Reptile: a Metaphor about Creation and Collection

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Li’s presentation tackles M+’s response to the rapid conceptual and technological standards in museums today through a case study, referencing the museum’s 2017 acquisition of Chinese avant-garde artist Huang Yong Ping’s monumental sculpture Reptile. Li outlines the importance of this work which revolutionized the collections protocol of M+. What does it mean to build a museum collection in the twenty-first century. More importantly, is it necessary for us to establish a canonical discourse for art in Asia, where such discourses have never existed, but rather, bracketed under a so-called “international” art history?