A Chinese museum was given three days to evacuate before its district is demolished.
The Redtory Art+Design Factory district in Guangzhou. Photo by PQ77wd, via Wikimedia Commons.
The privately funded Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art in Guangzhou’s Redtory Art+Design Factory district was forced to close last week after receiving just three days’ notice that the area had to be cleared for demolition. The institution, which opened in 2009 in a 42-acre complex that formerly housed a canned food factory, had hosted exhibitions devoted to video artist Bill Viola, German painter Markus Lüpertz, and Chinese painter Li Huichang, among others. On November 20th, according to The Art Newspaper, the museum posted a statement on WeChat saying it had been forced to close following “a long period of disputation” with authorities in the area.
A statement posted on the museum’s website said:
It is with inexpressible regret that we are forced to announce the immediate closure of the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art (RMCA), along with the whole district of Redtory Art+Design Factory of which it is part, from 21 November 2019.
Art districts have repeatedly been targeted for sudden and total demolition amid major urban development projects in China’s megacities. In July of last year, galleries in Beijing’s Caochangdi art district were given less than two weeks to clear the way for bulldozers.
