with experience and encourage viewers to understand by participating. Apart from the weekend activities, we will arrange more activities on workdays. Also, the education center designs the special “self-help program” which closely relate to exhibitions to promote the idea of self-viewing and self-learning. Today Engraving Studio and Today Painting Studio will be set up in 2016 and Today Picture Book Library will be transformed into Today Art Library. 

In 2016, Today Art Museum will pursue progress through a stable development, uphold the academic rigor and enhance the interaction with the audience to keep exploring the future of Chinese contemporary art development with a pioneer attitude as before.