Recently, numerous public art festivals have taken place in China, and there has also been a shift toward site-specific sculpture projects. These public art festivals, however, are more influenced by the Japanese model than that of the Skulptur Projekte Münster. As in Japan, China’s public art festivals are grounded in cultural tourism and local and industrial revitalization. 

Unfortunately, the archive is absent from the context of Chinese public art festivals, because these events remain separate from the museum world and the system of contemporary art. In general, public art festivals in China are sponsored by local governments’ departments of culture and tourism or tourism companies and are required to directly benefit the local economy. This approach stands in opposition to that of the Skulptur Projekte Münster, which was conceived as a means of education in the public domain.

Jiang Jun  is an Independent Curator, Critic, and Columnist, who is based in Shanghai and Hangzhou. 

Since 2015, he has taught Art History and Art Theory at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, and other art academies. He is a member of the Institute for Public Art (IPA), the China Information and Interaction Design Committee (IIDC), and a founding member of the Shanghai Artists’ Association’s Experimental Science and Art Committee. 

He served as a judge for the 2019 Hyundai Blue Prize in Beijing. In 2021, he is a judge for the Tomorrow Sculpture Award at the Sichuan Academy of Arts and one of eight Curators of the China Design and Public Art exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art & Planning Exhibition in Shenzhen.